Republicans Wandering Off the Ranch
The Katrina hearings

Democrats have officially boycotted the hearings on the governmental responses to Katrina--mainly because they believed they were an attempt to whitewash the White House. Some Gulf Coast Democrats have shown up, which has proved a good idea, as can be seen in the LATimes article Hurricane Response Is Defended . The relevant excerpt is below:

One of them, Rep. Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, opened Wednesday's session with a demand that the committee subpoena the White House and Defense Department to hand over documents dealing with their response to the hurricane.

Republicans initially rejected the move as political grandstanding, saying they wanted to give the administration more time to voluntarily produce the documents.

But Wednesday night, committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) issued a subpoena demanding that the Defense Department turn over documents on its hurricane response by Dec. 30.

Also, committee members were scheduled to meet privately today with Kenneth Rapuano, the White House's deputy assistant to the president for domestic security, to discuss the federal relief efforts. Davis said that, if necessary, he was prepared to issue a subpoena to the White House for e-mails and documents it has refused to produce.

Melancon said the committee's credibility was at stake. Without the documents, he said, the committee's effort would be dismissed as a whitewash meant to protect the administration.

Bush must be getting really frustrated with people (even Republicans) no longer accepting his word at face value. Recently he seems to have caught on to the public demand for some accountability. He actually has said out loud that mistakes were made and he is responsible. Is there ice skating in hell?