SONGS SUNG BLUE: Blue tribe stars said Stefanik was right!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2023

We'd call it a song sung blue: For students of the American discourse—for students of the American project—last Tuesday's hearing with the three college presidents was a series of songs sung blue.

For students of the American discourse, it was also a chance to observe one of the clownish ways our floundering nation conducts its alleged public discourse. Let's start with the way such hearings are run in the House.

As we noted yesterday, the hearing was held by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. For reasons we can't quite begin to explain, the committee include 25 Republicans and only 20 Democrats.

As a measure of basic fairness, the giant committee's web site lets you gaze on color photographs of the red tribe members, while blue tribe members of the committee only get listed by name.

We know—it sounds like that can't be true. But you can see what we've told you right here.

So it goes in this increasingly dysfunctional age of partisan super-excess. And so it went when the committee's chairwoman opened last Tuesday's fact-finding mission with a statement which seemed to show that she felt she already knew the key facts:

FOXX (12/5/23): Before we begin, I’d like to begin with a moment of silence to recognize all the Israelis and others who have been killed, injured, or taken hostage by Hamas terrorists.

Thank you.

Today, each of you will have a chance to answer to and atone for the many specific instances of vitriolic, hate-filled antisemitism on your respective campuses that have denied students the safe learning environment they are due.

For C-Span's videotape of the hearing, you can just click here.

So it went when Chairwoman Foxx (R-NC) opened last Tuesday's hearing. The three college presidents would be given the chance to atone, the magnanimous chairwoman said.

After a raft of opening statements, the questioning finally started, with the giant committee operating under "the five-minute rule." Under that rule, each member of the giant committee would be given five (5) minutes, full stop, to question the three (3) college presidents.

Every member knows two (2) key things about the five-minute rule:

First, it's the dumbest possible way to attempt to elicit real information about this, or about any other, highly important topic. 

Second, the rule exists so each member of the committee can create at least thirty (30) seconds of film to be shown on that evening's 6 o'clock news in the member's home district. 

Thanks to the presence of this rule, a type of Babel is quickly created in most hearings of this type. Here's the way Babel happens:

The dozens of members begin asking questions, or perhaps just making statements, about some individual topic of choice.

This generates a disjointed set of five-minute mini-discussions, many of which can hardly be thought of as actual "discussions" at all.

So it commonly goes as the men and women of the House conduct their important hearing in the world's oldest democracy. In this instance, after the presidents gave their opening statements, the chairwoman stepped in again, this time with a bit of housekeeping:

FOXX: I'll begin the questioning of our witnesses. Before I ask my questions, let me do some housekeeping.

Under committee Rule 9, we will now question witnesses under the five-minute rule. I remind members that I'll strictly enforce the five-minute rule, so members are advised to keep your questions succinct so the witnesses have time to answer. 

Please don't talk for four minutes and then ask the witness a question. 

Please let the witnesses speak! As the day's auto-da-fe proceeded, the rule of thumb for which the chairwoman pleaded was widely observed in the breach.

As is common at such hearings, the witnesses were frequently interrupted as soon as they tried to speak. This was especially true in the case of the Republican congresswoman who would soon be hailed as the star of the day's proceedings.

At any rate, the questioning now began. With this question from Chairwoman Foxx, the real hearing finally began:

FOXX (continuing directly): We've heard from many students that they do not feel safe. You've talked about that in your statements. But the antisemitism we've seen on your campuses didn't come out of nowhere. There are cultures at your institutions that foster it because you have faculty and students who hate Jews and hate Israel and are comfortable apologizing for terror.

How did your campuses get this way? What is it about the way you hire faculty and approve curriculum that's allowing your campuses to be infected by this intellectual and moral rot?

President Gay, I'm going to ask you to give me a brief answer. I also would invite you to follow up with more in writing and we will follow up with you.

So I will go down the line—President Gay, and President Magill and President Kornbluth.

GAY: Thank you, Chairwoman Foxx...

President Gay, when did you stop beating your husband? Please keep your answer brief!

That was the initial question in last Tuesday's search for the truth. In the opening question of the trial, Rep. Foxx claimed that Harvard is infected with "faculty and students who hate Jews...and are comfortable apologizing for terror." 

No specific faculty members were named. We were simply told that they exist. Also, something the Ivy League school was doing had produced this moral rot.

Readers, who are these faculty members and students? Also, how do we know they hate Jews? In five-minute show trials of this type, such details are rarely offered, and so it would be this day.

In fairness, Chairwoman Foxx didn't invent the foolishness of the five-minute rule. Nor did she invent the unmistakable "intellectual rot" which is routinely put on display at such congressional hearings.

For our money, her questioning did little to inform the nation about what may or may not be happening at the three universities in question. That said, the questioning by the giant committee's other members also led to little real information in this very long congressional journey into a very dark night.

Eventually, one red tribe member became the star of the hearing. Within a matter of days, members of various blue tribe elites were saying that she'd actually gotten it right.

With apologies, we were off campus this morning, saddled with hours of medical procedures. This left us unable to perform today as we might have intended.

That said:

It seems to us that Tuesday's hearing was a set of songs sung blue for students of the American project. 

Alas! We saw three members of a blue elite perform in a way which was widely derided. And then, in the days which followed, we saw other blue tribe elites saying that a certain red tribe solon had actually been correct in the line of "questioning" she pursued.

For our money, the blue tribe presidents did in fact perform remarkably poorly. This provides a chance for us blue tribals to see the shortcomings of our own tribe—but in our view, the performance by the red tribe solon was substantially worse.

Worst of all? Could that be the blue tribe pundits who said that that she had gotten it right? When we resume tomorrow, that will be where we'll start.

Politically, this was a song sung blue as the nation's hard-charging red tribe scored a major political win. In our view, this was also a song sung blue as members of our own blue tribe got to see the lack of elementary moral and intellectual skill which does in fact routinely infest our own self-impressed tribe.

In line with the ways of the five-minute rule, a highly disjointed pseudo-discussion unfolded in the House last week. Eventually, one member, Rep. Stefanik, stepped in and provided a focus.

When Rep. Stefanik did that, blue tribe stars swallowed the bait.

We liberals! We love to laugh at the red tribe's rubes! Tomorrow, let's take a look at the red tribe member our blue stars decided to praise.

Tomorrow: Who is Elise Stefanik?