Irony, Thy Name Is Dan Burton

Listening to the Congressional steroids hearing this morning, I heard one of the best comic bits I've heard in quite some time. Dan Burton is a Republican Congressman from Indiana. If his name sounds familiar, well, Google Dan Burton Vince Foster melon and see what you come up with. Yeah, that guy.

So anyways, he gets his time to question Clemens and Mcnamee and, unlike in baseball, Clemens did not have to face any hardballs. Burton is—to put it mildly—pro-Clemens and decidedly anti-Mcnamee. So most of Burton's time is spent in this rather pointless harangue of Mcnamee that I suppose was meant to be a devastating shredding of Mcnamee's reputation, but really just made Burton look like a fanboy and not really an inquisitor with the slightest interest in a truthful outcome.

But the statement that really made me guffaw went something like this (and when I can get a transcript, I'll update the quote):

I don't believe it's the right thing to have these kinds of hearings, they're just a circus.

This from the man dubbed The Fool on the Hill for his over-the-top theatrics in Congressional hearing rooms, who issued over 1,000 subpoenas in an investigation that spanned years and cost millions of dollars. That guy, he doesn't like the circus.

Barring some dramatic change, I think the Burton investigation is going to be remembered as a case study in how not to do a congressional investigation and as a prime example of investigation as farce.

Probably a Clinton staffer, right? No, that's "Norman Ornstein, a congressional expert for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank."

Yeah, homie's such a spaz that the conservatives think he's a wing-nut.