Oh boy.
Put Alan Grayson on Benghazi panel! Why he’s Dems’ best option to expose this clown show – Salon
. . . Still, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to try to deal with a three-ring circus by convening an academic seminar. In order to perform their role properly, they need to engage the issue at hand with intelligence and a grasp of the facts but also an ability to guide the questioning in a way that illuminates the absurdity of the hearings as a whole. And yes, they need to provide easy sound bites for the media so they have something to run with.
Luckily, as Rabin-Havt points out, they have the perfect person right there in the Congress to do it: the original “congressman with guts,” Alan Grayson of Florida.
Perhaps people don’t realize that Alan Grayson isn’t just another lawyer/congressman. He’s an experienced litigator who fought whistle-blower fraud cases aimed at military contractors. The Wall Street Journal characterized him in 2006 as “waging a one-man war against contractor fraud in Iraq.” And he was very successful at it. As a politician Grayson is usually seen as a pugnacious fighter always at the ready with a pithy put-down on cable news shows. His floor speeches are often fiery indictments of his political opponents and the power elite.
But that’s not why the Democrats should tap him for the job. As notable as all those characteristics are, they are not where Grayson’s true talent lies. He is a master at the task of committee questioning. During his first term as a member of the Financial Services Committee he practically had bankers whimpering on the hot seat and he took on everyone from Ben Bernanke to Timothy Geithner, eliciting important information. Unlike the vaunted prosecutor the GOP has tapped to lead the inquiry, Trey Gowdy (who specializes in browbeating and histrionic questioning), Grayson is never rude and he isn’t dismissive or insulting. He is serious, composed and extremely well prepared. And when he has the floor he is completely in control.