Dissenters will be crushed

Unreal:

The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from
congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer
money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any
more questions from opposition lawmakers.
...
The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A.
Campen, sent an e-mail titled "congressional questions" to majority and
minority staff on the House and Senate Appropriations panels.
Expressing "the need to add a bit of structure to the Q&A process,"
he wrote: "Given the increase in the number and types of requests we
are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to
the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate
these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and
materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in
writing from the committee."
...
It's saying we're not going to allow the opposition party to ask
questions about the way we use tax money," said R. Scott Lilly,
Democratic staff director for the House committee. "As far as I know,
this is without modern precedent."
Norman Ornstein, a congressional specialist at the American Enterprise
Institute, agreed. "I have not heard of anything like that happening
before," he said. "This is obviously an excuse to avoid providing
information about some of the things the Democrats are asking for."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 7, 2003 at 11:16 AM | Permalink