With Issa Leading, Oversight Panel Eagerly Begins Its Work

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WASHINGTON — If Representative Darrell E. Issa, Republican of California, gets his wish, he will have only two years to serve as a chief tormenter of the Obama administration. So he was understandably eager to get started on Wednesday with his first hearing as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

In jumping into the complex issue of bank bailouts, the committee provided an object lesson in the flexibility of words, showing that statements on complex matters like how to resolve a financial crisis can often be open to competing interpretations.

Mr. Issa began the hearing on “bailouts and the foreclosure crisis” by suggesting that the financial institutions that grew even larger during the crisis might be encouraged to break themselves up so that they would not find themselves, during a future crisis, in need of a bailout.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/us/politics/27issa.html