Senator Pat Roberts: Douche Bag
Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, really goes beyond being a partisan tool. He’s a pathetic example of what’s worst about our national politics today. And yeah, there are Democrats who embody the same corrupt dishonesty, but few that I can think of who have been so blatant about it.
I don’t know if you’ve followed the way he’s helped cover up the Bush admininstration’s prewar hijinks with respect to Iraqi WMD, but even now, three years after the war began, he’s still doing everything in his power to keep the lid on things. His latest ploy, according to an article by Alexander Bolton in The Hill (Sen. Roberts seeks delay of Intel probe), is to push for yet another subdivision of “phase two” of the committee’s investigation into prewar intelligence, letting the less-controversial parts come out now, while putting off the parts dealing with the rotten center of the Bush team’s lies to some hypothetical future phase three.
It has become obvious that Roberts will never willingly allow that information to see the light of day. This is exactly why this country desperetely needs one, or preferably both, houses of Congress to change hands this year. Our government simply doesn’t work if the people running the legislative branch are willing to give the executive a free pass.
More on the ridiculous history of phase two of the committee’s report is available at the scrupulously researched and stunningly well-written Wikipedia article: Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Douchebag? John, you crack me up.
He is though, it’s clear that Roberts will continue hold up phase two of the investigation for as long as possible…well, at least the important part which will establish some accountability for the Bush administration’s clear BS. Maybe he’s stalling until the end of Bush’s second term so that the inevitable censure/admonishment will damage the president’s credibility as little as possible.
The problem is that this thing is so horribly political that it’s hard to blame Roberts too much just for towing his party line. In my opinion, this is more a symptom of our bi-partisan system* than just calling the Republicans bunch of bastards (or douchebags). Except for the few ‘mavericks’, the Republicans will all continue to protect president Bush and his administration. I think that a Democratic congress would protect a Democratic president in the same way. They just want to protect their majority interest. Further, if Roberts is really maintaining the ‘war-time’ mentality that Bush is trying ti instill, it would be wise to protect any president during times like these.
This doesn’t excuse Roberts for his slippery evasion of duty. You’re right that this makes him a douchebag for being ‘part of the problem’.
*I realize that a multi-party system is not without problems, and haven’t decided whether our bi-partisan system serves us better than a multi-party system will. They clearly both have their strengths and weaknesses.