That whole line about voters wanting more civility and non-partisanship is pure baloney!

In the last election, voters clearly wanted someone to put the brakes on GWB, and it had finally become crystal clear even to the most casual political observer, that the GOP is/was constitutionally (pun intended) incapable of such oversight.

As I mentioned in a comment on one of Glenn Greenwald's post, the REAL reason that the so-called press does not want too many investigations is because they know it will reveal how poorly they have been doing their own jobs (with a few notable exceptions.)

Others in that commented on the lack of laughter at the WH Press Corps' dinner last year when Stephen Colbert skewered them all. That alone was proof that the press is implicated in many, if not most, of the failures of this administration.

The only parties who really want more civility are those who merely want to maintain the status quo, which includes their own status among the elites inside the Beltway. "Move along, folks, nothing to see here," they say. Hah!

Oh, Tom, how could you? "voters [are] looking for more civility and more cooperation between Republicans and Democrats"

If so, that's only going to happen if

1. You get some radically different Republicans from the ones we have now, or
2. Republicans and Democrats unite in opposition to George Bush and his Regime of (t)Error

We voters may indeed crave "civility and cooperation", somewhere down the line - but more than that, we want a less stupid government than the one we're stuck with now. We want the crooks - and there seem to be a lot of them - to be rooted out, convicted, and punished.

After all that, some civility would be nice, thenkew.

Another angle to set-up Democrats: the idea that all of these scandal investigations are just "politics as usual." It came up on Chris Matthews' show on Sunday, for one example. Politics as usual? Are you shitting me? Yeah, after 6 years of GOP investigations into the president's abuses of power, the public really needs a break. Oh wait, that's not reality.. After years of dissembling from the GOP about why it's not the appropriate time to investigate, it most certainly is the time to investigate. Politics as usual my ass.

I specifically won't vote for Gore again for the same reason: by choosing to not fight, he handed GWB the Oval Office.

I want to vote Democratic, I'm just waiting for a candidate who fights back.

(I voted for Kerry and Gore while holding my nose.) Never again.

I agree, Gore should have fought much harder over Florida. I won't vote for him in a primiary. I woild of course vote for him over any republican in the general though, and I guess so would a lot of people that may feel otherwise today.

is that the price The Republicans paid for millions of dollars in phoney hearings about fake scandels was being handed complete control of Washington. Which only reinforces her basic dismissal of the "too many investigations" line; which itself just sounds like a partisan canard.

Yes, you are: energy policy. It’s the proverbial stem cell issue, the predicate of everything else.

Otherwise, your post seems pretty spot-on to me. Clearly, the MSM is trying to return Democrats to their prior ineffectual state of learned helplessness by subjecting them to constant, inescapable punishment and ridicule meted out within the confines of column inches and screen diagonals.

I suspect that when the full scope of the Cheney/Rove/Bush corruption is finally revealed, the corporate media will ultimately end up being the unindicted co-conspirator in all of that. In the meantime, you, Glenn Greenwald and Joe Conason (to name only a few) need to keep calling them out.

Like a beleaguered aunt who sighs in relief when Nanny 911 rides in to corral mis-behaving nieces and nephews, I'm delighted at the investigations and reins that are suddenly part of the Washington landscape. The Bush administration promised accountability and then did everything to make a joke of that promise. It's nice to see that accountability in Washington can look like it does at home.

Civility between THESE Republicans and the Democrats?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....HA!

That's funny.

I needed that laugh this morning.

Now then...

I voted in November for the Democrats up and down the ticket because I wanted to add my voice to the millions and tens of millions crying out for a less dumb-ass, more accountable, less warmongering and less..."icky" government. Less partisan? Sure. That would be nice. But only after the foxes have been run out of the henhouse. Only after the filth has been cleansed from our political process and NON-partisan caretakers have been voted in. And if it leads us to an impeachment trial where the chief thugs are finally held accountable, SO BE IT. I think anyone can see that the impeachment of Bill Clinton was nothing more than a dog and pony show of hypocrites bent on destroying a quite capable Chief Executive, despite his shortcomings, and installing one of their own. Which they have done. Bi-partisanship is nice if you can get it, but it's not required. I didn't vote for it, and civility be damned. One cannot be civil with people who deal only in the basest form of discourse. One cannot be civil with brainwashed, ideological fanatics. Until more sane people are in Congress, civility, laudable as it may be has to take a back seat.

In my opinion, Nagourney has no credibility. All one has to do is re-visit his lame and partisan anti-Clinton reporting when he was employed by U.S.A.Today. I was shocked when he was hired by the N.Y.Times. His writing, almost without fail, panders to the right wing, and his occasional investigative reports for the Times invariably leave much to be desired from a purely journalistic point of view.

As the majority in Congress, and with democrats as chairmen of the various committees, they are THE DECIDERS when it comes to investigations and subpoenas.

End of story.