mr. speaker , i want to address the house on this subject that is before us today .  i have served in the congress for 30 years , the first 19 in the majority , the last 11 in the minority , so i have seen life from both sides .  and let me tell you , today is one of the low moments .  we have just experienced a national tragedy that has caused immeasurable pain to countless americans , and yet here in the house of representatives , nothing seems to have changed .  the house is not rising above raw partisanship even in a time of national tragedy .  republicans are saying , well , we should just trust them because they have created something they are calling bipartisan .  well , the right way to create something that is bipartisan is for the two parties to talk .  instead , the republicans met among themselves without talking to the democrats and have proposed this select committee on a take-it-or-leave-it basis .  the majority can not define bipartisanship for the minority .  the majority has to make the real effort and be willing to do some work , maybe hard work with the minority to achieve bipartisanship .  well , why are we suspicious ?  they did not talk to us .  the committees in the house and the senate that have oversight jurisdiction were starting to hold hearings and suddenly the republican leadership said , well , we are going to have a house-senate committee .  and suddenly it is not a house-senate committee ; it is a select committee .  well , look at the record how republicans have done oversight .  have we really looked at how the white house used the intelligence , as faulty as it was , that was the basis for going to war in iraq ?  no , we have not had hearings on that .  we have not looked at that .  has the house looked at the question of the outing of a cia agent by people in the white house in order to punish her husband who was critical of the iraq war ?  no , no hearings on that .  the actuary working for this administration withheld from congress on the costs of the medicare prescription drug bill .  should we not try to find out what happened ?  both republicans and democrats were denied the facts before we voted on the bill .  no , nothing on that .  we had more hearings when the republicans were in charge and there was a democratic administration on whether president clinton misused his christmas card list for political purposes .  that meant 7 or 8 days of hearings .  but we can not get hearings on these important subjects .  and now we are told there is a bipartisan committee , a select committee , that is going to look into this matter .  well , if you really wanted bipartisanship , i say to my republican friends who run the house , you need to at least talk to the democrats and make an effort .  but when you do not make an effort and you have a record of abusing the power that you have in running this institution and ignoring the oversight responsibilities on really important matters in order to protect a republican administration from possible embarrassment , we have no confidence whatsoever that we are going to get to the facts of what went wrong in dealing with hurricane katrina .  we need to rise above this raw partisanship and join together , if not on an independent commission which i think makes the most sense , at least on a committee that is equally divided , with the powers equally divided , where the intent is to work together .  but we looked at what is being proposed , and the only conclusion that many of us can reach is that this is going to be a committee to pretend to do an investigation but not find out the truth .  