It is difficult for me to recall but I am almost certain that I did not go to the bathroom during my only visit to the U.S. Capitol some five or six years ago. I feel pretty sure about that fact because I have not yet been investigated by a congressional committee.
I did have something I wrote in a newspaper column once read into the Congressional Record. That was nice. But, no, I have never been grilled by Congress for using the bathroom at the Capitol or anywhere else for that matter.
The reason I bring the matter up is because Congress seems primed for an publicized inquiry anytime they catch someone using the Capitol water closets. Now that is pure hyperbole but I use the statement because large-scale congressional investigations sometimes seem as if they are more often than not disproportionate to the importance of the subject under scrutiny.
Now I certainly believe that an inquiry might be warranted into how the glam couple and perhaps future reality TV stars, the Salahis, allegedly crashed the White House state dinner for the Indian prime minister. However, the fact that the show in Congress seems to be amplified by Republican Rep. Peter King of New York, the ranking opposition member of the Homeland Security Committee, makes it obvious that King might just be more interested in hurting Obama and his staff members than worrying about the safety of the President himself. King now has beat that dead horse to the point that he is willing to hear from the White House social director while she is not under oath or before cameras. It looks as if that reprobate King might have just drilled himself a dry hole. In case you haven’t guessed, I’m not a big fan of Peter King. I think the best description of him remains that from Slate media critic Jack Shafer who called King “an exploding carbuncle masquerading as a member of Congress.”
Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee is busying themselves trying to exploit examine the leak of a sensitive Transportation Security Administration document. The 90-some-odd-page manual on how to screen airline passengers was posted, for awhile, on the Internet. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said “action” has been taken against those responsible. I’m not sure what she meant by that. Perhaps they were made to stand in line at a TSA screening station for 24 hours. Or maybe they were subjected to continual body cavity searches.
A lot of good can come from these congressional inquiries. For instance, learning about chinks (and no, I am not making a racial slur against Chinese people!) in the armor of White House security can help make the Prez’s place more secure. And surely the TSA screening process has room for improvement. They can take me off their “watch list” or whatever it was that caused me to be denied an online boarding pass during my departure from Houston to Memphis in October. This afternoon I have filled out a form to send their redress program so maybe I won’t find myself in a dark little room being manhandled in the nude by two former Russian women wrestlers who now are TSA security people. Or I might just make things worse for myself. One never knows.
Nonetheless, if I was in charge congressional inquiries would help improve matters rather than used as a platform to bludgeon political foes. Or else, if I was in change, I might be out on a big yatch somewhere fishing. I can’t say. I’m not in charge and likely I will never rise to such a high station.
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