{"id":789,"date":"2021-07-31T10:36:01","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T14:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=789"},"modified":"2021-07-31T10:40:25","modified_gmt":"2021-07-31T14:40:25","slug":"from-the-ottawa-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=789","title":{"rendered":"From the Ottawa Citizen"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my continuing effort to bring news and views of American politics from beyond our borders, I’m printing this piece from my Canadian friend up in Almonte, Ontario. It helps to see how others see our politics.<\/p>\n

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Much to lament in U.S. hearings on Capitol revolt<\/h1>\n
    \n
  • Ottawa Citizen<\/li>\n
  • 30 Jul 2021<\/li>\n
  • ANDREW COHEN Boston Andrew Cohen is a journalist, professor at Carleton University and author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The biggest show in Washington this summer is the House select committee investigating the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6. It opened Tuesday and is expected to have a long run, examining the worst attack on Washington since the War of 1812.
    \nLike any good drama, this one has tension, anger, sorrow and tears. There was much to lament.
    \nThe first witnesses were four law-enforcement officers on duty that day. They recalled what happened when a mob of armed insurrectionists breached security and swaggered through the halls of Congress, rifling offices and making death threats. They were called \u201ctraitor\u201d and worse as they tried to defend the Capitol. They endured physical blows, which they called \u201ctorture.\u201d One is now disabled.
    \nThey told their stories in cinematic detail, with sounds and images as horrifying today as they were seven months ago. Some film came from body cameras worn by these officers.
    \nHere was one trapped in a revolving door, screaming in agony as an assailant attempted to rip off his gas mask. Here was another, fearing he was going to die at the hands of the attackers, pleading, \u201cI have kids.\u201d
    \nTheir testimony took three and a half hours. Like many such committee hearings \u2014 such as those around Donald Trump’s two impeachments \u2014 it was, to a degree, choreographed.
    \nIn the battle for public opinion, this is normal today. Congressional hearings are not political conventions, but they are scripted similarly. Questions and statements are prepared, answers are anticipated, witnesses are chosen to make an impression.
    \nSo the Democrats are mounting a show made for television, which gave this first hearing broad coverage. National Public Radio carried it live \u2014 \u201cin its entirety and vulgarity,\u201d as one announcer declared \u2014 including unedited recordings of the epithets and expletives.
    \nBut if the show was dramatic, it was remarkably free of grandstanding. The hearing had no partisan antics, theatrics and posturing, largely because the committee’s two Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, refused to go there. Like the Democrats, they were respectful, prudent and dignified.
    \nCheney talked about \u201cthe miracle of American democracy\u201d and Kinzinger, shaken and tearful, about the high seriousness of the committee’s work. For this, both are now pariahs in their own party.
    \nBut the real show was the one staged outside by rejectionist Republicans, who want to discredit the committee. Having refused to agree to establish an independent commission of inquiry, such as those that investigated JFK’s assassination or the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, they want no inquiry at all.
    \nOf course they don’t. Republicans know that the riotous crowd \u2014 some 600 of whom have been charged with offences \u2014 were anarchists, nihilists, white supremacists and other deplorables. Many have said under oath they were there because Donald Trump sent them.
    \nThe Republicans, who were outraged in January when the mob wanted to hang vice-president Mike Pence, are now at peace with this. In the true spirit of revisionism, they are returning the political calendar to Year Zero, as if all this didn’t happen. What did occur doesn’t matter.
    \nWhen Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat two Republicans who publicly opposed the establishment of the committee itself, the Republican leadership withdrew its five members. So Pelosi asked the exiled Cheney and Kinzinger to join the committee instead.
    \nMeanwhile, Republicans blame Pelosi for the weaknesses of the Capitol Police (for which she isn’t responsible) and insist that Congress should investigate the urban unrest of 2020, an obvious distraction.
    \nRepublicans are pushing an alternate reality that startled the witnesses: \u201cI feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist \u2014 or that hell actually wasn’t that bad,\u201d complained one officer.
    \nRepublicans do this brazenly and cavalierly. They can’t handle the truth.
    \nNow they have lost the plot and yielded the stage. This show will go on, largely without them, every performance reminding America of what it lost on Jan. 6.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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    In my continuing effort to bring news and views of American politics from beyond our borders, I’m printing this piece from my Canadian friend up in Almonte, Ontario. It helps to see how others see our politics. Much to lament in U.S. hearings on Capitol revolt Ottawa Citizen 30 Jul 2021 ANDREW COHEN Boston Andrew…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-robert-fischer"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the Ottawa Citizen - Potlatch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=789\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From the Ottawa Citizen - Potlatch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In my continuing effort to bring news and views of American politics from beyond our borders, I’m printing this piece from my Canadian friend up in Almonte, Ontario. It helps to see how others see our politics. 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