Make the Jan. 6 hearings memorable for the House committee: Light up their phones
“I am just an old country lawyer.” — Sen. Sam Ervin Jr. (D-N.C.) *
“A cancer growing on the presidency.” — former White House counsel John Dean III
“What did the president know, and when did he know it?” — Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.)
Can hearings still make a difference?
The hottest TV show in the summer of 1973 was the U.S. Senate’s version of the popular quiz show “Truth or Consequences.”
In place of Bob Barker, the host was Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Samuel Ervin Jr. (D-N.C.), who grilled witnesses in his folksy style, quipping, “I am just an old country lawyer, and I don’t know the finer ways to do it. I just have to do it my way.”
Instead of trivia, the participants were asked about their knowledge of the 1972 break-in and phone-bugging at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate office building in D.C.
The televised hearings started out slowly and built an audience. Beatle John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono were among the spectators.
“The Senate Watergate investigation is proving a television-viewing phenomenon,” columnist Jack Anderson wrote. A.C. Nielsen reported that an estimated three out of four of the nation’s homes watched at least part of the hearings. The drama-filled inquiry outdrew popular daytime soap operas. “I watched the Watergate hearings for three days before I realized it wasn’t the ‘Secret Storm,’ ” wrote humor columnist Erma Bombeck.
As the TV references suggest, most of the hearings were during the day (emphasis mine)”
Nixon, at an Aug. 22 news conference, downplayed the hearings as “water under the bridge.” Republican Senate leader Robert J. Dole of Kansas called for closing down the televised inquiry, contending that “the people want the hearings off the screen.” An Ervin spokesman countered that 90 percent of the 14,000 letters the panel had received since Nixon’s news conference favored continuing the inquiry.
Need I remind you of the pressure the panel will get from hostile RW media and Trumpers? They need backup. Supportive feedback matters:
Now, the last Democratic congressman who represented me was a Blue Dog. I know. But still a Democrat (80 percent of the time). Ahead of one important vote, I called his local office, told them what I thought, and asked the office manager how her calls were running.
Right wingers were lighting up the phones. Ten to one conservative-to-liberal, she said with an exasperated sigh, asking, “Where are the Democrats?!”
If your district representative sits on the committee, contact her/him. Or call here:
The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol
Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-7800
Or support the committee via FB message: https://www.facebook.com/January6thCmte
Today’s lineup:
* Senator Sam’s grandson, Sam J. Ervin IV, is running to keep his seat on North Carolina’s Supreme Court and your help could be critical to fending off Trey Allen, the Republican constitutional originalist trying to unseat him.
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