One of the more peculiar things about the social media era — especially during the Trump presidency — is the snapshot one gets of any sort of congressional hearing:
If you watch a Congressional hearing on TV, you only get to see one hearing, but if you just read Twitter, you get two completely different hearings for the price of one.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 1, 2019
I have been watching this phenomenon for years now and it never ceases to amaze and gall me. What’s galling is that the coverage from the mainstream media becomes even more full of cheerleading for the Democrats during a hearing than it usually is.
Wednesday’s circus by the Senate Judiciary Committee was roundly celebrated by the MSM. The Hill‘s Twitter feed was so full of “rah-rah” one could imagine the site’s social media team wearing skirts and waving pom-poms.
At this point the Democrats are trying to get blood from a rock after not getting what they wanted from the Mueller report. In the Bizarroworld they inhabit, there is still something hiding in the report that will finally, FINALLY prove collusion or that the president is mean to puppies or something.
They are so hopeful of this that they won’t read it to find out.
This was my response to one of the first cheerleader tweets from The Hill (a tweet they’ve since deleted):
Dems will continue to delude themselves that this dog and pony show is accomplishing something as long as MSM continues cheerleading. See how this plays out in the heartland in 2020 https://t.co/IyD1aN0VUE
— SFK (@stephenkruiser) May 1, 2019
Senate Democrats knew going into the hearing that they weren’t going to find anything out but that they would get a lot of favorable publicity from the thoroughly horrible mainstream media no matter what they did.
How fortunate for them that three of the current Democratic presidential hopefuls just happen to be on the judiciary committee. What better than to give them free exposure to remind the frothing base just how Trump-hatey they are?
At first, I thought that I was being cynical. A couple of hours later, The Atlantic posted a review of the proceedings titled “Kamala Harris Sticks the Landing” and I knew that I should have trusted my instincts, however jaded they may be.
Team Democrat 2020 has recently limped into an image problem, especially since the revered Crazy Joe the Wonder Veep entered the race. After months of touting the field’s diversity and fresh faces, this is what they are facing as of the recent polling:
Two white guys with a combined age of 153 are the front-runners for the party of youth and diversity. https://t.co/bCPPTvffd9
— SFK (@stephenkruiser) April 30, 2019
Harris is the one who is probably panicking the most. She entered the race early and enjoyed the majority of the glowing publicity in the early minimal competition days of the soon-to-be-crowded field.
Lately she has been overshadowed by some mayor from Indiana.
That mayor from Indiana didn’t enjoy a two-hour-long fan club session on social media today like the good senator from California did.
Yes, the Democrats are still pressing the Barr/Mueller/Russia nothingburger because having the press focus on that insanity diverts attention from the increasingly more insane policy proposals of their candidates.
The Senate has long been known for ego-driven grandstanding. Hearings rarely accomplish anything other than forcing a tedious airing of talking points on the public and whomever they’ve dragged in for the day’s inquisition. Wednesday’s charade, however, seemed to be a carefully planned in-kind contribution to the campaigns of Kamala Harris and company.
The news cycle has already shifted to the fact that Mayor Pete is on the cover of Time, so the senators who are running for president and not named Bernie Sanders are going to need all the help they can get.
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