Congressional Committes
Watching this morning’s House hearing on the lackluster debut of the Obamacare web site, I am left wondering why we bother having these hearings, at least on TV. The spectacle seems designed to give the committee maximum exposure and the truth minimum exposure.
Each panel member is allotted 5 minutes to ask questions, then the next panel member asks hers. This is repeated until every member exhausts his 5 minutes of fame. Then they go around again. This circle jerk provides abundant time to start many lines of inquiry but explore none of them in depth. You watch. You learn nothing.
Since no member has time to explore his line of inquiry to its fruitful end, as often as not he spends his precious minutes pontificating on the pros or cons of some program -- in this case Obamacare -- or skewering either a fellow congressman for having the audacity to belong to the other side or the summoned witness for being a subhuman varmint, who doesn’t bath but feeds his family by pilfering the abundance produced by others, usually the taxpaying public.
There are few things less dignified than watching two congressmen engage in a temper tantrum shout out, but one of them is when an inquisitor turns his wrath on the poor dude sitting 10 feet in front and 10 feet below him. There is nothing quite as unattractive as watching a bully yell and scream and threaten a captive victim, except maybe when the victim is you.
If you are subpoenaed, you must appear before the committee and answer all questions or risk being prosecuted for failing to comply. And if one of your inquisitors should decide to wax hatefully by slandering you with invective, you must submit. No protest is allowed, and they can’t be sued. Think about what it must be like sitting in front of these committee members answering questions the best you can, when wham! one of them tees off on you accusing you in front of your children, neighbors, community, and the world of everything except maybe rape, and you have to sit there and take it. No attorney to object in your defense. You might as well be sitting with hands and legs tied to chair with mouth gagged.
No judge would permit such treatment of a witness, but congress does. I suppose congress needs subpoena power to perform oversight, but it doesn’t need TV, so we shouldn’t permit it. TV does strange things to the best of us, so the allure is too much for a congressmen, being the politicians they are, to trust them with such power. To them its a valuable, free campaign opportunity.
Right now, the whole show looks too much like a kangaroo court to be dignified. Leave such hearings to the banana republics. Let’s conduct our hearings behind closed doors. We can always read transcripts later.
Each panel member is allotted 5 minutes to ask questions, then the next panel member asks hers. This is repeated until every member exhausts his 5 minutes of fame. Then they go around again. This circle jerk provides abundant time to start many lines of inquiry but explore none of them in depth. You watch. You learn nothing.
Since no member has time to explore his line of inquiry to its fruitful end, as often as not he spends his precious minutes pontificating on the pros or cons of some program -- in this case Obamacare -- or skewering either a fellow congressman for having the audacity to belong to the other side or the summoned witness for being a subhuman varmint, who doesn’t bath but feeds his family by pilfering the abundance produced by others, usually the taxpaying public.
There are few things less dignified than watching two congressmen engage in a temper tantrum shout out, but one of them is when an inquisitor turns his wrath on the poor dude sitting 10 feet in front and 10 feet below him. There is nothing quite as unattractive as watching a bully yell and scream and threaten a captive victim, except maybe when the victim is you.
If you are subpoenaed, you must appear before the committee and answer all questions or risk being prosecuted for failing to comply. And if one of your inquisitors should decide to wax hatefully by slandering you with invective, you must submit. No protest is allowed, and they can’t be sued. Think about what it must be like sitting in front of these committee members answering questions the best you can, when wham! one of them tees off on you accusing you in front of your children, neighbors, community, and the world of everything except maybe rape, and you have to sit there and take it. No attorney to object in your defense. You might as well be sitting with hands and legs tied to chair with mouth gagged.
No judge would permit such treatment of a witness, but congress does. I suppose congress needs subpoena power to perform oversight, but it doesn’t need TV, so we shouldn’t permit it. TV does strange things to the best of us, so the allure is too much for a congressmen, being the politicians they are, to trust them with such power. To them its a valuable, free campaign opportunity.
Right now, the whole show looks too much like a kangaroo court to be dignified. Leave such hearings to the banana republics. Let’s conduct our hearings behind closed doors. We can always read transcripts later.
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