Go after them Henry! You are one of the few heroes we can count on to protect the laws and civil liberities in the congress today!

Ugh, please.

We HAVE had a situation like this -- not only LIKE this, but EXACTLY this -- and Waxman had already been in Congress nearly ten years when it happened.

Reagan's EPA Administrator, Anne Gorsuch, refused to testify or turn over documents on the advice of White House counsel Fred Fielding. She was held in contempt by the full House, and the White House actually sued first to block the enforcement of the subpoena.

George W. Bush's White House counsel, by the way, is Fred Fielding.

I have to admit I'm a little tired of Waxman's being this far behind the learning curve on oversight issues, given that he chairs the House's chief oversight committee. This case is right in the official House Oversight Manual given to every oversight committee chairman by CRS.

The most important snipped being:

Ms. Burford acted under President Ronald Reagan's orders, with the advice of the Justice Department and against her own recommendation, her colleagues told the press at the time.

Just like Stephen Johnson. He supported the waiver before the White House told him to oppose it.

Congress is still rather weak -- in spite of a rather large democratic majority. Faint praise here for Hoyer or Pelosi or Waxman.

I agree that the Democrats seem weak and powerless...no matter how you look at it...the Dem's do not have the votes to stop much of anything...49 to 51 majority in the Senate, with Lieberman voting with the GOP on any matter of real importance...they don't even have the 60 votes they need for cloture...who's fault is that..did you all vote in 2006..? Did you all do all you could to get a larger Democratic majority in the House and Senate...? Are you going to get involved this election..or are you just gonna sit around and bitch when things don't go the way you think they should...elections have consequences..what are you going to do to get the checks, balances and fair investigations back...Do you remember how when Clinton was President, there was a GOP majority in Congress..the GOP spent almost eight years investigating (and millions of dollars) Clinton..every time he went to the bathroom they held a hearing to impeach..you want to make a difference..get out there, get involved and make sure we get rid of all the jack-boots

What's the point? No one has the stones to impeach. This week alone we've had undeniable proof of torture in the form of medical examinations, and proof it was designed and initiated top down, and not bottom up. McLellan gives us today nothing we didn't know before. Executive privilege over a smog waiver? Really? A lesson in delayed gratification perhaps: Scott Horton at Harper's writes that certain unnamed NATO allies have prepared a war crimes prosecution just in case anyone on the War Council member or Bush/Cheney happens to step foot in Europe. Maybe then we'll see justice.

While Nixon v. United States, 418 U.S. 683, 712, n. 19 (1974) the most aptly named case in history specifically limited its holding to the invocation of executive privilege to a grand jury subpoena and did not address a congressional subpoena which does not serve the same weighty interests in support of an investigation of potentially criminal activity which might result in an indictment and prosecution as does a grand jury subpoena, the Court's unanimous opinion hardly supports the broad claims made here.

Thus, "he interest in preserving confidentiality is weighty indeed and entitled to great respect. However, we cannot conclude that advisers will be moved to temper the candor of their remarks by the infrequent occasions of disclosure because of the possibility that such conversations will be called for in the context of a criminal prosecution," id., could well apply to the rare congressional inquiry of the activities of presidential advisors.

The limits of the privilege may be found, if the law still holds (a big question in these lawless times) at page 714 of the opinion where, quoting from the Aaron Burr treason case, the Nixon Court said "'[T]he guard, furnished to [the President] to protect him from being harassed by vexatious and unnecessary subpoenas, is to be looked for in the conduct of a [district] court after those subpoenas have issued; not in any circumstance which is to precede their being issued.' United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas., at 34."

Just my view.