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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Don Young vs. Douglas Brinkley

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) was participating in hearings on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge when he got into a heated exchange with historian Douglas Brinkley. Evidently taking umbrage at Brinkley's temerity for interrupting Young's hectoring lecture to correct the lawmaker's previous misstatement of Brinkley's name, Young burst out:
“I'll call you anything I want to call you when you sit in that chair. You just be quiet.”
Brinkley's breach of Congressional etiquette (nowhere else would it be considered out of line to correct someone for calling you by the wrong name, but it seems lawmakers deem themselves worthy of special consideration) pales in comparison to Young's delusion of importance.

Don Young, if you were anywhere near as smart as the people who testify at Congressional hearings, you'd have a real job. Instead, you're a sorry little man desperate for respect, and you use your public office to extort it from people during hearings. But guess what? A lot of them see through your little game of ... well, let's call it "Overcompensation", and some of them will call you on it. While a distant part of them might feel a little sorry for your, um, shortcomings, they will not put up with your infantile temper tantrums and tragic efforts to shore up your low self-esteem.

This sorry practice of Congress calling people in to "testify" when in reality lawmakers want to puff and preen and scold has got to stop. While I have my doubts that many lawmakers are intellectually capable of understanding it, the testimony they ought to be soliciting is of vital importance to getting the nation's business done. (At least, it should be important. Otherwise, Congress shouldn't be wasting people's time.) If lawmakers aren't going to listen and to learn something, they should give up their seats in favor of those who will. And asinine displays like Don Young's should automatically disqualify the perpetrating lawmaker from further public service.

Don Young, you're a self-important (and, the evidence suggests, little) prick.

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