In McGrain v. Daugherty, which arose out of the exercise of the Senate's inherent contempt power, the Supreme Court described the power of inquiry, with the accompanying process to enforce it, as "an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function." The Court explained:

A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change; and where the legislative body does not itself possess the requisite information - which not infrequently is true - recourse must be had to others who possess it.

There is something we need to face: Members of this Congressional generation may well be a good deal more interested in preserving their political futures than responding to urgent political pressure from their constituents. Democrats may figure that we'll cave and vote for them, as the lesser of the two etceteras. Listening to the calls to the middle-of-the-road Ed Schultz show today while driving home, I decided that any Democratic representatives who really believe that may find themselves without a job in a year or so. There seem to be one heckuva lot more Democratic voters who have "moved on" from incoherent fury to steely determination. Even Schultz seemed a little surprised...

Democracy for New Mexico:

If the precedents being set by this bunch are allowed to stand unchallenged, what hope can we possibly have for the survival of our democracy, constitution or civil liberties?

Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) offered his rationale for opposing holding White House officials in contempt for their actions:

"The real argument here is not over the audacity of the White House, but over the strength of our legal argument."

Ironically, Cannon is one of six current members of the same Judiciary Committee that voted, in a straight 21-17 party-line vote, to impeach President Clinton in 1998. Those six members currently rank first, second, third, fourth, fifth and seventh in seniority among committee Republicans.

Look closely, and you'll see a handy graphic at the bottom of the screen. It shows that the Bush administration has provided documents related to the firings that, if stacked up, would be twice as high as the White House.

[Honestly. Can they imagine we don't know what a document dump looks like, or what it is design to do?--Lambert]

White House to Congress: You're pathetic

and the subhead:

Drop this investigation and pass more bills we can veto, please

[Rimshot. Laughter.]

In the end, by the time Bush was succeeded in 2009, the political fallout from his presidency lasted for almost twenty years. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, embroiled in sex scandals, charged for taking bribes, voter fraud and child molestation charges, marginalized themselves to become a third tier political party. The downside to all of President Bush's atrocities was the fact that it took the United States all of these years to patch up their image world wide and to restore those basic constitutional rights to its citizens.

Well, at least Bush stepped down...