1. You accuse Obama of raising taxes, but isn't it true that during your term as mayor of Wasilla you raised the sales tax in order to build a hockey complex that left your town $22 million in debt. Is that not a tax-and-spend policy that you now decry?

2. You say you are now against earmarks, but isn't it true that under your leadership your town hired its first lobbyist in order to obtain $26 million in earmarks--which was about $4000 per citizen? What if every city in the US received earmarks equal to $4000 per citizen? Could the US Treasury handle that?

3. You claim that your experience as a mayor of Wasilla prepared you to perhaps be President. Isn't it true that the mayor's job was to administer the town, and that for the first time, once you were elected, an independent administrator had to be hired as you were being threatened with a recall for the way you mis-handled your administerial powers?

The Bush Administration attempted to destroy the constitutional principle of checks and balances. It is time for the Congress to re-assert its responsibility to uphold the Constitution. As in Watergate, it was the Senate's obligation to investigate, hold hearings, take testimony, obtain documents, and if warranted by the evidence, to impeach, censure, or if possible, to indict. It should do so now, while Bush and Cheney are still in office. Obama's administration can respond accordingly and actually supply what long-withheld documents and information that is subpenaed by Congress. Where relevant, the Justice Department should prosecute if the evidence provided by Congressional investigations so warrants it. That is called the rule of law. Obama and his administration do not have to take the lead in ferreting out misfeasence, or even make it their own policy priorty, until Congress forwards to them sufficient hard evidence that would warrant Justice Department action.

In the meantime, there is no reason to think that other committees in Congress, as well as the vast array of Executive Branch agencies, cannot go forward with their own work on the multitude of critical issues before them. All of it needs to get done, and it's not true that reaasserting the rule of law over the Executive branch of government is somehow going to prevent other significant policies from being pursued as well. Each in its own time.