Don't Forget To Multitask!

I'm all for Michelle Bachmann's suggestion to restore vigorous executive branch oversight after the GOP retakes Congress this fall.  To call the Obamidency "imperial" is a pathetic understatement of the extraconstitutional powers it has arrogated to itself.  It most definitely is "nonsense" that needs to be "exposed":

However, allow me to add a few caveats:

1) The last time a Republican Congress tried to exercise congressional oversight over a Democrat president, they didn't exactly prove themselves as up to the task.  Remember the Waco hearings in 1995?  Then-Representative Chucky Schumer made a fool of Chairman Bill McCollum, and what started out as an investigation of a Clintonoid fascist crackdown against religious freedom wound up as a soliloquoy to gun control.  Or the ChiComm Funny Money hearings in 1997, in which then-Senator John Glenn jerked around and humiliated Chairman Fred Thompson and got rewarded for it with a ride on the space shuttle?

Congressional oversight hearings are a partisan gladitorial arena.  The majority has to be ruthless, focused, and determined, all traits that the Democrats have in avaricious overabundance, and Republicans lack in equal proportion.  What's that old saying?  Don't bring a subpeona to a gun fight.  Hopefully Bachmann and the new majority will demonstrate otherwise.

2) Here's the other side of that coin: Suppose the White House simply defies GOP subpeonas?  The Clintonoids did that quite a bit back in the day, as I recall.  Foot-dragging, bogus Executive Privilege claims, "dog ate my homework" excuses, "selective amnesia".  And don't forget the scorched-earth counter-propaganda attacks.  Just because the Republicans have Congress back doesn't mean The One is going to docilely and meekly cooperate with them on whacking away at his personal power base.  He'll treat it as the political war it will be.  Will Bachmann and her allies do the same?  Are they ready to beat the White House to the punch on parlaying their obstructionism into a 2012 campaign issue?  'cause you KNOW that's what the Obamunists will do in the opposite direction.

3) To quote Ensign Ed - and General Iroh - "It's all about the balance":

On the other hand, these efforts should be balanced by a positive agenda from Republicans that sets up a real choice in 2012 for voters, with both the White House and Senate on the line.  If the GOP gets seen as merely a foil for Obama, voters may decide to keep government divided, especially in the absence of an argument for conservative governance rather than solely a check-and-balance 112th Session of Congress. 

Oversight hearings, IOW, aren't "all we should do".  I'm quite certain that's what Red Barry is counting on, using the 1946/1948 Truman template to run against the GOP Congress in '12 as "partisan" and "do-nothing," charges that always resonate with ignorant independents who don't pay nearly as much attention to this stuff as they claim they do.  That could result not just in a second Obama term - on the magnitude of disaster of which I feel it unnecessary to elaborate - but the return of Crazy Nancy (and Dirty Harry, if he survives Aereon) as well.

The sheer immensity of the peril America faces from these tumors demands a multi-pronged counterattack on all fronts, with the economy and O-Care repeal frankly ranking higher on the priority list than giving Lucifer extra heartburn.  Much as I can sympathize with Michelle Bachmann's enthusiasm, I really hope and pray that she and her colleagues keep their eyes on the big picture when the gavels return to their possession.