Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Gone Fishin'

Today's fishing expedition, at the expense of the American taxpayer, involved the House Judiciary Committee's testimony by Monica Goodling, former Justice Department liaison to the White House. To say it was a huge disappointment to the foaming at the mouth Dems would be an understatement. What I watched on C-SPAN was quite a theatrical experience.

The best part of the experience? No dressing up, finding a parking spot or sitting in a semi-uncomfortable seat for any given length of time. I could switch the channel whenever it just got to be too darn silly.

Chairman John Conyers, welding the gavel with a not too shaky hand for a man of his age, kept the testimony and questioning moving along fairly well. One glitch did happen when he left the room and the chair was occupied by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, our own state's and my city's version of a crazy black woman sent to the nation's capitol. She was completely unable to follow protocol, much less keep everyone on track. The rookie congressmen, the last to question Ms. Goodling, looked like buffoons on the left side of the room and I was enjoying that a bit. They all gave over their questioning time to one who they thought would really get to the bottom of things. They thought for sure they had a brilliant line of questioning going on and didn't want to disrupt it. Seriously, they all but broke out into group high fives at the end of their time. And Keith Ellison from Minnesota, the shining star of the recent election, the first Muslim elected to Congress? Wow. What a pompous ass he is, aggressive and rude in questioning. Apparently not a team player either. He kept his questioning time to himself. Everyone else on the left side kept it all businesslike and civil, polite but firm like professionals. Except him.

She was the ant at the picnic from the get go, though, when in her opening statement she stated that she had never spoken to Karl Rove or Harriet Miers. Much disappointment all around.

Those on the left, now conducting no less than 36 active 'investigations' into administration goings-on, are determined to lynch Karl Rove. Having failed to impeach Bush, Cheney or anyone major in the elected field, they are on a hunt for Karl. When the Plame non-controversy proved to be just that, they moved on to this next non-controversy with vigor. Problem is that absolutely nothing illegal has been uncovered, as is even verified by the Dems on this committee.

Political appointments are, cover your ears, political. The president is the only person with an opinion that counts on this matter. Shocking, I know. No one batted an eye when a letter from Sen. Diane Feinstein was found in the file of Carol Lam from the 9th district, expressing her disappointment over some immigration prosecutions. Yet, when two Republicans questioned the workings of a U.S. Attorney out of the southwest, well, they are meddling and it must be unethical and illegal.

The hypocrisy of Feinstein coming to the aid of Lam when she was fired, feigning outrage over the injustice of Lam's firing is priceless.

The Attorney General is not a particularly bright bulb. He, however, doesn't deserve this kind of treatment from the haters. If the President thinks he serves him well, then that's that. Those bellyaching about the whole blind loyality thing should think back to some previous administrations like JFK appointing Bobby Kennedy as his Attorney General. His brother. The haters are determined to hang someone at any cost. Bush Derangement Syndrome is at a fevered pitch in D.C.

Ms. Goodling was a huge disappointment.

4 comments:

Paul is a Hermit said...

Ms. Goodling was a huge disappointment.

You know, she was born and raised in York County and is, hopefully, not representative in that regard.

Given the committee leadership, she was smart to get immunity as would anyone called before those grand-standers.
For the life of me I can't see how the dismissal of a few, held up against the dismissal of 93 or, for that matter, the whole travel office means so much to our brave, new media watchdogs.
Aren't they something?

Anonymous said...

Political appointments are, cover your ears, political.

On both sides of the aisle, if I'm not mistaken. Although you'd never know that what's good for one party is good for the other the way they go at it over the exact same things - contextually - with slightly different details, year after year after stinkin' election year.

I'm pretty sure Clintonites used that same line in defense of their own not so long ago.

I hate politics.

Sincerely.

I love government. I love democracy in action. But I really, really, really hate politics. All it's good for is turning people into finger pointing blitherers, as far as I can tell.

Anonymous said...

Sorry. Didn't mean for that to sound nasty in any way. It was intended to sound oh-so-world-weary. ;-)

Anonymous said...

You are so right Jennifer. Plus, it splits up families when people take opposite viewpoints!