House Intelligence Committee Chair Selected; World Exhales

After weeks of almost entirely fact-free media speculation on who will chair the House Intelligence Committee come January (egged on Alcee Hasting's camp, then spun by pundits to frame it badly for Pelosi because they just need something to discuss), the soon-to-be-Speaker has made her actual selection. Thus concludes what is sure to be the first in a series of ridiculous overblown Democratic non-scandals emanating from the GOP noise machine over the next two years. Once again the pundits were ridiciously off the mark-

AP: Aides: Reyes to chair Intelligence panel

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has chosen a Border-Patrol-agent-turned-congressman to lead the House Intelligence Committee, according to congressional aides.

Democratic leaders are contacting congressional and other political officials to tell them Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, will be the new chairman of the committee when Democrats take over in January...

...Under Democratic control, his committee is expected to conduct more public oversight of some of the most difficult issues facing the United States, including terrorism, Iraq and government surveillance. Given the committee's inherently secret nature, much of the work will have to be done behind closed doors.

In an interview this month, Reyes said he will insist on more information about the Bush administration's most classified programs and how they are working. The Republicans, he said, have made a habit of rubber-stamping those programs....

Sounds good to me. And all this talk of oversight (kind of, you know, the function of the committee) is the main reason why Rep. Pelosi decided not to re-appoint Jane Harman as chair. As ranking Democrat, Harman has shown depressingly little interest in finding out what the hell is going on (on warrantless wiretapping, on the war, on Bush's other less-than-legal war on terror activities). It was a ridiciously relaxed, 'benefit of the doubt' attitude to matters of great seriousness. Hopefully Rep. Reyes is a little more curious about these things.

And media, next time will you get the facts before reporting a story? You won't? Oh darn.

[PS- Justin Rood at TPMmuckraker runs through the list of the many lawsuits and congressional probes set to (hopefully) reveal the truth about the President's warrantless spying program.

Ohh, and if someone wants to do something about how we treat terrorism suspects, that'd be great too.]