CONGRESS DOING (PART OF) ITS JOB

by Michael Winship

Next time you feel as if there's actually an end in sight, hug a Democratic member of Congress. Yeah, you're right. On second thought, just send them some flowers or a fruit basket. A nice note will do.

I wasn't contemplating a legislative group hug specifically because they're Democrats. No, it's because with an end to one-party domination of both the executive and the legislature, barely three months into its new session, Congress finally is fulfilling its oversight duties. No longer is it blowing an official air kiss to every gutter ball rolling up Capitol Hill from 1600 Pennsylvania.

Right now, this new assertiveness is most readily viewed in the current flap over the Justice Department's firing of eight U.S. attorneys, allegedly for either prosecuting Republicans too robustly or NOT prosecuting Democrats with an equivalent vigor. I first wrote about this the week of January 22. "Keep an eye on this one," I suggested, having just a hunch and no idea it would turn into the scandal it has become.

Justice claimed they were let go for poor performance but Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly's "Political Animal" blog succinctly summed up the apparent reasons for the partisan purge of at least five of the eight: "David Iglesias [New Mexico]: Didn't bring indictments against some local Democrats prior to the 2006 election. John McKay [Washington State]: Failed to invent voter fraud cases that might have prevented a Democrat from winning the 2004 governor's race in Washington.

"Carol Lam [California]: Doing too good a job prosecuting trainloads of Republicans in the wake of the Duke Cunningham scandal. Daniel Bogden [Nevada] and Paul Charlton [Arizona]: In the midst of investigations targeting current or former Republican members of Congress when they were fired. And this all comes against a background that suggests the Bush Justice Department has initiated fantastically more investigations of Democrats than Republicans over the past five years."

That last sentence is a reference to a study by retired communications professors Donald Shields and John Cragan of 375 Federal investigations and/or indictments of elected officials since the Bush administration took office. They wrote, "Data indicate that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops...

"The current Bush Republican Administration appears to be the first to have engaged in political profiling."

And leave us not forget another of the ousted: U.S. attorney Bud Cummins of Arkansas, replaced by Karl Rove pal Tim Griffin, who ran Republican opposition research against Al Gore in 2000.

Why should you care? Because such interference threatens the independence of our justice system and calls into question the validity of every case investigated or argued by our Federal attorneys. As Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, used to tell his prosecutors, "You have to leave politics at the door to do this job properly."

Because the executive used a provision of the Patriot Act allegedly designed to keep our legal system running during 9/11-like acts of terror to attempt petty partisan gain. Because the White House and Justice Department were rating U.S. attorneys -- including Scooter Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald -- not on the basis of their skill and effectiveness but their obeisance to the administration (Fitzgerald was ranked beneath "strong U.S. attorneys... who exhibited loyalty").

Because they lied. Again. "Mistakes were made." Please.

By the time you read this, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (whose presidential nickname, my hand to God, is "Fredo") may have walked the plank, prodded by Congress' rediscovered and freshly honed cutlery. There's already talk of his replacement by the likes of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff or White House terrorism expert Fran Townsend.

There's even a long shot that Rove and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers (remember her?) might testify before Congress about the White House's political meddling in this whole sorry mess. "I want testimony under oath," Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy told George Stephanopoulos Sunday. "I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this." Good luck.

Similar Congressional pressure led to the resignations of Army Secretary Francis Harvey, Army Surgeon General Kevin Kiley and the commander of Walter Reed Hospital, Major General George Weightman, in the wake of the scandal around treatment of the wounded at Water Reed and other military and veterans hospitals. And as muddled as the current Iraq debate is in both the House and Senate, at least it's finally being discussed and argued more fully than before.

Democratic congressional influence is even being felt -- for the first time in years -- on trade policy. The March 6 New York Times reported, "The administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have signaled a new willingness to work with Democrats to try to secure their support for three pending trade deals -- with Panama, Peru and Colombia. The focus of their talks has been guarantees for the rights of workers in countries with which the United States has negotiated trade accords, including a ban on child labor and forced labor."

In general, as Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen told the Washington Post, "What you have got is a White House that has become an accountability-free zone that is now facing the reality of checks and balances from Congress. You had a White House that was used to a rubber-stamp Congress for so long that they could get away with anything. This is the kind of stuff that in the past Congress would have put their head in the sand about."

Credit has to go to media outlets that have rigorously pursued some of these stories (especially the website Talking Points Memo on the U.S. attorney purge and the Washington Post and Bob Woodruff of ABC News on the crisis in military healthcare).

And as refreshing as it may be, this new aggressive stance from Democrats in Congress is reactive, a counterstrategy to an administration and Republican Party that tends to make the first move. Democrats will have to more effectively assert themselves and create their own achievable, practical policy on the budget, universal healthcare, education, crime, employment and a multitude of other issues.

Not easy. As the Los Angeles Times reported Monday, "None of the bills that were part of the party's 100-hour spree has yet emerged from Congress. And with their razor-thin margin in the Senate, Democrats cannot count on passing any legislation that most Republicans oppose."

But, the paper added, "Republicans can do little to stop the investigative [oversight] juggernaut."

It's a good start. A swift, overdue kick in the pants. And that's worthy of a fruit basket.