Congress Studies Lost Art Of Oversight

Consider the U.S. attorneys  investigation the tip of the iceberg: With more than a dozen probes launched in its first 100 days, Congress is ramping up to reclaim its role as a watchdog over the executive branch, the Christian Science Monitor reports, honing skills that haven't been in demand in the capital for over a decade.

Lawmakers are furiously hiring lawyers and investigators, and creating new subcommittees. "There's a whole culture of effective oversight, which the Congress carried out in the 1970s up through the early 1990s, that has been very much lost, and there's a lot of effort now going on to rebuild skills," says Charles Tiefer, a law professor and former deputy House counsel. (More Congress stories.)