This account of John Conyers’ make-believe impeachment hearing is pretty funny:
In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe.
They pretended a small conference room was the Judiciary Committee hearing room, draping white linens over folding tables to make them look like witness tables and bringing in cardboard name tags and extra flags to make the whole thing look official.
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) banged a large wooden gavel and got the other lawmakers to call him “Mr. Chairman.” He liked that so much that he started calling himself “the chairman” and spouted other chairmanly phrases, such as “unanimous consent” and “without objection so ordered.” The dress-up game looked realistic enough on C-SPAN, so two dozen more Democrats came downstairs to play along…
The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration “neocons” so “the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.” He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
…but Conyers’ complaints about it are even funnier:
The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats “pretended” a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing.
In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to discredit the entire hearing, Milbank quotes one of the witnesses as making an anti-semitic assertion and further describes anti-semitic literature that was being handed out in the overflow room for the event. First, let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive.
He huffs and puffs like he was a real chairman and not just a Huffington Poster, sad bastard. His fake hearing was held in the basement because he’s not the chairman of a real committee. If his party could win an election, that might change but that hasn’t happened for ten years now. Holding tea parties in the basement isn’t going to change anything.
McGovern, the former CIA analyst; whose tenure
included missing the Yom Kippur War, the Soviet
Invasion of Afghanistan, the Hostage Crisis, among other examples, is a Common Dreams/
Counterpunch contributor, who often provides this type of insight, in my local fish
rap, the Miami Herald, who strives toward the
late colonel Fletcher Prouty’s level of baroque
conspiracism, but Col. Kwatkioski, had been him to it.
His hearing was held where it was because the Republicans – most of them at any rate- still haven’t figured out that lying about sex and lying about war are different because the latter one is worse.
His hearing was held where it was because the Republicans are the majority.
And it doesn’t look like the Democrats can figure out how to regain the majority in the foreseeable future. They have turned into the party of naysayers and harpies. A reasonable party should have done quite well against the bunglings of the Republicans.