Our Lapdog Congress

There's plenty to highlight from Al Gore's speech yesterday, but
here's an excerpt that probably won't get the attention it deserves:

http://tinyurl.com/8hxjv

    The most serious damage has been done to the legislative branch.
The sharp decline of congressional power and autonomy in recent years
has been almost as shocking as the efforts by the Executive Branch to
attain a massive expansion of its power.

    ....There have now been two or three generations of congressmen
who don't really know what an oversight hearing is. In the 70's and
80's, the oversight hearings in which my colleagues and I participated
held the feet of the Executive Branch to the fire — no matter which
party was in power. Yet oversight is almost unknown in the Congress
today.

    ....Look for example at the Congressional role in "overseeing"
this massive four year eavesdropping campaign that on its face seemed
so clearly to violate the Bill of Rights. The President says he
informed Congress, but what he really means is that he talked with the
chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence
committees and the top leaders of the House and Senate. This small
group, in turn, claimed that they were not given the full facts,
though at least one of the intelligence committee leaders handwrote a
letter of concern to VP Cheney and placed a copy in his own safe.

    Though I sympathize with the awkward position in which these men
and women were placed, I cannot disagree with the Liberty Coalition
when it says that Democrats as well as Republicans in the Congress
must share the blame for not taking action to protest and seek to
prevent what they consider a grossly unconstitutional program.

Democratic timidity in the face of a "wartime" president who's not
afraid to play the patriot card combined with Republican subservience
to a president of their own party has turned Congress into an
embarrassing caricature of itself. Read the whole speech if you're
interested in Gore's suggestions for turning this around.

—Kevin Drum