Does the Fear of Legislation Suggests Lack of Commitment?

To those who agree that congressional Democrats should simply trust the Obama administration to spend the bailout money more responsibly, and not legislate better oversight measures, note Markos's really important point [1]:

One more note to the "we should trust Obama" crowd -- Republicans went into the Bush presidency willing to give their president all sorts of deference and leeway, and the end result was a presidency that didn't just destroy the county, but also their party. If Obama can be trusted to do the right thing, and I'm hoping for the best, then there's no reason he should mind accountability provisions written into the release of the second half of the TARP funds. Rather than just give verbal promises to key legislators like Dodd, Obama should have no problem writing them down on paper and seeing them pass Congress, right? Because if he does have a problem with codifying his promises, perhaps he's not that committed to them. (emphasis added)

He's exactly right: If the incoming administration is willing to put its promises in writing, and says those promises are ironclad, why would the administration - and congressional Democrats - then be opposed to legislating those promises into law?

This is why, for instance, I pushed Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) [2] to follow up on his efforts to exact bailout commitments from the administration with concrete legislation - because if the imperial presidency has taught us anything over the last 30 years, it is that we need a Congress that fulfills its most minimal constitutional role of oversight.

"I'm willing to accept [the administration's] word" is not a substitute for the legislative branch of the United States government. If we should just "accept their word," why, pray tell, do we even have a Congress? What are all those millions of dollars we spend funding the salaries of congresspeople and their staffs if all the legislative branch does is delegate its responsibilities to the president?