Henry Waxman’s Toothless Investigations

By Kurt Nimmo
Nov. 12, 2006

In the wake of Pelosi, Reid, and Conyers declaring their fealty to the neocons, indicating justice will not be served, the last hope rested with the feisty Rep. Henry Waxman, the probable chairman of the Government Reform Committee now that the Tweedle Dum party controls Congress. “I’m going to have an interesting time because the Government Reform Committee has jurisdiction over everything,” Waxman told the Associated Press. “The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose.”

Picking and choosing, however, is an exercise in futility if there is no bite to any possible investigation of the Bush neocons, and Waxman admitted his committee will be toothless.

“Republicans have speculated that a Democratic congressional majority will mean a flurry of subpoenas and investigations into everything under the sun as retaliation against the GOP and President Bush,” explains the Associated Press. “A lot of people have said to me, ‘Are you going to now go out and issue a lot of subpoenas and go on a wild payback time?’ Well, payback is unworthy,” said the California representative. “Doing oversight doesn’t mean issuing subpoenas. It means trying to get information.”

How exactly one gets information without legal subpoena is not explained. Not subjecting the neocons to subpoena would be like calling Lucky Luciano to testify about the international heroin trade without putting him under oath.

For Waxman and the Democrats, the coming term is not about justice and addressing corruption and war crimes, to say nothing of stolen elections, it is about not appearing to be as vindictive as the Republicans who went after Bill Clinton, who was impeached for the wrong reason, and acquitted so as to not tarnish the office of presidency. ‘’It’s our obligation not to be repeating what the Republicans have done,'’ Waxman said.

In short, if you think the Democrats will punish the neocons for illegal wars, you may as well wish for a pony.

Henry Waxman, viewed as the last hope for sanity and justice, has thrown a wrench in the works. He may preside over a meaningless investigation of Bush and the neocons, but nothing will come of it, minus subpoena power, and the neocons, or their neoliberal successors, will get a big fat green light to continue the “clash of civilizations” game plan.

Next up, Iran, as the presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and her presumptive running mate, Barack Obama, have called for action against the Islamic nation. Such action may not be as in your face as that of the Zionist neocons, and may be more cosmetically polite, but it surely is not going away.

AIPAC is not going away either.