{"id":10900,"date":"2007-05-24T12:40:08","date_gmt":"2007-05-24T16:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10900.html"},"modified":"2007-05-24T12:40:08","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T16:40:08","slug":"a-case-study-in-water-carrying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-case-study-in-water-carrying\/","title":{"rendered":"A case study in water-carrying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on the earlier item<\/a> about Monica Goodling’s testimony, I wanted to add a point that’s probably obvious, but worth mentioning anyway: House Judiciary Committee Republicans really embarrassed themselves yesterday.<\/p>\n

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick explained<\/a>, “One Republican congressman after another tenderly thanks her for enduring today’s hearing — as if she’s one of Jerry’s Kids and not a former DoJ official who, by midmorning, has admitted to breaking the law. Her ability to speak in declarative sentences is enough to blow their minds.”<\/p>\n

TNR’s Eve Fairbanks added<\/a>, “[Goodling] even assumed the look of an embarrassed church girl when the House Republicans took their duty to protect and defend her to comic levels. During his questioning, Republican Darrell Issa — who competed with Dan Lungren and James Sensenbrenner for the prince-on-a-white-steed-here-to-rescue-Monica role — bellowed, ‘[Y]ou chose to be non-partisan very often.’ Goodling flushed and smiled a sad little smile.”<\/p>\n

“Chose to be non-partisan”? This was after<\/i> Goodling had explained that she repeatedly “crossed the line” in applying partisan standards to Justice Department employment practices.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans literally gave up on the substance, choosing instead to “create diversions.” As Dana Milbank explained<\/a>, “Rep. Chris Cannon (Utah) opted to read into the record a lengthy editorial comparing Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) to Tony Soprano. Rep. Dan Lundgren (Calif.) delivered a 250-word speech praising his own glorious service as his state’s attorney general.”<\/p>\n

But leave it to Steve King to top them all<\/a>.
\n<\/p>\n

“There not only is no evidence of wrongdoing but there is no allegation of any wrongdoing on your part, ” Rep. Steven King, R-Iowa, told her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Christopher Orr<\/a> set the record straight: “Actually: evidence, allegation, admission<\/a>. But thanks for being on the show, Congressman. We hope you’ll play again.”<\/p>\n

Honestly, some of these GOP lawmakers could be replaced with a crude Right-Wing Congressbot 9000 — programmed to repeat obvious nonsense without reason or context — and no one would notice the difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on the earlier item about Monica Goodling’s testimony, I wanted to add a point that’s probably obvious, but worth mentioning anyway: House Judiciary Committee Republicans really embarrassed themselves yesterday. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick explained, “One Republican congressman after another tenderly thanks her for enduring today’s hearing — as if she’s one of Jerry’s Kids […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}