Because of Congressional Oversight, F.A.A. is finally getting around to making sure airlines are complying with safety.

For some reason, it appears that the U.S. airlines didn't feel compelled to follow safety guidelines for the past few years. The F.A.A. didn't seem too concerned, until recently. It really is hard to grasp just how little concern the Bush administration has for the safety of Americans. Bush was aided and abetted by the GOP-led Congress that never provided oversight:

Air travelers, whose plans have already been disrupted by thousands of canceled flights recently, may face continued chaos in coming weeks as the Federal Aviation Administration and the airlines expand their scrutiny of passenger planes.

The groundings at airlines like American, Alaska, Delta and Southwest resulted from a broader round of inspections, ordered by the F.A.A., to determine whether the airlines have complied with past directives to check airplane structures, wires, electronics and other components.

A second wave of audits began on March 30 and will continue through June 30. Laura J. Brown, a spokeswoman for the F.A.A., said it could not rule out further groundings. “We don’t know,” she said. “We find what we find.”

That will do little to reassure travelers, who face difficulties switching to other flights because planes are generally flying full on popular routes.

The agency turned up new problems Monday, when nine MD-80 jets operated by American failed an F.A.A. check, prompting American to ground 300 planes. American canceled more than 1,000 flights on Wednesday, on top of 430 cancellations on Tuesday, while its fleet of MD-80s was inspected. American expects 900 cancellations Thursday, and the problem could spill over to Friday.

If Bush and Congress had been doing their jobs for the past seven years, we wouldn't be in this situation and travelers wouldn't be facing delays. It's another price paid by the American people. And, isn't it frightening that the only reason the F.A.A. is doing its job now is because of congressional oversight?

It is going to take a very long time for the U.S. to recover from the damage done by the Bush administration. A very long time. We really can't afford four more years of the same thing.