Driving
I’m not a “podcast” guy, but I get a lot of recommendations. “Have you heard Rachel Maddow’s latest podcast about this?”, or “Your favorite lawyers, Weismann and McQuade have a podcast about…(something)”. My current lifestyle doesn’t have the “situation” where I can sit and listen to someone on headphones. If I do, I usually have a more pressing task – I fall asleep (thanks Dad for the “Dahlman sleep gene”).
I do a lot of driving. During track season, there are trips all over the state, long hours in the Jeep. And the radio is always on, though it’s really not a radio much anymore. It’s a Bluetooth device hooked up to my phone. A couple of years ago I decided to take “courses”; US Constitutional Law, the American Revolution, African American History; as I cruised to the next meet. But there were two problems.
First, I found I drifted away from the course as I bumped along, then had to “rewind” to get back to what I missed. And even more importantly, the “Dahlman Sleep Gene” would kick in. After a long day of officiating pole vault – definitely not a good situation on the road. Better to “boogie” to Motown or 60’s and 70’s Classic Rock (or Surf music at full volume for that drive at the end of May when the Jeep top first comes off).
And every few weeks, Jenn and I travel Ohio gathering Lost Pet Recovery equipment used to get lost dogs. I usually drive as Jenn organizes where our next stop will be (last week: Pataskala to West Liberty to Kenton to Findlay to Greenville to Pataskala, 358 miles). Jenn and I do actually talk, and we also usually have cable news going in the background. Just like it’s going on right now as I write.
Gavel to Gavel
But there is one event I can always listen to, in the car, cutting the grass, even the doing the perpetual picking up of poop (five dogs – you do the math): Congressional Hearings. I listen often enough, that I have the CSPAN Radio App on my phone. That way I don’t have to depend on cable news for “gavel-to-gavel” coverage.
I can tell you exactly where I was when Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the January 6th Committee about what Donald Trump did on the morning of the Insurrection. (I was ten miles south of Archbold, Ohio on Route 66). Yesterday was a “throw-back” to the “old days”. We listened to the Congressional questioning of Chris Wray, the Director of the FBI. It was like the Benghazi hearings (I sat and watched all eleven hours of Hillary Clinton), or the early James Comey hearing. (That was the first time we found out that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign, and got to see Adam Schiff and Jim Jordan in action).
How Republican?
Jenn and I went to Greenville, Ohio (thirty miles northwest of Dayton) to get equipment, and the hearings were on for the whole trip. The big overall headline: Republicans think the FBI is co-opted by Democrats to attack Republicans. So let’s get the obvious out of the way first. The FBI is perhaps the MOST conservative agency in the United States government. It always has been. Remember George Carlin’s famous “Seven Words you Can’t Say on TV” monologue? Carlin represented the “liberal” view of the FBI back then. He told us to answer the phone saying, “F—k Hoover, can I help you?”
And then there’s Chris Wray himself. He was appointed by Donald Trump, and unanimously approved by Republican Senators. He is a life-long Republican who worked in Bush Justice Department. So was the now “infamous” James Comey, the Director before him (and the even more “infamous” Robert Mueller, the Director before Comey). Ask anyone involved with Black Lives Matter, the FBI is no “friend” of Progressives.
But if you listened to Chairman Jordan’s Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, you wouldn’t get that. The Republican members attacked Wray for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, claimed that there were FBI “provocateurs” on the steps of the Capitol during the Insurrection, and that Wray was buying “meta-data” from the big social media companies and censoring what they published. The Republicans attacked Wray for backing Covid precautions, threatening the Roman Catholic Church, and protecting the “Biden Crime Family”. We heard about Hunter’s Laptop and texts, and questions like “Mr. Wray, when did you stop violating the First Amendment?”
Flip the Script
And in a full “flip-the-script” moment, it was the Democrats; Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, Zoe Lofgren, and the profound voice of Sheila Jackson-Lee; who were defending the Trump-appointed Director. They even spent most of their five minute time slot making speeches. It gave Wray a chance to recover from the relentless conspiracy-driven Republican onslaught.
But in the end, Wray gave as good as he got. I think I would have stood up and told the Republicans where to stick Hunter’s laptop, but Wray remained cool. We were on State Route 49 just north of Phillipsburg, when Wray told Republican Congressman Harriet Hageman (took Liz Cheney’s seat): “The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me given my own personal background.”
Chris Wray is a bureaucratic survivor. He somehow managed to avoid getting fired by Donald Trump before he left office. And he manages to remain in the Directorship because of Biden’s goal of restoring “traditional norms” to America’s government. He didn’t take the Republican bait, but he managed to defend the 38,000 employees of the FBI, time and time again. In his own, low key way, he got his point across. When challenged on the Mar-a-Lago search, he quietly said: “In my experience, ballrooms, bathrooms and bedrooms are not SCIF’s (sensitive compartmented, information facilities)”.
Ginning Up
The majority committee members represent what the Republican House of Representatives is all about: defending Donald Trump and perpetuating MAGA conspiracy myths. The accusations against Wray will surely “gin-up” the Republican base, but will do little to change anyone’s mind about MAGA’ism. So it’s hard to see how attacking the FBI is a good long-term strategy.
But one thing for sure – it keeps me awake behind the wheel. And that’s an all-around good thing, for me, and the rest of the drivers out there. I’m holding my breath for the “whistle-blower” hearings!! We’ll plan a nice long trip for that one.
