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The Mueller hearing is in jeopardy because House Dems are fighting over getting their precious 5 minutes of airtime.
A modest proposal: Give NONE of the House Dem members questioning time.
Give all the time to 1 or 2 committee counsel experts.
That worked wonders in Watergate.
A modest proposal: Give NONE of the House Dem members questioning time.
Give all the time to 1 or 2 committee counsel experts.
That worked wonders in Watergate.
2/ Watergate is the model. When members of Congress had questions for major witnesses or knew that the questions would produce bombshells, they did not keep for themselves the airtime. They wisely assigned questioning to committee counsel & gave them time to probe and follow-up.
3/ Senate counsel Sam Dash (D) & Fred Thompson (R) (yes, that Fred Thompson) asked the most historic questions - b/c they had expertise & time, not grandstanding 5 mintes. Questioning Haldeman, Ehrlichman, @JohnWDean, Butterfield, those hearings were effecitve & more gripping...
4/ Senate staff privately interviewed Alexander Butterfield privately before his testimony summer 1973: Was @JohnWDean right to guess Nixon taped conversations in the Oval Office? Butterfield replied, "I was wondering if someone would ask that. There is tape in the Oval Office."
5/ Butterfield privately told Senate lawyers he had hoped they wouldn't ask about the taping system, but he had decided to divulge its existence if asked a direct question.
Dash & Thompson told the Senators.
(see Aaron Latham, "There is tape in the Oval Office" @NYMag, 6/17/74).
Dash & Thompson told the Senators.
(see Aaron Latham, "There is tape in the Oval Office" @NYMag, 6/17/74).
6/ Here's the instructive moment for today's House Democrats about public service:
These Senators knew the televised questioning of Butterfield would deliver a historic bombshell. And it seems like they didn't even think twice about giving the questions to their staff counsel...
These Senators knew the televised questioning of Butterfield would deliver a historic bombshell. And it seems like they didn't even think twice about giving the questions to their staff counsel...
7/ Counsel Thompson got Butterfield to reveal Oval Office taping in the most explosive moment of the nationally televised hearings. Then counsel Dash asked him who knew about it.
Butterfield replied: “The president.”
Gasps filled the room.
About a year later, Nixon resigned.
Butterfield replied: “The president.”
Gasps filled the room.
About a year later, Nixon resigned.
8/ The House Dems could be remembered as grandstanding egotistical failures when the rotating format inevitably fails yet again when the ball hogs don't even listen to earlier questions. House Dems would be rightly blamed for wasting our time & a big opportunity...
Or...
Or...
9/ Or House Dems could be remembered like the Watergate committees as effective & historic. Dash’s and Thompson’s questions did not make Sen Sam Ervin or Sen Howard Baker look weak. They made them look judicious, public-spirited & more interested in truth than in TV airtime.
10/ Update: it’s resolved now that all the Dems got their special 5 minutes of posturing, er, I mean “questions.”
It’ll be worth this fight when they ask their run-on 3-minute question, Mueller answers with one word, & they have no time to follow up.
It’ll be worth this fight when they ask their run-on 3-minute question, Mueller answers with one word, & they have no time to follow up.
