Today’s New York Times looks at the battle over the search of Jefferson’s office and brings up some points that are interesting:

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is moving publicly to put his constitutional showdown with the Justice Department in the past, but many on Capitol Hill believe that the bitter confrontation will resonate in the coming months.

Lawmakers and senior officials say Mr. Hastert’s determined challenge to the Justice Department’s court-authorized search of a Congressional office arose as much from frustration at missteps and slights by high-level administration officials as it did from outrage over what he saw as a gross violation of Congressional turf.

He and other Republicans were already upset at the Treasury Department for what they saw as the botched handling of the Dubai ports deal. And they held John D. Negroponte, the national intelligence director, responsible for what they considered the humiliating dismissal of Porter J. Goss, the popular former House member who was forced out as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The F.B.I. demand for access to the Rayburn House Office Building suite of Representative William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat under investigation in a corruption case, was seen as the last straw by Republican leaders worried about holding their majority in the House in the November elections, particularly with President Bush’s flagging popularity.

“We are five months away from an election, and we can’t afford to make high-profile mistakes,” said one senior Republican official who was granted anonymity because he did not want to be identified discussing sensitive party strains. “There is a sense of tension in the air.”

So could we have a Congress that is waking up to the abuse of powers going on in the executive branch? If they are then they really owe the Democrats an apology. The Democrats have been talking about these problems for a long time now and the Republicans have chastised them for it. Well guess what – the left was right and the right was wrong.