“There are men of character in the U.S. Congress, both House and Senate. There are women of character, too. But the evidence for ‘character’ needs to be something other than the iteration of the word itself,” writes Marjorie Garber in her book “Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession.”
That is a useful frame for trying to make sense of the dramas that proliferated on Capitol Hill this week as Congress took up multiple nominations to President Joe Biden’s Cabinet and held its first hearing on the January 6 insurrection. As Garber notes, the translation of individual traits into a “national character” most often occurs at “times of stress, as a marker not so much of social progress as of social and cultural anxiety.”
We saw this. Conviction and commitment (and the lack of same), and in darker terms, eccentricity, hypocrisy and excuses made for bad behavior were on full display on the nation’s highest political stage.
Dismissing hypocrisy with a laugh is part of what has left America’s political discourse vulnerable to infiltration by dangerous conspiracy theories, wrote Frida Ghitis, reacting to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson’s remarks during hearings about the violent Capitol riots. He suggested, citing multiple discredited claims, that the day had a “jovial,” “festive” tone and that the assault had been a false-flag operation. As Ghitis pointed out: “That conspiracy theories exist and are spreading is not news, but hearing them uttered by a US senator during an official congressional hearing marks a new low, one that demands we sit up and take notice.” And because tens of millions of Americans “believe the same thing[s]… by uttering that poisonous nonsense from the halls of Congress, Johnson is pumping more fuel into a dangerous fire.”
While no huge new revelations emerged during Tuesday’s testimony about the US Capitol riots, the hearing sharpened the contours of the story, bringing into focus staggering security, defense and leadership failures, Jill Filipovic observed: “There was no shortage of finger-pointing and blame-passing, but one big takeaway was clear: We’ve barely scratched the surface of what happened on one of the most ignominious days in American history.”
Meanwhile, Biden Cabinet nominees Neera Tanden (Office of Management and Budget), Deb Haaland (Interior) and Xavier Becerra (Health and Human Services) came under fierce questioning from Republicans, putting the focus on the need for support from key moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema if they are to be confirmed. In Tanden’s case, the fate of her nomination was in doubt at week’s end. Andrea González-Ramírez, writing for Gen, noted of the nominees, all of whom would be history-making firsts in their positions if confirmed: “I saw a familiar pattern develop. Regardless of their actual record and without even having a chance to discuss it, nominees of color … have been painted as ‘famously partisan’ people with ‘radical’ ideas.” (González-Ramírez, joining a huge portion of the internet, also mentioned the hypocrisy of going after anyone in the Biden administration for “mean” tweets, given the behavior of the previous administration.)
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Going big on relief
Some pandemic-era unemployment benefits are set to expire March 14, and the House kicked into high gear this week to advance the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package—which included a provision to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour from $7.25. On Saturday the House passed the relief bill — and the minimum wage hike, though that will be stripped out in the Senate version after a ruling by the Senate parliamentarian. Colleen Doody wrote in the Washington Post’s…
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