House Republicans Promise to Stick Pinky Inside Obama Administration's Navel

Here we go. The United States faces some tough challenges domestically and abroad. Republicans have been on the lazy side of meeting some of the challenges, opting instead to heckle from the audience, stonewall or divert attention to issues they are not ready to solve. We saw this to great effect with the recent extension of the Bush tax cuts, which contrary to Republican deficit reduction hyperventilating, will serve to make deficits grow.

Now as they take control of the House, we get more wheel spinning and nonsense mongering as they gear up to run a series of costly, time consuming and ultimately wasteful investigations in the hopes of slowing legislation, manipulating public opinion, and bogging down the Administration.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who will become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when the 112th Congress is sworn in Wednesday, said he will lead six major investigations in the first three months of the year. That would be an ambitious undertaking by conventional standards, as congressional investigations often take months to bear fruit.

(Washington Post)

Notably, Issa has already formed conclusions about the Obama administration, calling them corrupt, and you are left to wonder what level of truth Representative Darrell is willing to accept if it conflicts with his own preconstructed narrative. One suspects his investigations will reflect the mind of Darrell, not the will or best interests of the average American. Any notion of truth and clarity will be tossed aside when these panels are used to convince us that, for example, Fannie Mae or too much regulation of business resulted in the economic panic.

Time spent investigating ought to be replaced by time spent working with other elected officials to come up with balanced solutions to the whirlwind of difficulty breezing back and forth across the country. Bailout for California and other states? Rational reductions in Federal spending? Additional targeted taxes? Maybe national sales tax? Examination of rising oil prices and how that's a drag on the average man's budget and the economy?

Don't hold your breath for any of that.  The party that lectured the president on focusing too much attention on bringing Americans better healthcare at the expense of job creation and the economy (a rhetorical construction bordering on outright fabrication to begin with), will now spend valuable moments rehashing non-criminal moments of the recent past in an effort to keep a president who is working for the bulk of us from working for us.