'Witch Hunter in Chief'

How good is Congressman Henry Waxman's investigative staff on the House Committee on Oversight? Pretty good, most agree. But pretty careless as well. The Wall Street Journal recently blew the whistle on a Waxman witness whose reliability is a big question, considering his convictions on forgery, burglary and welfare fraud.

Lt. Col. Oliver North, the highly decorated retired Marine who is now with Fox News, penned a scathing broadside against Congressman Henry Waxman, the California Democrat leading the fight to bring down the private security company that saves the lives of our diplomats every day in Iraq. North's column appeared in the September 28 edition of RealClearPolitics.com.

Commenting on Waxman's upcoming October 2 hearing to pillory Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, North (pictured) notes the congressman's sloppy and sensationalistic style of "investigating." In a July hearing on abuses in the construction of the new US Embassy in Baghdad, Waxman invited a supposed witness, Rory Mayberry, to testify that American contractors were using kidnapped Filipino workers as slaves.

According to North: "At the time, Mayberry was described as a whistle-blower who had courageously come forward to describe how unwilling Filipinos were dragooned into building our diplomatic mission. All the major news networks covered his shocking 'revelations.' But this week, The Wall Street Journal's 'Washington Wire' revealed that the committee's star witness 'has a string of convictions going back to the mid-1980s, including two for forgery, one for burglary and a fourth for welfare fraud.' So much for good staff work."

Let's see what Waxman comes up with this week.