$174,000 a YEAR! I need this job...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg&feature=player_embedded

You guys gotta watch this. Unbelievable.

Reminds me of this.

Just posted that link in my thread about RoHS.

Tip over and capsize . . . . . .f@@ki'n hell . . . ..



   

Can someone help me here? So, who is making $174,000 a year? The not so well prepared gentleman or the concise answering service man in uniform? (Never thought writing that about a man in a uniform)
;D

I think he's being quietly sarcastic...uh...because he doesn't like idea.

Either that, or he needs a new job.

I've seen him on C-SPAN a few times on committees. He comes across as bumbling. He's not. He has a very dry sense of humor and I think the act is meant to disarm those he's grilling.

The congressman is making that salary. Even without the tip over comment, he doesn't come across as too with it!

Gold said:

I've seen him on C-SPAN a few times on committees. He comes across as bumbling. He's not. He has a very dry sense of humor and I think the act is meant to disarm those he's grilling.

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I have to agree...  After watching some addition footage, I'd say that he follows the plot quite well. He uses anti-intellectual depth charges to sound out the enemy.  Dumb bombs tossed from the row boat he's quietly slipping across enemy lines   

$174,000? No one is doing that job for the money  :

He's either very clever and pretending to be stupid for effect, or he is indeed very stupid !!

Either way, he comes across badly and I can see people "chuckling" in the background.

That's an odd way to conduct an investigation.

clever bastard. think about the amount of times he has used this tactic in the past. ended up a congressman. He's stupid good at it. Certainly brave playing a pothead in the congress.

MartyMart said:

That's an odd way to conduct an investigation.

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And effective. You don't run across that too much among the powerful and egocentric people in politics.

Unfortunately so much of their time is spent fishing for useful sound bites, so frustrating and misleading people testifying is a tactic commonly used. Typically both parties to the exchange know what's going on, but ugly to watch, and not (IMO) what governance should be about. 

They are supposed to be fact finding, not mining for partisan ammunition, but that kind of stuff works for the many people not paying close attention to the process.

JR 

JohnRoberts said:

They are supposed to be fact finding, not mining for partisan ammunition,

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That seems to be what happens for the most part in committees. When I watch C-SPAN most of it is intelligent and cordial. When they get out into the hallway in front of the microphones it's a different story.

Perhaps I get a different CSPAN down here in MS. They are cordial to the point of following the rules of order, but often with a passive-aggressive edge. There may be some fact finding in the written statements submitted before the cameras are switched on, but more often than not the questions are leading based on the agenda of the questioner. The asker thinks they know the answer before they ask, and are looking for a you-tube gotcha moment. Sometimes amusing when they try to play their games with really smart people, who can debate them into the dirt, and only occasionally revealing when they get some dumb ass athlete, or business executive not smart enough to take advantage of his fifth amendment rights, when he can't play at their level.

I watched a lot of foreign relations committee hearings trying to keep abreast of congresses' mood wrt Iraq. I can still hear Joe Biden, when he was chairman of the committee arguing that Iraq was destined for civil war and should be broken up into three autonomous regions. For years in the finance committee we listened to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd tell us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were solid.

They seem to be universally playing to the cameras, and I guess this OK as they are trying to communicate with the public, but if we wanted simple democracy, we wouldn't need them. We'd just hold referendums and vote on everything ourself.

Their job is to be thoughtful, more thoughtful than us. I don't see them doing that. In light of what they've done lately, simple democracy probably wouldn't be much worse.

JR

I think we get the same CSPAN. It's the big boy sand box. No question about it. They are a bunch of lawyers and debate club champions with real difference of opinions. In the above paragraph you picked your facts to illustrate your partisan points. I could do the same. So do they.

Gold said:

I think we get the same CSPAN. It's the big boy sand box. No question about it. They are a bunch of lawyers and debate club champions with real difference of opinions. In the above paragraph you picked your facts to illustrate your partisan points. I could do the same. So do they.

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That is pretty much their job, to ask the questions that the voters they represent want answered. But they don't get to write the answers that they want to hear. The witnesses get to speak their views, as long as they are truthful. I have seen transparently leading questions, repeated over and over, hoping the witness will acquiesce and follow the lead, but smart responders know, that could become the one sound bite in heavy rotation for the next news cycle, and longer. Behavior that would never be tolerated from lawyers in adversarial court questioning. Sometimes the committee chair will reign in an abusive questioner, but not often enough IMO.

It will be instructive to watch the tone of the "Investigative" hearings Henry Waxman has called to question business executives after they made balance sheet adjustments reflecting the impact of the recent health care legislation. By law these businesses are required to make public changes like this. My suspicion is Waxman is searching out some political motive, for this apparent contradiction to his talking points.

It seems to me that a public company's financial statements are far less subject to political maneuvering, than say a congressional budget office scoring of a bill, based on the narrow parameters they are given to follow. Maybe we need some GAP accounting standards for CBO work product. 

I might question how they can come up with numbers so quickly, but I suspect, the people whose job is to pay attention to those details, actually read the legislation. 

JR