Using clips from the 1973 Watergate hearings, MSNBC’s Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell went off on Wednesday at the House Select Committee on Benghazi for failing to exhibit the Watergate committee’s professionalism and instead being “oblivious and uninhibited” in creating a hearing that he promises will “waste enormous amounts of time on irrelevant questions.”
Applauding then-Republican counsel Fred Thompson and then-Democratic counsel Sam Dash for being “bipartisan, professional, respectful, and cooperative” in questioning Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield, O’Donnell guaranteed that will not been applicable on Thursday to the members of Congress questioning Hillary Clinton.
O’Donnell spent much of his “Rewrite” segment offering viewers his summation of the Watergate hearings to set up his final attack on the GOP with an answer Butterfield gave to Dash about whether then-President Richard Nixon ever considered turning his infamous recording system off: “No, sir. As a matter of fact, the President seemed to be totally really oblivious, or certainly uninhibited by this fact.”
The avowed socialist then continued by noting that the words “oblivious and uninhibited” would also be appropriate terms to describe “what you will see in the Benghazi hearing room tomorrow” because “[y]ou will see members of Congress who are oblivious to what real investigative questioning is and completely uninhibited in exhibiting their obliviousness.”
Trashing the members of the committee for doubting that they will “ask a simple, 11-word question or a simple question of any length that captures the essential purpose of the now very confused Benghazi Committee,” O’Donnell added that special counsels like Dash and Thompson won’t be heard from on Thursday because only members of Congress can ask questions.
O’Donnell lamented that Clinton won’t receive “[c]alm, respectful, careful, non-partisan questions” but instead inquires by members of Congress seeking “to affect Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers” and bolster their reelection bids.
Whining that “[t]he only way to turn that hearing into an eight-hour session is to waste enormous amounts of time on irrelevant questions and questions that are really campaign speeches,” O’Donnell predicted:
So, instead of seeing what you should see in a properly run congressional investigative committee, instead of seeing highly professional and respected investigators on each side of the committee asking pertinent, revealing questions, you will see politicians questioning or making speeches to or arguing with a politician.
Ruling that such a scenario “is called a debate,” O’Donnell’s infatuation with Clinton not surprisingly crept up again as he gushed before a clip of Clinton from the first Democratic presidential debate from October 13: “I don't mean to kill the suspense, but we already know who the best debater is in that room tomorrow.”
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on October 21 can be found below.
MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
October 21, 201510:42 p.m. Eastern
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: There's the Democratic counsel saying that he has very few questions because the Republican counsel has done such a good job of taking Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield through his bombshell testimony about the taping system the President Richard Nixon had for his conversations in the White House. No, you won't see any of that kind of bipartisan professional, respectful and cooperative interaction tomorrow. Here are a couple of Sam Dash's follow-up questions.
SAM DASH [TO BUTTERFIELD][on 07/16/73]: It was your understanding that this operated on an ongoing basis daily? This system operated on an ongoing basis daily?
ALEXANDER BUTTERFIELD [on 07/16/73]: Yes, sir.
DASH [TO BUTTERFIELD][on 07/16/73]: To your knowledge, did the President ever ask while he was in the Oval Office or to have the system not operate? The light not – the locator not show in that office so as to trigger the device?
BUTTERFIELD [on 07/16/73]: No, sir. As a matter of fact, the President seemed to be totally really oblivious, or certainly uninhibited by this fact.
O’DONNELL: Oblivious and uninhibited. That is what you will see in the Benghazi hearing room tomorrow. You will see members of Congress who are oblivious to what real investigative questioning is and completely uninhibited in exhibiting their obliviousness. You will not see a member of Congress ask a simple, 11-word question or a simple question of any length that captures the essential purpose of the now very confused Benghazi Committee. You will not see special counsels to the committee asking questions in a professional, non-political manner because in the committee's previous hearings, only members of the committee have been allowed to ask the questions. So, unless the Chairman is suddenly wise enough to rewrite that policy tomorrow, you will only see members of Congress grabbing their moment on camera with their questions. Imagine if 21st century versions of Fred Thompson and Sam Dash conducted most of the questioning of Hillary Clinton tomorrow in that hearing. Calm, respectful, careful, non-partisan questions by a Republican lawyer and a Democratic lawyer who are not seeking re-election, who are not trying to make headlines, who are not trying to affect Hillary Clinton's poll numbers. Imagine that. Such a serious and professional investigative hearing with only one witness could be completed in a couple of hours instead of the marathon, all day affair that the committee has planned for tomorrow. The only way to turn that hearing into an eight-hour session is to waste enormous amounts of time on irrelevant questions and questions that are really campaign speeches. So, instead of seeing what you should see in a properly run congressional investigative committee, instead of seeing highly professional and respected investigators on each side of the committee asking pertinent, revealing questions, you will see politicians questioning or making speeches to or arguing with a politician. A politician arguing with a politician is called a debate and I don't mean to kill the suspense, but we already know who the best debater is in that room tomorrow.
