6 Things I Saw in Cecile Richard’s Testimony Before Congress

I watched several hours of Cecile Richards’ testimony before Congress last night.

Here are six take-aways that pro life people need to understand.

1. When a grown man, who is a member of Congress, begins a Congressional hearing by making random statements about his family members’ health in order  to “prove” his own sincere intentions, and then this guy cries on cue, he’s acting. Either that, or he’s crazy. Or both. American politics has become wacko. The men get on the mic and blubber to prove how sincere they are, and the women dare not shed a tear for fear of being labeled emotional girls. I wouldn’t trust any man, of either party, who behaves like that.

2. These hearings are not about defunding Planned Parenthood. They are partly about the upcoming 2016 elections, but they are mostly about how much the members of Congress hate one another. The committee members I watched were so full of mutual hatred and spite that they could not conduct a public hearing on a serious matter without constantly ramming verbal sticks in each other’s eyes. They hate each other.

3. Speaker Boehner was kicked out of the Speaker’s office by members of his own party. The Ds on the committee, who hate the Rs just as much as the Rs hate them, made that clear. That violates every bit of the legislative courtesy that allows people of differing backgrounds and ideas to come together in Congress and govern this nation. The Ds, as we say here in Okieland, “talked out of school.” They publicly proclaimed inside goings-on, and they did it in a Congressional hearing. They said it, and the Rs didn’t argue. It was true.

4. Congress does not have to “prove” anything to defund Planned Parenthood. They can fund — or defund — Planned Parenthood if they want. I know and understand the legislative hoops they have to jump through to achieve this, and I know it would be a tough boogie to get it done the way things are configured right now. I also, after watching them in action, question whether our pro life advocates in Congress possess the legislative skill to get it done. But it is possible. Or it would be if members of Congress cared as much about governance as they do their mutual hatred. These people aren’t going to reason together to find a way to govern, much less defund Planned Parenthood. I think they’d let the whole country go down the tubes, rather than work together.

5. I had originally thought that these hearings would be a dog and pony show, aimed at the next election. But from what I saw, the inmates are in charge of the asylum in the United States House of Representatives. What I witnessed wasn’t a hearing, and it wasn’t a dog and pony show. It was a bull and bear baiting contest, a real blood fight. These people couldn’t agree on what to order for lunch, much less how to govern this country.  They are — all of them — narcissists in the grip of their own narcissistic rage.

6. I said this is a bull and bear baiting contest, a blood fight. Let’s be clear about what that means. I am talking about real blood. The blood of the unborn. The blood of the American people. The blood of women and children. From what I saw, there is no hope — zero — that Congress is going to function for quite a while. They are in the throes of a Speaker’s race of some unruly sort, and Speaker’s races are usually ugly and divisive beasts. A faction of the Republican caucus just did a coup on a sitting Speaker. Now, the whole caucus is fighting over who will be next to sit in that office. This isn’t about the unborn or the common good. It’s about committee chairmanships and such. It’s about power. We have a Republican caucus that is in disarray and at war with itself. We have Rs and Ds who hate one another to the point of visible pathology. That sounds like all the wheels have come off the wagon in the House of Representatives. That buggy won’t roll.

I think We the People need to consider how much of this behavior we are willing to allow. We can pull the plug on these people. We can also, if we demand it, make them sit up straight, eat their vegetables and play nice with one another. We can do that because We the People, and our power of the vote, always has the real last word with Congress.