12.22.2004
The Facts of Life in The Capitol (NYTimes.com)
EDITORIAL NOTEBOOK
By FRANCIS X. CLINES
Published: December 21, 2004
Congressional Democrats are wandering the Yellow Brick Road, trying to work their lion's woof into a roar as they vow to confront the Republicans' dominance of government with some "put up yer dukes" ferocity. In the Senate, where most of their dwindling power resides in the limited form of a filibuster threat, the Democrats plan to dust off their policy committee as a vehicle to hold their own oversight hearings. They hope to investigate administration programs and hear from whistle-blowers. They lack the subpoena power the G.O.P. majority can bring to bear on witnesses and issues, but the Democrats are promising to muckrake the status quo the way the Republicans are not.
Taxpayers can only wish them well. But if the senators are serious, they might take a lesson from down the hall in the other chamber, where Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, has made pestering from the minority side of the aisle an art form for the past 10 years.
Mr. Waxman regularly attracts attention with early warning inquiries into such subjects as the Enron scandal, the State Department's erroneous claim of terrorism's decline and corporate-contract boondoggles in Iraq. His latest project may be too bold for the Democrats who are worried by the supposed power of the moral values lobby, but Mr. Waxman has surveyed the Bush administration's financing of abstinence-only programs and found a laundry list of sexual nonsense being purveyed to teenagers: that genital touching can result in pregnancy, that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, and that 50 percent of gay teenage boys test positive for the AIDS virus.
(More ... New York Times > Opinion > Editorial Notebook > The Facts of Life in The Capitol) ¶ 08:29
By FRANCIS X. CLINES
Published: December 21, 2004
Congressional Democrats are wandering the Yellow Brick Road, trying to work their lion's woof into a roar as they vow to confront the Republicans' dominance of government with some "put up yer dukes" ferocity. In the Senate, where most of their dwindling power resides in the limited form of a filibuster threat, the Democrats plan to dust off their policy committee as a vehicle to hold their own oversight hearings. They hope to investigate administration programs and hear from whistle-blowers. They lack the subpoena power the G.O.P. majority can bring to bear on witnesses and issues, but the Democrats are promising to muckrake the status quo the way the Republicans are not.
Taxpayers can only wish them well. But if the senators are serious, they might take a lesson from down the hall in the other chamber, where Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, has made pestering from the minority side of the aisle an art form for the past 10 years.
Mr. Waxman regularly attracts attention with early warning inquiries into such subjects as the Enron scandal, the State Department's erroneous claim of terrorism's decline and corporate-contract boondoggles in Iraq. His latest project may be too bold for the Democrats who are worried by the supposed power of the moral values lobby, but Mr. Waxman has surveyed the Bush administration's financing of abstinence-only programs and found a laundry list of sexual nonsense being purveyed to teenagers: that genital touching can result in pregnancy, that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, and that 50 percent of gay teenage boys test positive for the AIDS virus.
(More ... New York Times > Opinion > Editorial Notebook > The Facts of Life in The Capitol) ¶ 08:29
