Not surprisingly, House Republicans, and more specifically Eric Cantor, shielded Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa from condemnation today one day after rudely cutting off Rep. Elijah Cummings during a committee hearing.
The Hill has a brief summary of how it went down.
With dozens of Democrats standing by her, Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) proposed the resolution Thursday morning, a day after Issa held a combative hearing with a former IRS official involved in the IRS targeting scandal. [...]
Thursday morning, Fudge asked House GOP leaders that the resolution be given privileged status. But in the early afternoon, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) moved to table the resolution.
That move to essentially push the resolution to the side was approved by the House in a 211-186 vote.
Every single Republicans voted to table the resolution to condemn Issa, meaning it was never given a fair vote.
During his press conference this morning, Speaker John Boehner said that Darrell Issa has done an “effective job.”
Even by Republican standards I don’t understand how he can say that with a straight face.
Issa has spent all of his time since becoming the Oversight Committee chairman after the 2010 election digging through one fake scandal after another and he has produced no results. He has not found anything incriminating and he hasn’t unlocked the impeachment every Republican has dreamed about for 5 years. He’s anything but effective at his job.
I suppose if you believe his job is to simply shit-stir, you could say he has been effective. But it’s all too easy to be effective at that when much of the beltway media will simply reprint leaks from Issa’s office without verifying any of it.
It’s unfortunate that Republicans have such low expectations for a major committee.
Shit-stirring is not oversight; It’s turning a serious government committee with great responsibility into an opposition research panel for the ongoing campaign to deceive Americans.