Dirty Tricks and Attempting to Soil ANWR

Perhaps it is just a coincidence, but Karl Rove was once in charge of teaching political dirty tricks to up and coming Republicans. Now, the Republicans have added back the authorization for oil drilling in ANWR into the Defense Spending Bill. This, despite the fact that this will do nothing in the short run to ease the price of oil, and will do nothing in the long run to solve our oil dependence.

Drilling in ANWR is a terrible idea. Trying to insert the provision into a defense bill is not good governing. I agree with Representative James McGovern who said "...whether you are a liberal a conservative, or whether you want more government or less, I think most of us would agree that whatever government we have must be competent and responsive to the people. Now, the Republicans control all of government. They control the House of Representatives, they control the Senate, and they control the White House. It is clear that they are unable to be effective stewards of our government."

Add to this the fact that our representatives may not have time to read all of the bill before voting on it, and you have a real scandal. And this is apparently the standard mode of operation. This was also done with the original Patriot Act - where it was voted on without being read or debated by congress. Isn't it their job to read and understand these bills before they vote and become law? If we can impeach the President for "high crimes and misdemeanors", why can't we impeach congress for negligence?