Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) are calling for a select (IE special) Senate committee to investigate just what happened with the financial meltdown over the past months.  Although there are, of course, Finance and Banking committees already in place, McCain and Dorgan feel that they are already busy working to find solutions to the problem and thus a separate committee was needed to focus on the how.

Both senators conceded that it would be a bit of an uphill struggle to get the leadership to agree to the proposal especially since it would require other committees to give up some jurisdiction. Given that Senator McCain is involved it is also possible that some on the left would use this proposal to attack the GOP in some way or that others on the right would use it to go after Obama.

Personally I think it is an excellent idea. We need to find out what happened and why. Rhetoric about how this side or that interest group is to blame is fine but there was some very complex financial mechanics going on and we need to get someone to figure out what it was.