A year has passed. Are you getting your oversight?

One year ago today, I wrote a diary entitled "You're not getting your oversight." Three guesses what it predicted.

I've expanded on the theme several times since then, and of course, Democrats have won the majority in Congress. And there's no question but that they are in fact holding some very revealing hearings.

But now we're nearing crunch time, as Slate's Dahlia Lithwick ably pointed out nearly three weeks ago. Following Alberto Gonzales' second trip to Capitol Hill to mouth "answers" on the U.S. Attorneys scandal, she does so again:

Today's attorney general breezes into the chamber with the certain knowledge that having bottomed out in April, he has nothing left to prove. His only role in this scandal is as decoy: He's the guy who runs out in front of the hunters and draws their fire so nobody pays any attention to what's happening at the White House.

Meanwhile, Murray Waas notes that the Justice Department is still withholding critical e-mails, and in fact has not even bothered to offer any evidence that it's complying with Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy's document preservation order.

So where are we a year later? No, we haven't held the majority for all that time, and in some ways it's fair to say we're still getting our footing. But the whole point of last year's diary was to lay down the marker that non-compliance with Congressional oversight is not a new phenomenon with this "administration." They've been defying oversight for years, even walking out of the rubber stamp proceedings of the last, pathetic Republican Congress -- chaired by Arlen Specter, by the way. (For a guy who once had the gumption to foist the "Magic Bullet" theory on the world, what a doormat he's turned out to be!)

Back to the question: where are we? Well, we're not getting any answers from DoJ, even though the answers appear painfully obvious. And next week is the deadline for compliance with the subpoenas for Karl Rove's U.S. Attorneys e-mails and Condi Rice's testimony on pre-war intelligence and "the sixteen words."

Anybody think the committees are going to be fully satisfied after next week?

Last year's diary was written in a slightly different context, though the thrust remains the same: Congress must assert itself, using (or at least making a credible threat of using) all of the tools at its disposal. A full year and a change in partisan control later, we haven't advanced the ball all that much in that respect. Look at where we were then:

So where does this leave us? Exactly what bridge is it we think we'll cross when we come to it?

Yes, yes, we all want to make sure the Bush "administration" lives up to its reputation of non-compliance first, before we start spooking the "swing voters" (presumably those who haven't yet "swung" from the 31% the president is clinging to) with honest discussions of what we're actually going to have to do to set things right.

An election has passed. Iraq continues to worsen. The "administration" is stonewalling investigations and subpoenas. And how are those polls? Pretty much where they were a year ago. Weren't they supposed to move? Wasn't just the existence of real oversight supposed to change things?

In some eyes, no doubt, that is an argument against undertaking the only real enforcement mechanisms available to us. But think about where that leaves us: without any real "subpoena power," and indeed, perhaps worse off than in 1974, when the Congress was able to draw this line in the sand:

Article 3

In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has failed without lawful cause or excuse to produce papers and things as directed by duly authorized subpoenas issued by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives on April 11, 1974, May 15, 1974, May 30, 1974, and June 24, 1974, and willfully disobeyed such subpoenas. The subpoenaed papers and things were deemed necessary by the Committee in order to resolve by direct evidence fundamental, factual questions relating to Presidential direction, knowledge or approval of actions demonstrated by other evidence to be substantial grounds for impeachment of the President. In refusing to produce these papers and things Richard M. Nixon, substituting his judgment as to what materials were necessary for the inquiry, interposed the powers of the Presidency against the the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, thereby assuming to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the sole power of impeachment vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.

In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

Adopted 21-17 by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.

Nixon, of course, had the good grace to resign, technically leaving the question of whether or not executive defiance of Congressional subpoenas are indeed impeachable. But as the story goes, Nixon's impeachment was considered a done deal, so the answer to the question of whether or not such defiance is impeachable has to this point has been: Yeah, pretty much.

The 110th Congress appears bound to attach an asterisk to that. How ironic for a majority elected under the banner of "subpoena power."