Oh, my God. The shock. The hand-wringing. The outrage. What are we gonna do?
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Henry Waxman (D, CA), spent the whole day yesterday having hearings on the Mitchell Report. Former senator George Mitchell (D, ME) did a 20-month investigation on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Roger Clemens was accused of using human growth hormones and/or steroids by his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee. Clemens says he's lying. The hearings looked much like a trial. Waxman says he probably won't refer the case to the Justice Department for prosecution although Justice may convene a grand jury to look into whether one or the other of them committed perjury. A whole day of congressional oversight on something like this.
Bush lies us into war where hundreds of thousands of people are killed. Hearings? Nope. He kidnaps and tortures thousands of people. Hearings? Nope. He has shady dealings with corporate cronies to whom he filters billions of American taxpayer dollars in phony contracts. Hearings? Nope. He spies on Americans, wiretaps our phone conversations, e-mails, faxes. Hearings? Nope. Our most precious constitutional right, the right to vote, is being undermined by fixed elections, fixed voting machines, all driven by an ideological Justice Department. Hearings? Nope. My God, even when the vice president shoots someone in a drunken stupor, do they have hearings on that? Nope.
There's a real connection here. When a famous baseball player MAY have done something illegal to keep his job, we have congressional hearings. But when Bush DOES do something illegal to keep his job, do we have congressional hearings? Not on your life. We give immunity from prosecution to the witnesses and collaborators to his lawbreaking so that the truth never comes out.
Abraham Lincoln called this a country "Of the people, by the people, and for the people." George W. Bush calls it a country "Of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations." And the U.S. Congress agrees. Talk about outrage.