The January 6 terrorist attack instigated by you know who
News headlines right now are proclaiming what has been obvious all along: that Congressional Republicans are desperately trying to block the creation of a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the deadly January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. Given that the proposed commission would be created by legislation, and the Republican U.S. Senate minority can therefore filibuster such legislation, the commission is probably not going to happen. But who says there has to be a “bipartisan” commission regarding the January 6 attacks? The Democratic majorities of both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives have a perfectly good alternative:
The alternative that Senate and House Democrats have, of course, is the power to hold hearings. They should use that power and begin the pivot towards hearings now. Moreover, Democrats would have some very good talking points, along the lines of:
1. We reached out to Republicans to work with them on this matter of national urgency.
2. The Republicans refused to engage.
3. So we’re going to be the grown-ups in the room and act, by holding in-depth, televised hearings.
In such a scenario, the Republicans could hurt and spite themselves by ending up with little or no power to choose witnesses for such hearings, a far cry from the envisioned bipartisan commission, where Republicans likely would have had rough or even precise parity with the Democrats in the number of people on the Congressional panel and the number of witnesses each party got to choose.
It should also be noted that there’s nothing magical about commissions such that one is required instead of hearings in the case of the January 6 terrorist attack. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission, which keeps getting mentioned as a template for what Democrats would like to do here, had plenty of flaws. For example, the sad, false testimony of George W. Bush‘s National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice, is still memorable, where she filibustered each panel member who only had a few minutes for questions, and then said of Bush’s infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing warning that “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”:
It was historical information, based on, uh, old reporting, there was no new threat information, and it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.
It’s shocking that Republicans are politicizing what should be a non-political response to a nationwide tragedy that ranks up there with 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, Republicans seem too personally embroiled in the 1/6 attack — after all, the attack was instigated by Donald Trump in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election results — to be able to investigate what happened and prevent similar future incidents. As a result, Congressional Democrats have the opportunity to be the adults in the room, grab the spotlight, show leadership, address a matter of outmost national importance, and let the Republicans look ridiculous and unpatriotic, all at the same time.
Photo by Mike Licht, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/L3Ai4E
