Yesterday's GOP flop of a House oversight hearing on the Affordable Care Act was an impeccable example of the Peter Principle in play. Even a C- lawyer--whose professional ranks most pols once came from--would know that one never asks a question unless a favorable response is pre-assured. But Wednesday, there sat Republican pols--untrained tea-partiers, timeshare salesmen, carnival barkers and Hayekian hillbillies--hurling questions at health industry executives, and getting cream pies in the face. The hearing was conclusive evidence that in red district after red district, The Virtuous Everyman has promoted his beloved hacks and hucksters beyond their level of competence.
"Republicans struggled to land punches against ObamaCare ... as responses from insurance companies deflated several lines of questioning," reports The Hill. "Republicans were visibly exasperated, as insurers failed to confirm certain claims about ObamaCare," and "Republicans also stumbled in asking insurers to detail next year's premium rates." All in all, a delightful piece to read.
Yet, a great paradox haunts. Just as Republican pols are demonstrating a boundless amateurism in exploiting the scandalous abyss that they insist is Obamacare, it is with infinite professionalism that they're pulling out all the stops on the backup scandal of Benghazi. I suspect they suspected that Obamacare was falling flat as a midterm, base-detonation device; thus their instant hysteria over an innocuous talking-point memo that even a Johnnie Cochran would be too embarrassed to flog.
The paradox is explainable. This Benghazi committee's creation-as-distraction is but the front end of Republicans' core hucksterism-as-slick professionalism. Alas the tactical committee will soon regress to its true self: a struggling, stumbling, exasperated mess of rank amateurism.
Oh goody and wait til they win the senate as well. Gee, it's a good thing there isn't any real work to be done in Washington these days. And from what I've observed, it doesn't look like voters are going to be changing their minds about these yahoos any time soon. I don't get it. People complain that nothing gets done in Washington, then send people there for the exact purpose of doing nothing. We're supposed to be against lazy welfare cheats in this country, yet we vote people into office who live quite handsomely off the dole while sitting around the halls of congress engaging in some glorified version of idle gossip.
Posted by: AnneJ | May 08, 2014 at 09:18 AM