Fired U.S. Attorneys Scandal Shows Why Congressional Oversight is Important

Josh Marshall, creator of the website www.talkingpointsmemo.com had a column in The Hill, a newspaper devoted to covering Capitol Hill pointing out that if the Dems had not taken control of Congress the Bush Administration would have gotten away with firing the seven U.S. Attorneys as political retribution. (You can read the article by clicking on the link in this entry's title).

The only reason why this has become a problem for the Bushies is that with Dems controlling the Congress, investigators with subpoena power were able to get the U.S. Attorneys to testify about what happened. This oversight meant that people like Marshall, who has been covering this scandal on his website, could get someone in power to take their allegations seriously. Without the hearings this scandal, like so many others concerning the Bush Administration, would never have came to the attention of most of the public.

This is what happened with this story: first a group of people, notably Marshall, started writing about the firing of these attorneys. Then, a few reporters at a few news outlets picked it up and ran stories, thus making more people aware of what was happening. After that, Senators and Representatives started talking about it and that led to Congressional hearings. Because of those hearings there was much more news coverage, which feeds on itself and produces more coverage.

If, however, there had not been Dems controlling the Congress, the hearings wouldn't have taken place, and the third and most critical component, the huge expansion of the news coverage, wouldn't have happened. That's why Congressional oversight is important and that's why the last two years of the Bush Administration won't be anything like the first six years, a fact for which most Americans will be thankful.