Friday, September 16, 2005

GOP Nixes Independent Investigations

The GOP aid Bush with cover-ups. On a party line vote, Congress declined to conduct an INDEPENDENT investigation into the White House's role in outing Valerie Plame (CIA official).

"Had the resolutions of inquiry been adopted, they would have lead to the first independent congressional inquiries of the Plame affair, and perhaps even the public testimony of senior Bush administration aides, such as Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff, and I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, about their personal roles."
Cat Killer Frist and GOP Repugs blocked an INDEPENDENT investigation into the government's poor response to the Katrina victims:

Senate Republicans on Wednesday scuttled an attempt by Sen. Hillary Clinton to establish an independent, bipartisan panel patterned after the 9/11 Commission to investigate what went wrong with federal, state and local governments' response to Hurricane Katrina.

The New York Democrat's bid to establish the panel — which would have also made recommendations on how to improve the government's disaster response apparatus — failed to win the two-thirds majority needed to overcome procedural hurdles. Clinton got only 44 votes, all from Democrats and independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Fifty-four Republicans all voted no.
I suppose they think that if they only conduct partisan inquiries cover-ups they can save Bush's image and achieve some of their fat-cat tax-cutting goals, privatize social security, etc. Meanwhile, Bush's poll numbers are falling.
The hurricane, alone, does not appear to have taken any significant toll on Mr. Bush's overall job approval rating, which remains stuck virtually where it has been since early summer. But the findings do suggest that the slow federal response to the hurricane has increased public doubts about the Bush administration's effectiveness. Fifty-six percent of Americans said they were now less confident about the government's ability to respond to a terrorist attack or natural disaster.
Faith based religious idiots still believe in him, though, proving that they are as out of touch with reality as he is.
Mr. Bush's support remained strong among Republicans, conservatives, evangelical Christians and those who said they voted for him last fall.

Nearly twice as many people - 63 percent - said the country was "pretty seriously" on the wrong track as those who said it was headed in the right direction, equal to the worst level of Mr. Bush's presidency during a spate of bad news last year.