What the hell is going on here?

I don't often write short posts, but this May 12, 2006 article from one of my favorite op-ed writers, Richard Reeves, really struck a chord:

The only way to restore constitutional checks and balances in Washington before 2008 is for the opposition to win one house of Congress and have the power to call witnesses at public hearings and ask, under oath:

"What the hell is going on here?"

What is going on in the White House? The Defense Department? The CIA and the NSA? With gasoline prices? Along the border between California and Mexico? In Baghdad? In New Orleans? With Jack Abramoff and the K Street Gang? In Congress itself?

Or, who is listening to your phone calls? Are your taxes being used to teach torture techniques to your sons and daughters? Are the glaciers melting?

We'll be the last to know.

The nation flies blind when we have determined one-party government. That can and has happened in both parties over the centuries, but this White House is a particularly tough bunch, talking freedom around the world and taking it away at home. President Bush essentially has veto power over the Republican automatons in the Congress....

The rest of the article is worth reading, but that's really it in a nutshell. And it summarizes the entire problem that we face today.

The entire Republican Congress, including our own Ohio Senators Mike DeWine and George Voinovich, have thrown away all pretense of holding the President and the executive branch accountable. They are nothing but a rubber-stamp for the President's bad policies.

God forbid that anyone suggest the President might possibly have made a mistake! They can't admit to even one.

We are in that most terrifying of states where virtually every single decision that's being made is wrong, but nobody is willing to stop. It's like the worst death spiral you've ever seen from a meth addict, or a horror movie where you are yelling at the screen: "No, DON'T split up! The killer is taking you out one by one!" And yet we are powerless to stop it.

Democrats speak out daily, but it's the Republican majority that controls all the committee chairmanships and sets the agendas for both houses. And it's the Republicans who make sure that no actions that force accountability ever make it to the floor. In the past year alone I've seen video of at least five instances of Republican chairmen overruling perfectly valid objections from Democrats, silencing debate, and completely ignoring accountability.

If you wonder why Congress doesn't do something to stop the President, you are really asking why the Republicans won't do anything to stop the President.

You know what? That's a damn good question.