Talking Point Blank

Joshua Micah Marshall is one of the brightest shining lights in American journalism today. I was particularly taken with two of his most recent posts, so I thought I would share them with P Clubbers in their entirety:


December 08, 2006 -- 12:24 AM EST

Below I favorably note Sen. Carl Levin's (D-MI) statement that he's willing to start handing out subpoena's in the hearings he's going to hold into the Pentagon's conduct of the war in Iraq. I won't deny for a second that there are hearings I'm looking forward to just to see some of the Bush administration's crooks and incompetents get their comeuppance. This isn't one of them.

Think how much might have been different if Congress had exercised any meaningful oversight role through any of this catastrophe. The level of irresponsibility, the lockstep indifference has been nothing short of depraved. Calling it an abdication of responsibility is like saying a murderer didn't have enough concern for his victim's health.

Even at this late stage in the game, there are basic dimensions of what's going on in Iraq that we're just clueless about. And I don't mean the policy answers we can't find. I mean, the facts about the conduct of the war that the administration -- the ultimate unreliable narrator -- just won't share with the public or the Congress.

Consider: why did we have to wait for the ISG, the ultimate band of CFR foggies, to tell us that the US has been systematically undercounting the numbers of Iraqi dead? This is hardly the most shocking of the lies I'm sure we're being told. But it does highlight the point. How can we find our way out of this mess if we're left in the dark?
-- Josh Marshall



December 08, 2006 -- 12:10 AM EDT

That's more like it (from the Post) ...

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said he plans to hold a series of hearings on Iraq soon after becoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee next month when Democrats take control of Congress, and he said he is prepared to use subpoenas to get relevant documents from the Pentagon.

And this ain't bad either ...

Hamilton also told the senators that they are part of the problem. "I, frankly, am not that impressed with what the Congress has been able to do," said the 34-year House veteran. "I think the Congress has been extraordinarily timid in its exercise of its constitutional responsibilities on the question of warmaking and conducting war."

More please.


-- Josh Marshall

Amen.

- Mr. Ed