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(Photo of Sens. Pat Leahy and Russ Feingold via Salon.)

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee did its job.  No, not the parlimentary propping up of the Administration tap dance to which we have grown accustomed lo these many years…but some meaty, honest to goodness oversight. 

Wherein the Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzalez, was sworn in to give testimony under oath, and under threat of perjury for any false repsentations made to Congress — just like any other witness to the Judiciary Committee would have to be sworn.  And then was asked a series of tough, detailed questions to give him an opportuity to explainthe rationale behind actions of the Bush Administration that have been awfully close, shallwe say, to the illegality line…if not crossing it outright. 

It's tough to know for certain, considering how little fact-gathering and oversight has actually been done for the past six years, and all, but I'm hopeful that some day — and this always seems to happen that someone starts talking and then all the worms start spilling out of the bait can, doesn't it? — we'll get the entire story.  Until then, there are a whole lot of rocks to uncover and a whole lot of festering, writhing, dark-corner-loving conduct to expose to the sunshine.

Yesterday, Sen. Pat Leahy launched a blistering series of questions and critiques regarding the US treatment of an innocent Canadian man who was whisked to a secret detention facility and subjected to torture for at least a year before they finally released him.  Crooks and Liars has the video, and it is well worth the watching.

Leahy: "We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held and he'd be investigated. We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured."

Let me just say this morning, as clearly as I possibly can do so, that I adore Pat Leahy for this one statement alone.  But the fact that he, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, set up this hearing and demanded answers?  THIS is why I worked my butt off in the last election cycle — because this is what our nation needs.  Robust, honest, fact-based, philosophically examining debate about who we are as a nation — and how our actions, right or wrong, affect our status in the world around us and speak to what we are, or to whom we wish we were.

If you haven't been following the Arar case, The Reaction blog has.  See here, here and here for more information.  And our own Selise did a fantastic job of live-blogging yesterday's entire hearing in the comments here.  Glenn, as always, does a fantastic job piecing together the ins and outs of the hearing and manages to catch quite a bit of it in live blog yesterday as well (for which I am eternally grateful, having missed most of the hearing on the phone trying to get Jane updates yesterday).

But it isn't just the Senate Judiciary Committee.  It's committees all over the Hill, stepping up to the plate to do their jobs.  Consider one such committee, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed by Henry Waxman of California, dubbed by Karen Tumulty at Time as "the scariest man in Washington."  Per Waxman:

The committee has yet to schedule any hearings, but Waxman told Federal Times in an interview last month that his No. 1 priority is to review waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayers’ money in order to stop those practices.

He said he wants to make sure agencies are doing their jobs in the best interest of the American people.

“Whether it’s the Environmental Protection Agency or the Food and Drug Administration, how are they doing? Are they accomplishing what we want them to accomplish? Are they looking out for the interests of the American people? Or are they serving special interests, which sometimes happens to be the situation,” Waxman said.

And the Senate passed an ethics overhaul yesterday that was pretty far-reaching in terms of shining a whole lot of sunshine on earmarks.  (At least, it looks that way in the limited time I've had to read the bill…more later as I get time to nitpick through it.)   Sen. Feingold explains why this was pushed through by the Democrats:  “Today’s Senate passage of groundbreaking ethics and lobbying reforms was a resounding victory.  In November, the American people demanded real change, and the Senate has responded with a strong bill that will bring an end to the status quo.  I will continue this fight until these changes become law.”

Ahhh…so they DO remember that they work for us, and not the other way around. Oh yeah, it's January. And the grown-ups are back in charge.

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