“It is so much more fun to demand information than to actually receive it,” Rachel Maddow said on her show Friday. “Receiving it is boring and it takes forever and it’s totally not like just going on Fox News and complaining.” Republican lawmakers have been illustrating her observation beautifully. Lately there has been much chest thumping anger over the Bowe Bergdahl swap. Republicans complain that a devious, secretive administration is intentionally keeping them in the dark on the decision to swap. To correct this situation, Republicans have demanded private briefings…And those briefings have been granted, and held. It’s a pity they couldn’t be there.
To back up a bit. The briefings were scheduled, the Republicans were invited (ahead of time)- but they simply weren’t interested in attending. Many chose instead to hold press conferences or – get this, make TV appearances in which they curried yet more outrage over the lack of information forthcoming from the administration…Yes, this was during the time the briefings were being held. Take Senator John McCain for example…After all, he very nearly was our president at one time, along with Annie Oakley.
According to Maddow, McCain left a private Senate briefing on Berghdahl early. Why? He left to hold a press conference in which he demanded more information on Berghdahl! McCain had a good excuse, he told reporters, “I learned nothing in this briefing.”
Maddow also recalled that McCain skipped a briefing to make public appearances. Benghazi! McCain skipped out of a Benghazi briefing in November 2012…And you know he has a good reason. He skipped a Benghazi briefing to hold a press conference demanding more information on the Benghazi attacks! When CNN had the audacity to ask him about it, they got a defiant and aggressive argument declaring his right to hold a press conference.
Maddow also noted that Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) skipped out on the Bergdahl briefing this week to go on Fox’s On the Record with Greta Van Susteren to complain that the White House hasn’t provided sufficient information to Congress about the Bergdahl swap. “While he was doing that interview, the administration was conducting a classified briefing for all United States senators to explain those exact things,” Maddow added.
Not attending or leaving early from briefings and then complaining to the press, she said, “is a new and increasingly common form of political lying […] Getting away with this lie depends upon us being ignorant and easily led about what’s actually going on in that big, boring, catty high school that is Congress.”
She concluded: “If you’re skipping the briefing to complain that there’s no briefing, we’re not laughing with you, congressmen, we’re laughing at you.”
It’s nothing new for hypocritical politicians to feign interest, wrapping it in a show of righteous indignation. but
it’s not often that so many lawmakers get caught with their disinterest fully exposed.