This, this, a thousand times this.
Jim Geraghty of NRO’s Campaign Spot has some very good advice.
Dear Republicans on the House Oversight Committee:
Please do not grandstand. Please do not take the time before the television cameras to tell us how outraged you are, even though what you are investigating is, indeed, outrageous. There will be plenty of time for that after the hearing. All day Wednesday, give us the facts, and then more facts, and then more facts.
Just ask the questions of the witnesses. Let them speak and don’t cut them off. Do not give the Obama administration any cover to claim that this is a partisan witch hunt from unhinged political opponents. Don’t waste time complaining about the media’s lack of interest or coverage so far. Just give them — and us — the facts to tell the story, a story that will leave all of us demanding accountability.
I know that it’s the most tempting thing in the world to perform for an audience. But it is a temptation that absolutely must be resisted. What happened in Benghazi was grim, intolerable, and above all, serious. So don’t be outraged. Be angry. Don’t be histrionic; be relentless. Don’t complain; just sit there, and let the witnesses fill the uncomfortable silences on their own. Simple questions; take notes; refer back; and never forget that people died last year because this administration… well. Let the whistle-blowers themselves tell that story tomorrow about the administration.
And once the testimony is over? Then, by all means, go nuts. The topic deserves a bit of righteous indignation.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
A cold, methodical anger is much, much scarier … to those with the wit to understand what they’re seeing.
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Mew
So what you’re saying, acat, is that none of the administration witnesses tomorrow will have the native wit to be scared if the Oversight GOP members follow Geraghty’s advice.
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All the better. It’s so much more fitting to see such people tie their own nooses with the rope they fashioned themselves, and then suddenly start decrying the “lynch mob” that they made possible.
Still 40 years later, the most effective question in a Congressional hearing is one scribbled on a piece of paper by Fred Thompson & handed to his boss, Sen Howard Baker: “What did the President know & when did he know it”? As a prosecutor, Thompson knew it was the only answer that mattered & anything else was hot aired bloviating.
Is Hillary going under the bus? Would she make a big enough bump to turn it over?
Some of Hillary’s PUMAs are making noises about her running in 2016. I suspect that’s all it is .. noises; sort of a longing for what could have been.
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I’d kind of enjoy watching the Dems explain – again – how Team Clinton were so great, but .. I suspect this is a big enough bump to crush Hill’s chances.
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That said, no .. I don’t think this will modify Obama’s behavior, nor tip the bus over. I do think this, and the 2014 cycle, will nicely further isolate Obama, and force the Dems to choose between him and the rest of the party.
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Mew
Hillary isn’t going under the bus. The central premise of the Democratic Party seems to have become Tribalism. There’s going to be an insulting amount of solidarity.
Well, there would be a certain satisfaction in seeing her abandoned to her fate by her superiors, wouldn’t there? A bit of poetic justice, in lieu of the actual justice of the lot of them doing hard time (which isn’t going to happen).
Do not give the Obama administration any cover to claim that this is a partisan witch hunt from unhinged political opponents.
They should be calm and rational because it’s the right thing to do, not because the Obama administration’s apologists will claim it’s a partisan witch hunt.
That’s because, no matter how the Republicans act, the Obama administration will claim that they’re conducting a partisan witch hunt. And their fluffers in the Accomplice Media will agree with that assessment, and they will ensure that it’s the received wisdom. In fact, they’re already doing it.
No, Herp .. being calm and rational is the exceptional thing to do .. and just how many exceptional politicians do we have in D.C. these days?
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Mew