Spin Control: Sound and fury at congressional hearings, but signifying what?

As a journalist, I believe the fate of the republic depends, at least in part, on open government. The Founding Fathers may have believed that too, considering there’s a line in the Declaration of Independence that governments derive their power “from the consent of the governed.”

That sentence comes immediately after the enumeration of the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So they must have thought the consent of the governed was pretty important as it’s hard for we the governed to consent if we don’t know what our government is doing.

That said, while the Founders probably envisioned Congress holding public hearings, I doubt that they anticipated the kind of hearings one can access today when one has plenty of time on their hands and C-SPAN on their television.

Both of which I admit I have.

Readers of a certain age may have seen or studied in high school a hearing in the 1950s when Joseph Welch, an attorney for the U.S. Army, essentially cut the knees out from under red-baiting demagogue Joe McCarthy and his baseless claims of communists in the military by demanding, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Younger readers might recall the Watergate hearings in which John Dean talked of “a cancer on the presidency.” Still younger ones might recall Ken Starr’s testimony during the Bill Clinton impeachment hearings.

The memories might generally be of key witnesses being broken down by tough questioning or careless questioners being embarrassed by surprise answers. Some viewers might expect to see more such moments when tuning in.

But memories can be faulty and obscure the fact that most congressional hearings tend to be long, tedious and mostly a chance for political partisans to score points.

They tend to go something like this:

Member of Congress No. 1 (from the president’s party): “Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming today and thank you for the great service you and the president are performing for the great people of this great nation. I want to take this opportunity to enter for the record the following reports from friendly news sources describing the great job you’re doing and the wonderful effects they have had. Would you agree that this is the best your department has ever operated in the history of the republic?”

Witness: “Yes. And thank you for the question.”

Member No. 1: Thank you for your time, and keep up the good work.”

Member of Congress No. 2 (from the other party): “I want to ask just one question, Mr. Secretary, considering that you have repeatedly misled Congress, that you’ve violated your oath of office on multiple occasions and are right now lying through your teeth about the issue which this committee is studying. And that question, which calls for a yes or no answer, is: Are you duplicitous or incompetent?”

Witness: “That’s not a –”

Member No. 2: “Yes or no?”

If the witness is opposed to the president, the yin and yang of partisanship will flip the script.

This can make for interesting television much like MMA fans can find a cage match interesting television. But it’s often not very enlightening for the public or helpful for making policy decisions.

At one hearing last week, a U.S. senator repeatedly badgered the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by suggesting she was lying about a conversation she had with the secretary of health and human services. When she said she wasn’t, the senator said she might want to change her story because a recording of that conversation would prove she was lying. She stuck with her testimony. After he left the hearing he acknowledged there was no such recording.

It reminded me of a conversation I had years ago during a brief assignment in Washington, D.C., at a committee hearing and taking notes while a local member of Congress was speaking. An older, grizzled reporter in the next chair looked at me incredulously and asked “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

Just visiting, I replied, showing my temporary pass.

“Cause you know, nothing really happens at these hearings,” the veteran said. “This is all for show. They work out their differences and make their deals when no one’s watching.”

And this was before the rise of social media, when members of Congress had staff that could slice and splice their performance and put the video online just minutes after their boss stops talking and the member’s reelection committee could take a piece of video, turn it into an appeal for campaign contributions and send it out to a list of regular donors.