On the eve of the second round of public hearings on the January 6th insurrection, I have a few thoughts on my expectations, and on the nature of congressional commissions in general. About the latter, the history of commissions just within my lifetime is a daunting research area. I immediately think first of the Warren Commission, followed by the Turner Commission on the widespread racial upheavals in the same decade, the Rockefeller Commission on Attica, and many others.
As a group, these commissions suggest to me a need for a public face on which to project a broad examination of problems that at their root are insoluble. And thus I look at this current effort as more of the same. It will probably result in a few more indictments of White House officials who (gosh) conspired with the chosen fall guys: The Proud Boys. I’m not calling them patsies. They were all in for the “revolution”. And who knows, perhaps even TFG will need to atone in some legal fashion.
What will not be addressed by this august body is their own participation (at least a hundred of them) in seditious or even treasonous activity. I’m thinking in particular of the Congressional group who sat down in Moscow with Putin to discuss better trade deals on balalaikas (/s), and for that matter the entire topic of the coup of the century, Putin’s getting Trump elected in the first place.
So by all means let’s all boo and hiss at the bad bad scapegoats, the shaman guy, the Proud Boys and all their ilk, and pay no attention to the men behind the curtain playing with their smoke and mirrors. It’ll be great television.