<Just once, I'd like to see a businessman subpoenaed by the Congress to come up and ask where the hell they found the authority in the Constitution to call up a private citizen as though they were members of the Judicial Branch. And then tell them to f[...] off, with a little bit of a reminder about who exactly in this picture is supposed to be the public servant.

We were little kids and din't know it then, Tom, but I'm sure you know know that not quite 50 years ago Congress was doing the same thing to businessmen, entertainers, fellow members of the Federal government and plain private citizens. Those who refused to cooperate, either by refusing to appear or by invoking their rights under the Fifth Amendment, were demonized. It was reprehensible then; it's reprehensible now, that the Legislative believes it can act as the Judicial in any matter other than impeachment.

Nixon challenged the constitutionality of Congressional subpoenas, and lost. Apparently Congress does have the power to interview in order to obtain information they perceive is needed in order to "advise and consent". How they wield that power is.... well, in keeping with human nature (which, fittingly, John Adams instinctively mistrusted).

Saturday morning during "Weekend Edition", Dan Schorr made a comment I savored for its delicious irony (Schorr speaks fluent Ironics): During the McCarthy era, we had "Fifth Amendment communists"; now we have "Fifth Amendment capitalists".

Fox

(not guarding the henhouse)