Oversight Overreaching Overblown
In the last year or so, while public opinion has mounted against them, conservatives have been able to hold on to a significant (if relatively small) portion of Americans by using catch phrases and slogans to frame the debate concerning the war.
Phrases like “slow-bleed”, “support the troops”, “cut-and run”, and “timetables for withdraw” have all been injected into the discussions by Republicans making it just a little harder to reject the absurd line of reasoning they are offering.
The conservative politicians and pundits are very good at repetition of the latest talking points in interviews while the Democrats seem to struggle with a clear and concise response no matter how obviously they have logic and common sense and public sentiment on their side.
The latest label being tossed at the Dems is “over-reaching”. They are being scolded by Republican politicians for doing their constitutional duty of oversight of the Executive branch (a duty the Republicans willingly neglected for the first 6 years of the Bush Administration).
The Democrats are being told that there will be a voter back-lash at the polls if they pass too much legislation or investigate the slew of White House scandals that are emerging on a daily basis.
But, in general, the public tends to think that Congress doesn’t do enough and it is hard to see that the voters who booted the Republicans out for endlessly going along with Bush and never, ever holding him to account, will somehow now reject the other party for doing exactly that.
Republicans say they learned their lesson about over-reaching during the Clinton years and suffered at the polls. But the truth is they were not booted out during the Clinton years despite their own aggressive over-sight (you might say “completely misdirected oversight”). The Republicans were only booted out after years of doing nothing other than what they were directed to do by Rove, Cheney, and Bush.
It seems to me the voters will only reject the Congress if they continue to see no accountability, no investigation. Few Congresses get the public opinion so much on their side as the current Congress has. Bush’s approval is at record lows and the public seems to want somebody-anybody- to rein in this madman.
As House majority leader Steny Hoyer recently said, “I suppose there is always a risk of going too far, but the risk of not going far is greater.”
Phrases like “slow-bleed”, “support the troops”, “cut-and run”, and “timetables for withdraw” have all been injected into the discussions by Republicans making it just a little harder to reject the absurd line of reasoning they are offering.
The conservative politicians and pundits are very good at repetition of the latest talking points in interviews while the Democrats seem to struggle with a clear and concise response no matter how obviously they have logic and common sense and public sentiment on their side.
The latest label being tossed at the Dems is “over-reaching”. They are being scolded by Republican politicians for doing their constitutional duty of oversight of the Executive branch (a duty the Republicans willingly neglected for the first 6 years of the Bush Administration).
The Democrats are being told that there will be a voter back-lash at the polls if they pass too much legislation or investigate the slew of White House scandals that are emerging on a daily basis.
But, in general, the public tends to think that Congress doesn’t do enough and it is hard to see that the voters who booted the Republicans out for endlessly going along with Bush and never, ever holding him to account, will somehow now reject the other party for doing exactly that.
Republicans say they learned their lesson about over-reaching during the Clinton years and suffered at the polls. But the truth is they were not booted out during the Clinton years despite their own aggressive over-sight (you might say “completely misdirected oversight”). The Republicans were only booted out after years of doing nothing other than what they were directed to do by Rove, Cheney, and Bush.
It seems to me the voters will only reject the Congress if they continue to see no accountability, no investigation. Few Congresses get the public opinion so much on their side as the current Congress has. Bush’s approval is at record lows and the public seems to want somebody-anybody- to rein in this madman.
As House majority leader Steny Hoyer recently said, “I suppose there is always a risk of going too far, but the risk of not going far is greater.”
posted by Steve Trumbull | 4/03/2007
<< Home