Hey Bill,
I still don't feel that there is a need to have 100% of all government meetings, inclusive of lower staffers, watchdogged.
[link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_in_the_Sunshine_Act|Sunshine laws] don't, and shouldn't, apply to 100% of all government meetings.
One of Congress's most important functions is oversight of the Executive branch. In [link|http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03894.pdf|this] GAO report (31 page .pdf) it says:
p.5-6:
From the outset, OVP [Office of the Vice President] did not respond to our request for information, including descriptive information on the process by which the National Energy Policy report was developed, asserting that we lacked statutory authority to examine NEPDG activities. We were also denied the opportunity to interview staff assisting the Vice President on the NEPDG effort. As a result, throughout the spring and summer of 2001, we engaged in extensive attempts to reach an agreement with OVP on our information request in an effort to fulfill our statutory responsibilities in a manner that accommodated the Vice President\ufffds asserted need to protect certain executive deliberations. Importantly, we significantly narrowed the scope of our review by, among other things, withdrawing our initial request for minutes of NEPDG meetings. We also offered flexibility in how we would access certain documents. Despite our concerted efforts to reach a reasonable accommodation, the Vice President denied us access to virtually all requested information, with the exception of a few documents purportedly related to NEPDG costs that OVP provided to us. The Vice President\ufffds denial of access challenged GAO\ufffds fundamental authority to evaluate the process by which NEPDG had developed a national energy policy and to obtain access to records that would shed light on that process. As authorized by GAO\ufffds access-to-records statute, after exhausting the processes specified in that statute for achieving a resolution and receiving a request from two senate full committee chairs and two senate subcommittee chairs to pursue our evaluation,4 we filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on February 22, 2002, to obtain the limited factual NEPDG information that we had requested.5 On December 9, 2002, the district court dismissed GAO\ufffds suit on jurisdictional grounds, without reaching the merits of GAO\ufffds authority to audit and evaluate NEPDG activities or to obtain access to NEPDG records.6 After considerable bipartisan outreach efforts to the Congress, GAO decided not to appeal the district court decision.7 A detailed chronology of our efforts to obtain access to NEPDG records can be found on GAO\ufffds Web site.
p.7-8:
According to the best information that we could obtain, the National Energy Policy report was the product of a centralized, top-down, shortterm, and labor-intensive process that involved the efforts of several hundred federal employees governmentwide. NEPDG\ufffdcomprised mostly of cabinet-level officials (Principals)\ufffdand its Support Group\ufffdcomprised mostly of select DOE officials detailed to OVP\ufffdcontrolled most facets of the report\ufffds development. [...]
This wasn't a few people meeting in the hallway and talking about what they were going to do over the weekend. Congress apparently tried to address legitimate concerns by the administration but were thwarted at every turn.
On the "witchhunt" - sure there's some posturing and grandstanding going on by the opposition. That's part of the purpose of having an opposition. But shouldn't it be the case that the rules about testifying truthfully, even if not under oath, are respected? Wouldn't it be disconcerting if incorrect information was presented in response to subpoenas by a Senate committee and nobody cared?
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aha!
