Rep. John Conyers: It's Checks and Balances, Mr. Russert | The Huffington Post

The Blog | Rep. John Conyers: It's Checks and Balances, Mr. Russert | The Huffington Post:

"While interviewing my Leader, Nancy Pelosi, Russert intoned ominously 'The chair of the Judiciary cmte would be someone named John Conyers, I went to his website and this is what was on his website.' He then showed the headline of my website where I call for the creation of a Sam Ervin-style bipartisan Committee, equally composed of Democrats and Republicans, to investigate pre-war manipulation of intelligence and other matters and, if warranted, to make recommendations to the Judiciary Committee on possible grounds for impeachment.

'That's the man who would be Chairman of the Judiciary Committee,' Russert ominously declared. He then asked if 'John Conyers should take down his website.'

Perhaps Mr. Russert has forgotten, but I have been a Chairman before. For five years, from 1989 to 1994, I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, now called the Government Reform Committee. I have a record of trying to expose government waste, fraud and abuse.

That was back when Congress did something called 'oversight.' You know, in our tri-partite system of government, when Congress actually acted like a co-equal branch. The Republican Congress decided to be a rubber stamp for President Bush instead.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't be mired in a war based on false pretenses in which we have lost thousands of our brave men and women in uniform and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

Perhaps we would not have had an energy policy drawn up in secret with oil company executives that has led to gas prices of more than three dollars per gallon.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't have a prescription drug plan written by the pharmaceutical companies, that prohibits the government from negotiating for lower prices with the same drug companies, and that no one really understands.

Perhaps, if w"