The GAO Throws In the Towel

As a result of the total GOP hammerlock on both houses of Congress, the GAO has decided not to appeal the decision of a Bush-appointed judge to dismiss their lawsuit against the White House over Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force.

Time to find all those quotes from GOP senators and representatives about the need for executive branch transparency when Hillary's health care task force was being hounded.

I will defer to those of you with more legal seasoning than me as to the (dire) implications of such a decision and the GOP control of all branches of government now has for the basic concept of checks and balances. For the GAO to have to cave in on this because there is no support for maintaining this concept from the GOP leadership in both houses is about as serious a development as we can have today, outside of the war drumbeats. And I would argue that this decision has almost, if not more dark portents, than the war drumbeats.

One last point: This only makes opposing Estrada that much more important. How many more Bush court-packings must there be before guys like John Breaux wake up and realize that Congress just participated in its own demise?

Soto

Posted February 07, 2003 12:14 PM | Comments (40)