If one were to list of all the reasons Joe Lieberman is spectacularly annoying, it’d take a while. There’s his support for the Bush/Cheney foreign policy; his broken promises from the 2006 campaign; his constant reinforcing of right-wing media frames; his support for GOP obstructionism; etc.
While all of those are, to be sure, maddening, I’d put an entirely different problem at the top of the list: his wholesale negligence as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Brian Beutler has a great piece today on “The Year in Oversight,” and notes a point that doesn’t get emphasized nearly enough:
There certainly have been gaffes, softballs, and missed opportunities. And the most obvious are found in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security — the Senate’s version of Rep. Henry Waxman’s Oversight Committee in the House. Unlike Waxman’s enthusiastic probing, the Senate chair conducted zero proactive investigations into Bush administration malfeasance. It’s chairman? Connecticut’s Joseph Lieberman.
A year ago, seeking re-election, Lieberman said this committee was his top priority, and he was desperate to return to the Senate so he could wield the gavel. And now that he has the authority he sought, he’s decided not to conduct any real oversight of the administration at all.
He seems to have desperately sought a chairman’s gavel just for the sake of having it — Lieberman wanted power he had no intention of using.
I appreciate the fact that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was in a bind before the 110th Congress began. Rumor has it, to keep Lieberman in the caucus, Reid had to give him the chairmanship.
But consequences have to matter. Instead of a Senate Committee on Government Affairs that functions as it should, Lieberman just treads water, using his gavel as a flotation device. It’s an embarrassing waste of what’s supposed to be the Senate’s watchdog committee.
What’s more, Lieberman’s neglect is made all the more obvious by the performance of Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — Lieberman’s House counterpart — who uses the committee’s oversight powers as a successful watchdog should.
Lawyers specializing in congressional inquiries call Waxman substantive and fair.
“He’s dogged. He’s tenacious. He’s got a very large and experienced investigative staff,” said Ray Sheppard, a Republican and former Senate investigator.
Since January, Waxman’s committee has held 29 hearings with a focus on what he calls waste, fraud and abuse. Recurring subjects of scrutiny have been Iraq contracting and the government’s handling of Gulf Coast hurricane rebuilding.
His inquiries tend to make headlines, and they sometimes prompt changes even before Waxman has a chance to grill officials under oath.
What a concept.
This is the tale of two chairmen, only one of whom is doing his duty. Roll Call had this depressing report in October:
The day news broke that the Iraqi government was revoking the license of Blackwater USA over a questionable Baghdad shootout that killed 17 civilians, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) announced plans for hearings to probe the State Department’s reliance on private security contractors.
On that same day — Sept. 17 — Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) announced two firefighting grants for the towns of Bolton and Willington in his home state.
Though the two committees have similar investigative powers and mandates to uncover waste, fraud and abuse of government funds, Waxman has held eight hearings on Iraq and contracting abuses this year, while Lieberman has held only one on reconstruction challenges in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
And though Waxman rarely has missed an opportunity to fire off angry letters to the administration over potential waste, fraud, abuse and misconduct among government contractors, Lieberman — along with his predecessor and current ranking member, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — has shown relatively little interest in tackling those issues.
And what of all the contracting abuses that Waxman is scrutinizing? Lieberman said he gets “angry when I hear about fraud or corruption in the spending of American dollars,” but it’s not one of his “priorities.”
If Dems increase their majority by even one seat in 2008, the very first order of business has to be taking that committee away from Lieberman. He’s proven that he doesn’t deserve it.