Eric the Blue

Since there’s hardly anything more common, at least from atop a bar stool, or key board connected to a social media site, than the opinion that politicians are universally corrupt, ignorant, and ineffective, I’m going to drop in here a clip of a US senator performing his job well. For context, the Trump administration has nominated the witness, Jeremy Carl, for a position in our State Department sufficiently high up to require Senate confirmation. He therefore appeared the other day before a Senate committee on which Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, is a member. Without any theatrics, Murphy asks straightforward questions–you’d think they would have been anticipated, but apparently not–that elicit one feeble response after another. It takes a couple of minutes to show the world that the guy should not have any job outside of a right-wing think tank. His nomination is still pending, but at least one Republican has announced his intention to vote No.

Can’t help but append a couple of comments. “Food ways,” lol, what is he even talking about?. But my favorite moment might be toward the end when he says, righteously, “I’m a civic nationalist, not a racial nationalist!” Have you ever noticed how all these Big Thinking Bros. have conducted taxonomic labors from which Hercules would shrink? If only the top-line heading above all the categories and subcategories was something other than Dopey Bigot.

With a lot of witnesses, the best way to make them look bad is to give them a chance to talk. Inject yourself enough to preclude a filibuster and to point out when fair questions haven’t been answered. Well done, Sen. Murphy.