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With the Democrats back in control in the House and the Senate, everytime you turn on CSPAN you see oversite happening. What an amazing concept! Congress is finally exerting some sort of push-back on the Administration, be it in relation to Iraq, Katrina, or budget issues. CSPAN is an amazing resource for us citizens to watch our system in action.

In particular, you can watch how the Administration has perfected the ability to withstand Congressional oversite:

The Justice Department, which serves as legal counsel in court proceedings for other departments, has repeatedly gone beyond merely protecting its own actions from scrutiny. Even when Congress was in Republican hands, Justice Department officials advised other government departments on how to stonewall congressional review. These efforts now appear to be ramping up.

Even Republicans, like Senator Grassley from Iowa, is onto the Justice Department's shenanigans:

The Justice Department Legal Counsel's office recently held meetings with lawyers of other departments to discuss strategy for responding to congressional requests for documents and hearing appearances. In January, Senator Grassley charged at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the DOJ has started running training "events" for other offices of the executive branch, teaching them how to handle congressional inquiries and hearings. Grassley's office says they were tipped off to this by someone in the Justice Department worried about this new program.

Of course, Attorney General Gonzales denies it all:

Grassley voiced concern that the new training sessions are "lessons to stiff-arm Congress." He said he drew this conclusion from the "unnecessary hurdles and roadblocks from the department" he encountered in his recent efforts to investigate the FDA, the FBI, and the SEC while chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Responding to Grassley at the hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales denied there was any "coordinated effort to try to coach them about how to answer questions." Rather, he said, "it's to make sure that we are providing the appropriate level of cooperation, because we do have an obligation -- to try to accommodate competing legitimate interests."

You can read much more about the efforts on the part of the administration to thwart the oversite responsibility given to Congress by the Constitution here.

And tune into CSPAN everyday to watch the push-back. Tell all your friends at the bar and next party you go to!

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