The world couldn't handle another two years of Republican dominance in the United States. Neither could we. The electoral wipe-out on Tuesday was like going to the bathroom. Out with the bad.

Some good will come out of this. It became obvious to Bush that he couldn't have Rumsfeld dangling from his neck anymore. Much of the critical investigative reporting over the past few years has concerned Rumsfeld and his incompetent handling of the Iraq War. The blood of thousands of soldiers and civilians is on Rumsfeld's hands.

I do not anticipate this Congress will vote for national health insurance or force Bush to adopt global warming treaties. But Congress can stop the next war and bring the Iraq war to a close. The history of U.S. warfare, though, tells us that administrations that want war will get war, and they will wage it underground if necessary.

Many people do not know what Congress actually does, besides voting on bills. Congress is supposed to investigate the Executive Branch, or the Presidency. Congress has subpoena power and can force administration witnesses to tell the truth. If they don't tell the truth, then into the slammer they go.

The golden age of Congressional investigations was the 1970's, when lawmakers were uncovering the rotting corpse that was the U.S. presidency. Some of the best scholarship about U.S. foreign policy and domestic surveillance still draws from these investigations.

There was the Rockefeller Commission, not a congressional investigation but a rare instance when the president himself organized an inquiry into misconduct and wrongdoing. According to Wikipedia, "U.S. President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States was set up under President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States. The commission was led by the Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, and is sometimes referred to as the Rockefeller Commission. The commission was created in response to a December 1974 report in The New York Times that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. The commission was responsible for, among other things, the investigation and publication of Project MKULTRA, a CIA mind control study."

Congress had its own committee to investigate the CIA back then, the Church Committee. "The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. A precursor to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee investigated intelligence gathering for illegality by the CIA and FBI after certain activities had been revealed by the Watergate affair." The Wikipedia page for the Church Committee will make you appreciate the power of the Internet. Someone downloaded the lengthy report which is filled with horror stories about the CIA and FBI. You will wonder how the United States allowed these abuses and outrages to happen.

And who can forget the Watergate Committee? "The Senate Watergate Committee was a special committee convened by the United States Senate to investigate the Watergate first break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal after it was learned that the Watergate burglars had been directed to break into and wiretap the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee by the Committee to Re-elect the President, President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign fundraising organization. The Committee played a pivotal role in gathering evidence that would lead to the indictment of forty administration officials and the conviction of several of Nixon's aides for obstruction of justice and other crimes. Its revelations prompted the introduction of articles of impeachment against the President in the House of Representatives, which led to Nixon's resignation."

The above summary of the Watergate Committee makes your mouth water, doesn't it?

Our political system is broken and corrupt. Even good people in government are vulnerable to this corruption, fueled by money and power, but mostly money. Politicians spend much of their time fund-raising and being sweet-talked by lobbyists. They have to move to the center to avoid strong criticism that they are left-wing or anti-military. They have to shake hands with people you don't want to know.

But, for now, there is no greater satisfaction than watching corrupt and bankrupt politicians pack their bags and return home. Including Rumsfeld. These people should be forced to push shopping carts at the Grand Union of their choice. Things will change on January 1, 2007 when the new Congress takes office. It's better than the alternative, but they will undoubtedly disappoint us.