Astonishing
Just in case you were worried that Republicans in Congress might try to muscle through the renewal of the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, and ignore the many saner voices from all over the political spectrum that are pointing to problems, well...you were right.
In an astonishing move in a hearing this morning, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner, tired of listening to testimony from a representative of Amnesty International and some other groups not fully supportive of the Act he himself helped create, abruptly gavelled the hearing to a close. Since C-SPAN was covering it, there is remarkable video available on the web, allowing us to watch as launches into a speech calling all the testimony irrelevant, and, over the attempts of Democrats to be heard, just shuts the whole thing down, and walks out, followed by the other Republican committee members.
Democrat Nadler of New York can be seen bewildered as he calls for a point of order to object to the closing, and is just ignored. He watches Sensenbrenner's back leaving the room.
Though all the mikes go off and the official record stops after the gavel, the Democrats continue to talk, and ask questions of the witnesses, refusing to let the theatrics stop them, for several more minutes. (After all, it's not like the Republicans were actually listening anyway, right?)
As one of the witnesses then comments, how are we supposed to tell fledgling democracies how to have open debate, and conduct a civil government, when stuff like this is happening in the US Congress?
Forget the flap about what Dean did or didn't say! If this isn't the big story in the news in the next few days, we've really got problems. And if any of those "temperate" Democrats who criticized Dean for his forceful language haven't issued public statements denouncing this soon, we know that the DC wing of the Party is beyond hope. Dean, after all, is just a party operative. Sensenbrenner is actually entrusted with governing the country.
Update: The good Chairman just the other day sent an angry letter to Dean about the Governor's comments on the REAL ID provisions. He wrote: "These attacks are contrary to the passionate - but respectful - political debate the public deserves." And I guess he would know about the respectful political debate the public deserves, huh?
Update 2, 6/11: The Washington Post's Mike Allen reports on the story.
In an astonishing move in a hearing this morning, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner, tired of listening to testimony from a representative of Amnesty International and some other groups not fully supportive of the Act he himself helped create, abruptly gavelled the hearing to a close. Since C-SPAN was covering it, there is remarkable video available on the web, allowing us to watch as launches into a speech calling all the testimony irrelevant, and, over the attempts of Democrats to be heard, just shuts the whole thing down, and walks out, followed by the other Republican committee members.
Democrat Nadler of New York can be seen bewildered as he calls for a point of order to object to the closing, and is just ignored. He watches Sensenbrenner's back leaving the room.
Though all the mikes go off and the official record stops after the gavel, the Democrats continue to talk, and ask questions of the witnesses, refusing to let the theatrics stop them, for several more minutes. (After all, it's not like the Republicans were actually listening anyway, right?)
As one of the witnesses then comments, how are we supposed to tell fledgling democracies how to have open debate, and conduct a civil government, when stuff like this is happening in the US Congress?
Forget the flap about what Dean did or didn't say! If this isn't the big story in the news in the next few days, we've really got problems. And if any of those "temperate" Democrats who criticized Dean for his forceful language haven't issued public statements denouncing this soon, we know that the DC wing of the Party is beyond hope. Dean, after all, is just a party operative. Sensenbrenner is actually entrusted with governing the country.
Update: The good Chairman just the other day sent an angry letter to Dean about the Governor's comments on the REAL ID provisions. He wrote: "These attacks are contrary to the passionate - but respectful - political debate the public deserves." And I guess he would know about the respectful political debate the public deserves, huh?
Update 2, 6/11: The Washington Post's Mike Allen reports on the story.
posted by Paul at 7:21 PM |
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