Kabuki Bukkake
The Icky, Pointless Confirmation Hearings
First, let me apologize for the icky reference in the title but nothing else quite fits.
Every senator has already decided how they will vote on the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel to run the FBI, and RFK Jr. to head the HHS.
The hearings taking place are nothing more than an opportunity to shout to the rafters, to hep up supporters, to look a certain way before the next election – that goes for nominee supporters as well as the opponents.
But it is the putative opponents that are the most embarrassing, the most disingenuous, the most awful, the most pointless.
Serious questions should be asked of every cabinet nominee, but they are not. Five minutes of yelling platitudes is not the same as provoking a thoughtful response to a real question from the nominee – any nominee, for any job.
So the hearings are mere theater and merely an opportunity for senators to spew their politics all over the nominees.
Kabuki hearings help no one – bukkake hearings repulse everyone. Personally, I’ve watched bits and pieces of the various hearings but have decided that life is to short.
Admittedly, there may be another angle to the vitriol being heaped upon Gabbard, Patel, and Kennedy: they terrify the DC blob.
Gabbard does not support the profitable ForeverWar, no matter where, of the neo-cons and the deep state.
Patel could actually finally end the FBI’s ForeverHistory of being evil and a tool of oppression (used to be lefties, more recently it has been targeting the conservatives/reasonable people.)
And Kennedy – even putting aside the vaccine/covid/food issues - could actually reduce the influence of Big Pharma in the nation by re-instituting the ban on prescription drug advertising (by the way, all of the cable news channels and the broadcast networks would be financially decimated by that decision.)
As to what will happen, it appears now that Patel will get to the Senate floor and then be approved, while Kennedy will most likely – barely - get through as well because of a few realities.
First, Bernie Sanders said publicly (before his most recent expurgations) that he was planning to support Kennedy. Second, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (he’s even richer and whiter than his name sounds) was Kennedy’s roommate in law school. Also, the Whitehouse and Kennedy clans, it seems, have been close for decades.
Second, the vote on the Senate floor calls for a simple majority only, i.e. if some don’t vote, 51 votes may not be needed. In other words, Sheldon and Bernie could simply not bother to show up for the vote, reducing the approval threshold.
While this may not come to pass, the public tends not to remember when a politician does NOT vote – they do when they do. That makes it an easy out.
As noted above, Patel should get to the floor for the vote and then carry it - closely, but he’ll have enough.
Gabbard may be the most difficult. She is independent from the deep state and she will be put in charge of the most important deep state job – director of national intelligence.
The knives are not just out, they’ve been stabbing at her for years because she is someone they actually fear.
The Gabbard vote will show most explicitly the change that has taken place in DC over the past decade or so – it’s the Dems that are the tools of the deep state (when the Republicans funded the deep state, at least they thought they had a modicum of control of it. The Dems merged with the neo-cons and simply say “how high?” when cattle prodded to jump.)
All of that being said, one most never forget Kentucky senator and former chamber leader and decades-long endemic scourge on the fabric of the nation, Crypt McConnell.
Now that he is out of power, he is a joke, a laughingstock, but he still has a vote, as he showed recently by saying “no” to Pete Hegseth.
He did not vote that way because he believes it was the correct vote or the proper vote; he just wanted to remind everyone else he happens to be still alive…and to stick it to Donald trump.
Terrifyingly, Crypt McConnell’s one vote could make all the difference with Gabbard, Patel, and Kennedy. But at least there could be one positive to his possible “no” votes: they will tell the world what China wants.
In the end, the hearings are sound and fury and talking points and media and You Tube quote machines.
And nothing else.
So watching the hearings and getting angry or happy is pointless and a bit soul crushing.
So why bother? They are all done deals. And hopefully they will be the deals that need to be done for America.
PS – Here’s the full MST3K skit from the headline pic above: