A reporter cannot write that a Congressional hearing is a stage play, a farce, a show intended to deceive the audience. That judgement rests on so many conclusions about the meaning of facts that it becomes opinion and belongs in a column or editorial.
Michael Coleman, the Journal’s Washington reporter, attended that kind of hearing before the Senate Energy Committee Wednesday. Senate Energy is headed by New Mexico’s own Pete Domenici, a Republican. Its ranking Democrat is New Mexico’s Jeff Bingaman. You will remember they co-authored a recent energy bill that pleased oil and nuclear and coal interests.
Back to the hearing. Here are Coleman’s lead and second paragraphs:
"The US Senate had oil company executives right where the American public wanted them Wednesday – on a congressional hot seat facing hard questions about high gasoline prices.
"But the heavy grilling never materialized."
He went on to report that Domenici found the oil companies’ defense convincing.
That’s very well done. Coleman could – and did – make it clear that the hearing wasn’t hard on the oil barons, thereby perpetrating some useful journalism. That’s my first point.
I have a second – ideology can distort our thinking. Case in point: Charles Krauthammer, the brilliant right wing columnist who writes in today’s Albuquerque Journal:
"The Senate just loved its little oil-executive inquisition."
I guess one man’s patty-cake is another man’s Inquisition.
In fairness, Krauthammer isn’t all wrong. I suspect the Senate did love its
hearings; they made it look as if the Senators were responding to their constituents.
Further, his column suggests higher gas taxes to reduce consumption, a reasonable idea. (Of course, he also tells us "we" need more refineries.
In other words, with the oil industry unwilling to build refineries because they would expand supply and thereby lower profits, the taxpayers should foot the bill.)
No matter. My point is that Krauthammer’s ideology led him to mischaracterize the Senate hearing. Liberal (and neo-con) Tom Friedman did something similar in today's New York Times; only ideological bias could lead a guy as brilliant as Friedman to suggest the national Democrats are dominated by their left wing.
Hey, ideology-distorting eyesight isn’t unusual. I am certain that my blinders - sometimes liberal, sometimes radical, sometimes conservative - lead me astray, too.