When it comes down to pure ornamental cursing, the native American is gifted above the sons of men.
He even staked his claim for the Hereafter. In his notebook, he sought to negotiate the conditions under which he would accept admission to Paradise.
If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not stay there.
All of this came back to me while I was watching the first open hearing of the House Oversight Committee’s impeachment “inquiry” into whatever the hell they’ve dreamed up concerning Hunter Biden, and his uncle, and his father, who is president of the United States. Several linguistic barriers unknown to Roberts Rules were broken. Rep. Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, dropped “bullshit” twice in three sentences. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, waved the famous photo of the stacks of boxes stored in the necessary at Mar-a-Lago, and opined that, “These are our national secrets, and they look like they’re in the shitter to me.” Even Rep. Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, came right up to the edge of the admittedly limited frontier of what Twain called ornamental cursing. Burchett was so disturbed by whatever the hell it is the committee was looking for that he found himself forced to deploy “dadgum” twice. C’mon, Congressman. Go for the gold.
It’s been quite a month of congressional decorum. On Thursday, Senator John Fetterman bowed to the fashion police and showed up in a suit and tie. Fetterman’s regular attire — a hoodie and cargo shorts — had been blessed by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The etiquette police from both parties had conniption fits over this obvious offense against the Senate’s dignity and the dress code was reinstated. The continued offense against the Senate’s dignity that is the presence of Senator Bob Menendez remained in place.
Fetterman dressed up to dress down Menendez, who always wears a suit, perhaps even when he’s busy hiding gold bars in his sock drawer.
Offenses against the dignity of the Senate assumes the existence of something against which one can offend. This is not a consideration in the House of Representatives, which has no dignity worthy of either respect or disrespect. This is a sentiment with which at least half the country agrees because, ever since at least 2010, it has elected increasingly crazy Republican majorities. One hesitates to declare the current bunch to be the nadir of the form, given its unreasoning fealty to the former president*. But if this isn’t the bottom of the barrel, I don’t want to know what’s really living down there.
The committee hearing on Thursday was a perfect bell jar of a House gone mad. First of all, it was completely devoid of what are called “fact witnesses,” people who can tell the committee what specific acts specific people have done at specific times. The panel of witnesses included Michael Gerhardt, a professor from the University of North Carolina, legal hack-for-hire Jonathan Turley, Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant, and Eileen O’Connor, a former assistant attorney-general under the previous Republican Worst President of All Time, George W. Bush.
Things went sideways almost immediately when all three of the witnesses on whom the committee’s Republicans were depending all said that, no, there was no evidence that would warrant impeachment. This sent the next six hours spiraling into the shadowy world of speculation, innuendo, and dark imaginings. And even that didn’t help. The lede on most stories was set in concrete almost immediately — Witnesses Say No Evidence Against President. The rest was all soundbites and auditions for the next open slot on Newsmax
.
It was not a legitimate oversight hearing. It was merely the burlesque of one. The committee’s Democrats, led by Reps. Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin, ran rings around the consistently baffled chairman, Rep. James Comer, Republican of Kentucky. From NBC News:
Comer seemed to acknowledge at the end of the six-hour-plus hearing that Republicans have not yet done so but said that’s because “investigators have been shut down when attempting to explore avenues that to the president,” which is why an impeachment inquiry is necessary, “wherever that evidence leads.” He said the panel would be subpoenaing bank records from Hunter Biden and the president’s brother James “and their affiliated companies.” On Thursday night, the Oversight Committee said Comer issued subpoenas for James Biden, Hunter Biden and his business partner Eric Schwerin, as well as companies associated with them: Owasco P.C., Owasco LLC, Skaneateles, Lion Hall Group, and JBBSR Inc.
This is pure Clinton Rules, updated for the 21st Century. There is always another record, another tape, another bank statement, that will crack the case, whatever the hell the case is supposed to be. Keep dropping those subpoenas and be very careful not to bring in anyone who actually knows anything about the situation ostensibly under inquiry. Comer’s dodge for the lack of actual evidence of impeachable acts by the president is that he’s still looking for it, and that there are bank statements where it might be hiding. This is a hole in the committee’s logic through which you could sail the Nimitz. As such, it was certainly big enough for the Democratic committee members to march through. Late in the afternoon, the carnival midway opened for real.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene once again went spelunking through Hunter Biden’s sexytime, this time displaying partial nudes of a woman she accused the younger Biden of having “trafficked” around the country and summoning up the Mann Act more than any legislative body has heard since they busted Chuck Berry in 1959. Rep. Lauren Boebert made her first appearance in a while on a camera of which she was aware. Turley was trying to explain to her that they had no evidence linking the president to anything his son may or may not have done. She cut him off at that point, raving,
Thank you, Mr. Turley, but it’s time for Joe Biden to stop lying to the American people about his deals. He used intensely complex maneuvers to pocket millions of dollars from our adversaries when he was vice-president and as a candidate to gain the office of President of the United States, and now this committee has uncovered the truth and it is time to impeach this compromised commander-in-chief.
This was wildly unproven, as Raskin attempted to explain at length, only to have Comer cut him off and throw things to another Democrat on the committee. Etiquette, you understand.
Outside experts are predictably appalled by the spectacle. From the Washington Post:
“It seems to me that if I were a doctor and I were examining the body of Congress, I’d say something is going wrong here,” said Philip Bobbitt, an impeachment scholar at Columbia Law School. “When Congress becomes distracted and immobilized, that’s a real crisis for us.” Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia University and co-author of “Impeachment: An American History,” lamented what he called a “troubling” precedent for a generation of lawmakers who have come to view impeachment as another tool of partisan warfare. “Impeachment was in a glass case for a century,” Naftali said. “Now, the House starts an impeachment inquiry because the speaker is trying to hold on to his job.”
And that is the final pie fight in this slapstick exercise. The inquiry exists for two possible reasons: 1) to muddy the waters surrounding the former president* and his 91 criminal charges, and 2) to divert attention from the fact that the government is likely to shut down over the weekend because the Republican majority in the House has become ungovernable. The reasons for the latter predicament were on vivid display in the committee room, too. Reckless insistence on the clearly implausible. So we should give the Old Gentleman the last word on what will surely follow, with increasing lunacy, over the next year or so.
“All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.”
There may not be enough profanity in the language to get us through. |