Puncturing the GOP’s Chinese balloons

For conservative pundits reevaluating their life choices

Watching conservative pundits and consultants reevaluate their life choices in the time of Trump is heartening. It doesn’t mean that the Bill Kristols and Mona Charons and Rick Wilsons won’t rediscover their three-legged roots once MAGA fever inevitably passes, but for now, they provide refreshing clarity about their Late Great Republican Party.

Jennifer Rubin is enjoying seeing the cordyceps-infected in Congress taken down by Democrats. The GOP’s sideshow “hearings” that opened in the House last week are not going as planned. House committees may get C-SPAN coverage, but the forum is not as mine-free fro Republicans as Fox News.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), freshman Rep. Daniel S. Goldman (D-N.Y.) , and Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) are nobody’s props. They came to puncture MAGA Republicans’ Chinese balloons. And did, repeatedly.

If this investigation is nothing more than a baseless fishing expedition for dirt about the civilian child of the President — as today’s hearing has been — then it’s a gross abuse of power for political purposes and a waste of taxpayer dollars. pic.twitter.com/RILiCk78Or

— Rep. Dan Goldman (@RepDanGoldman) February 8, 2023

Rubin writes:

Democrats came to these hearings prepared and focused. They not only eviscerated GOP conspiracy theories but also did a bang-up job exposing Republicans as the ones who have “weaponized” the government.

Perhaps this was inevitable. MAGA conspiracy theories only work in the hermetically sealed universe of right-wing media, where no assumptions are challenged, no hard questions are posed and no complete explanation of a supposed scandal is required. In that realm, a MAGA lawmaker can scream “Hunter Biden!” and be cheered for “owning the Libs.”

Once set loose into the real world, however, the MAGA conspiratorialists find it tough sledding. President Biden has no reason to be concerned about these congressional probes so long as Democrats such as Ocasio-Cortez, Goldman and Raskin are there to embarrass Republicans.

For going on the offense, defending the First Amendment and exposing the vapidness of the GOP’s inquiries, we can say well done, Reps. Goldman, Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez.

Thanks for noticing, Jennifer, that some of us on the left are smart, decent people, and not at all extremist. A belated “Welcome to the party, pal.”