Republican Senator Fred Thompson's Senate Governmental Affairs Committee met to consider the reauthorization of the Independent Counsel statute. After twenty five years of Democrats investigating Republican Presidents, the Democrats have finally gotten a belly full of their precious President being investigated himself. They are finally fed up enough to let the statute lapse this time, without attempting to fix it.

Some witnesses of note were:

Joseph diGenova, former Independent Counsel, thought the statute should be allowed to runout with no action taken. The easiest way to deal with it, providing they want to dump it, is to do nothing. Joe brought up three interesting points, though they probably will never come up in any substantiative way in the future. 1) Don't put any limits on time and funding, as this encourages delaying tactics by defense attornies. 2) The appointment of indpendent counsels by a three judge panel, while being judged Constitutional, is just not politically sound. 3) The American Bar Association has removed their support of the statute, after twenty five years, for purely partisan political reasons ( like they are all Democrats, for God's sake ).

Arthur Christy, former Special Prosecutor ( remember, this is from a time before the OIC ) thought they should reauthorize the statute, but limit the scope of action to wrongdoing " only while the official is in government ", and performing official duties. He would also favor limiting the number of covered persons ( only the President and immediate staff members ).

Curtis Von Kann, former Independent Counsel, thought it should be reauthorized, but limited to POTUS, VPOTUS and direct staff members. He also favored limiting the subject matter to official acts and have a one year deadline with two six month extension periods maximum.

It was quite obvious that the committee will vote not to renew the statute. The Democrats can't stand the heat, now that their guy is in the oven, and the Republicans have thought it un-Constitutional for a while. So Kenneth Starr may be the last of his breed!

- Bongo ( Funny, how the Democrats made their cutesy opening statements, and then took off like there was a fire? )