House Republicans Making Donkeys of Themselves

In a scene usually orchestrated by the wacky left, the House held hearings on the travesty of justice known as the William Jefferson FBI raid. Dana Milbank has some of the details:

But when FBI agents searched a congressional office 11 days ago, Sensenbrenner went up to the attic and found his gavel.

Yesterday, he held the first of at least four hearings into the raid -- the debut was dispassionately titled "Reckless Justice" -- and announced that he will haul the attorney general and FBI director before his committee. He also vowed that he will "promptly" write legislation to prevent a recurrence.

Even before the expert witnesses were sworn in yesterday, Sensenbrenner said his mind was made up. "Documents having nothing whatsoever to do with any crime," he lectured absent administration officials, were "seized by the executive branch without constitutional authority."

The four witnesses performed in the perfect harmony of an amen chorus.

"A wholesale constitutional violation," said former House lawyer Charles Tiefer.

"Unconstitutional," judged constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein.

"Abandonment of fundamental law," said former congressman Bob Walker (R-Pa.). "A recipe for constitutional crisis."

"A profound and almost gratuitous insult," contributed George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. "Raw arrogance."

We're used to seeing nuts like John Conyers (D-MI) holding these amen chorus hearings in which like-minded lefties all show up and express their faux outrage at the latest actions of the administration. However, I'm not used to seeing the GOP commit such acts of stupidity.

San Diego GOP congressman Darrell Issa even suggested that the House should impeach the Attorney General and the judge who granted the search warrant. Have these guys been drinking? They've managed to take the story of a corrupt Democrat and turn it into a story about insane Republicans!

The GOP House members who are singing this stupid tune are giving the base plenty of reason to stay home in November. These guys do not deserve reelection. Jeff Jacoby agrees:

LIKE A LOT of conservatives, I won't be voting Republican in the congressional elections this fall. Admittedly, I won't have a choice -- in Massachusetts, Republican candidates for Congress generally spare voters the trouble of defeating them by not bothering to run in the first place.

But millions of conservatives will have a choice. And the closer Election Day draws, the clearer it becomes that plenty of them will choose not to vote Republican. Unless something changes dramatically -- and soon -- the GOP is poised to lose its most reliable voters, and with them any hope of keeping its congressional majority.

This is a mess of the GOP's own making. They can fix it if they want to. Read the whole thing.