Beyond All Repair?

Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the prosecutor who was investigating Watergate.

To make sure that never happened again, Congress wrote a new law in 1978, creating independent counsels appointed by a panel of judges to investigate high-level wrongdoing.

There have been 20 of them since. Some have been successful and some have not, reports CBS Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer.

Lawrence Walsh turned up secret arms sales to Iran.

Donald Smaltz spent $17 million investigating former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, but couldn't convince a jury Espy did anything wrong.

Republicans never really liked the concept. Kenneth Starr's seemingly endless investigation of the president soured Democrats, too.

That united critics who said the law created a monster: prosecutors with unlimited budgets and no checks and balances.

So when the Senate opened hearings on whether the law should be renewed when it expires later this year, it was clear this was one law with few friends.

Former Sen. Howard Baker said it needed fixing, but he didn't know how.

"We ought to write on a clean slate. We ought to cool off, let some time go by" before deciding how to proceed, Baker said.

Former Attorney General Griffin Bell said it was beyond repair.

"I long ago concluded the statute is unworkable," Bell said.

That is what many Republicans and Democrats have come to believe.

In 1994, the president campaigned for the law to be renewed. On Tuesday, the White House was saying it was a good idea to put the law through a thorough review, CBS News Correspondent Jonathan Freed reports.

Senator and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson said Attorney General Janet Reno and possibly Starr are expected to testify about the law as soon as mid-March.

Sen. Thad Cochran said, "I'm leaning toward the position that some have already taken in public and that's just to let the thing die."

"I think it's time to let the independent counsel statute die the ignominious death it so richly deserves," said Sen. Max Cleland.

That is the growing feeling here, that Congress will let the independent counsel law die at midyear, making Kenneth Starr not only the most controversial of all the independent counsels, but the last one as well.