Continuing about the Hearings

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The impressive thing about the Select Committee, really, is not that they did a good job managing the investigation, or even that they are doing a good job presenting the evidence (which in my opinion they are) but that they have put aside their own ambitions to make the presentation more effective, for the good of the nation. The goal of the Democratic members has not been to be on the news (or on my computer feeds).

The majority of the Committee are, of course, Democrats and committed highly partisan Democrats. But the story they are telling is not about Democrats at all—it is, as they have framed it, a story about “normal” Republicans and a MAGA fringe. And so they have given the bulk of the time on screen to Republicans—Committee members Cheney and Kinzinger, of course, and also the witnesses, almost all of whom are Republicans and Republican appointees.

For the first five hearings, Representatives Luria, Murphy and Raskin have remained completely silent. Representatives Lofgren, Schiff and Aguilar have given brief speeches and taken a fair amount of screen time in one hearing each, but have otherwise returned to the background. Even the chair, Bennie Thompson, has kept his opening and closing remarks fairly restrained. Let me put it this way: for each hearing, it has been entirely possible to make an accurate “highlight” reel in no Democrat on the Committee appears at all. And that was a deliberate choice of those Committee members.

And if you’ve never watched a House Committee meeting before… it’s not the usual choice.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

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