Signs of Life in the Democratic Congress

TPMMuckraker is reporting, via the Washington Post, that the House is set to actually move on Contempt of Congress charges "against White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for their refusal to appear before Congress for questioning about the 2006 removal of nine U.S. attorneys."

Hopefully the Democratic Leadership will use Congress' Inherent Contempt powers, as Bush has already instructed the Justice Department to ignore any Statutory Contempt charges filed by Congress. That the proceedings are being pursued in the House of Representatives is a good sign that this may be so: Inherent Contempt trials are held by the chamber pressing the charges, and are run by the presiding officer of that chamber. Speaker Pelosi would be the best to handle this, as I doubt that Dick Cheney would let the President Pro Temp of the Senate deal with a contempt trial against an administration official.