Posted on 05/05/2014 2:23:50 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Lot o strategizin happening today vis-a-vis the committee, and not just on the GOP side. Greg Sargent hears from a source on the Hill that Pelosi and company are trying to decide whether to boycott.
A House Dem leadership aide points out that there is precedent for such a boycott. Back in 2005, House Dem leaders declined to participate in GOP hearings into what went wrong with the Bush administrations response to the Katrina disaster, arguing that Republicans had set up the committee in a way that ensured it would not conduct a serious probe into what happened.
The House Dem leadership aide notes that Dems are looking at their 2005 response as a possible model on how to respond to the new Benghazi committee, though no decisions have been made.
There is deep concern in the Caucus that participation in this sham committee, like the 2005 Katrina committee, would serve to legitimize what has and by all signs will continue to be a political operation, the Dem leadership aide tells me.
Steny Hoyer told Politico today that they havent decided what to do yet. I made the case for why boycotting is smart-ish in the last post; if your goal is to delegitimize the proceedings, theres no clearer way to make that point (especially to your friends in the media, who undoubtedly share your contempt for this) than to skip it entirely. The counterargument is that the average low-information voter watching soundbites of the days hearings at 10 p.m. on cable either wont know or wont care about the boycott. All hell know is that Trey Gowdy is pounding the table and seems utterly convinced that theres a cover-up, and that the witness hes grilling seems shifty and nervous. If youre a Dem, maybe its better to have people on the committee pounding the table about what a farce this all is so that the news networks have something for the counterpoint part of the soundbite highlight reel.
What Democrats are really trying to do right now, I think, is calculate the odds that theres something hugely damaging out there that might be uncovered by the committee in other words, the odds that the GOPs been right about Benghazi all along. Looks to me like theyre 90 percent sure that thisll be a nothingburger, but that remaining 10 percent carries a big risk. Namely, if they participate in the committee, spend three weeks screeching that its a sham and an insult to the president, and then a smoking gun turns up, theyll be as humiliated as Obama is. Thats another reason to boycott, to keep their distance not only from a committee that their base finds dubious but to keep their distance from any findings that might truly hurt O. Or would their absence actually backfire by signaling to the public that they didnt care enough to find the truth? Political actors dont like uncertainty and Pelosis dealing with a lot of uncertainty right now.
Exit question for legal eagles: What would it mean for the White House to not cooperate with the committee? I assume that means claiming executive privilege over documents that Gowdy wants, which has worked so far in other contexts to hinder GOP investigations but would look awfully shady in this case, especially with the White House bleating that this is all much ado about nothing. Would they, or could they, refuse to send witnesses too? Even Kerry and Hillary routinely appear/appeared before Congress. Itd look suspicious if the key players suddenly clammed up now.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Richard Nixon had the press beating the drums every day. He did not and could not avoid cooperation with the Democrat committees that investigated his administration for Watergate.
Today’s Obama/Democrat scammers-liars have the press in their back pocket so can finesses cooperation with House select (Republican) committees
You would think the regime would welcome this. They only have obstruct 1 investigation instead of 6.
At every turn and in every way this has been a lawless regime.
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