Time's a wasting

The NY Times give Patrick Leahy a push but doesn't ask the key question. Why is he taking so long to get around to issuing subpoenas against Rove et al?

For months, senators have listened to a parade of well-coached Justice Department witnesses claiming to know nothing about how nine prosecutors were chosen for firing. This week, it was the turn of Bradley Schlozman, a former federal attorney in Missouri, to be uninformative and not credible. It is time for Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to deliver subpoenas that have been approved for Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and their top aides, and to make them testify in public and under oath.

I suspect he thinks he will look precipitous if he doesn't give the White House every chance to compromise first. But, frankly, he's not going to win any brownie points from anyone for the delay. Once the subpoenas are issued, he'll get the same vituperous criticism from the White House that he would have if he'd issued them six weeks ago. And, the rest of the public simply doesn't pay much attention to these niceties.

I guess it's still the instinct to suck up to David Broder.