Democrats Abdicate Responsibility

Once again, petulant Democrats in the House of Representatives have taken their ball and gone home.

For those of you who don't regularly watch C-Span, the House committee with oversight on FEMA conducted hearings today regarding FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina. The key witness today was embattled former FEMA director Michael Brown, who came out swinging to defend himself. He faced a lot of tough questions from the Republican members of the Committee and one invited Democrat.

Why only one Democrat?

Because the Democrats on the committee refused to show up for the hearing. These Democrats are insisting on an independent bipartisan commission, similar to the 9/11 commission. Their view is that the Republicans running the committee (again, because they won the most elections!) will whitewash the issue. (If you watched the hearings you saw some tough questioning from the Republicans) Since the committee Democrats haven't gotten their demand, they refused to play ball.

In other words, they abdicated their responsibility as elected officials to participate in the hearings.

A simple question for them. If we have to have an independent commission every time there is a controversial issue because we can't trust Congress to do it's job, why do we need Congress?

Note to the Democrats on the committee: demonstrating your irrelevance is not a smart move.