The House of Waxman

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By Jon Ward THE WASHINGTON TIMES

When the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, headline writers had a field day with the bestowal of subpoena power on Henry Waxman, the dogged hound of oversight from California.

"Scariest guy in Washington," said Time magazine's cover story.

"The Waxman Cometh," trumpeted the New Republic.

Those articles hang in the waiting area of Mr. Waxman's office, alongside pictures of the congressman with each of the past five presidents and various other dignitaries.

His placid, even gentle demeanor may not show it, but the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform obviously relishes his pit-bull reputation, which he established as a subcommittee chairman focused on health and the environment from 1979 to 1994.

Since taking over as chairman of one of the most powerful investigative committees on Capitol Hill, the diminutive Democrat from Los Angeles has been the very constant thorn in the Bush administration's side that everyone expected.

Mr. Waxman, 68, said in a recent interview that he simply has restored a sense of fairness to the same oversight committee that Democrats howled about when Republicans used it to issue more than 1,000 subpoenas against the Clinton White House in the 1990s.

"When I became chairman, I was determined to put oversight in a more appropriate and nonpartisan way," he said, seated in his Rayburn Building office.

His esteemed opponents in the Republican Party beg to differ.