A familiar feeling came over me last week as the Michael Cohen hearing dragged on and on.
I watched some of it, I listened to parts of it, and I missed a lot of it. Then I tuned in to commentators who told me what I had just seen or heard or missed entirely.
Just like you.
So, who am I to risk a charge of hypocrisy by doing exactly the same thing as those commentators? Well, as the misleading title of this blog explains, I am a public hearing insider.
What I actually am is a veteran of public hearings. As a working reporter, I have covered thousands of them over the years.
No exaggeration here. Just one meeting of a county legislature or a school board can generate 10 or 20 public hearings. Heck, the tiny Shelter Island town board - It meets twice a month and serves a population of less than 1,500 people - would normally have eight or ten legally-required hearings on its agenda.
Controversial hearings can draw 80 or 100 people, and sometimes half of them want to speak. That’s when the boards put out a sign-up sheet and limit most speakers to five minutes.
Anyone not on the sheet gets to speak after all the other people who signed up are finished. Usually, by that time people have already started going home.
Every hearing is different, of course, but many of them have a lot in common. And the Cohen hearing was no exception. So, let me share some insights.
Why? Because while we all saw the same thing, some insights gained through long years experience might come in handy the next time a hearing catches your attention.
It may help you understand what is really going on. It’s like having a first base coach whisper in your ear to look at the center fielder moving a few steps to the right while everyone else is concentrating on the batter’s changing stance.
So, let’s go.
Insight the First
Here’s some perspective. The Cohen hearing isn’t the beginning of the story, and it certainly isn’t the end. But it is a clear marker for our House of Representatives.
Some new and interesting things came out of it - avenues of investigation to follow up on, confirmation of prior testimony of other people, examples of what Republican-led House committees managed to ignore for two years. And a clear view of what to expect over the next six months or so.
You can think of it as a new chapter in a book. All of the Republican questioning, all of the almost word-for-word repetition of talking points like “liar, liar, liar” was like heavy wet snow falling on a mountain side that is getting closer and close to becoming an avalanche.
The weight continues to build up. The tolerance of unquestioning blind support for the President is getting thinner and thinner among the independents who make up the swing vote.
When it finally happens, and no one knows when that will be, the collapse will be swift and powerful and impossible to control.
Insight the Second
Almost no one pays much attention to what other people say at public hearings. Oh, the crowd may applaud when a speaker says helicopters make too much noise, or the historic old Jones house must be preserved, but they mostly aren’t really paying attention.
Let someone offer an eight-part plan to reduce helicopter noise and the audience will lose attention by the time the speaker gets to point three. Cynical? Just ask some of the people after the hearing which points made the most sense.
If the hearing involves officials asking questions, the odds are that the questioners aren’t paying much attention either. Oh, they have worked on their questions, but look at them closely and see how many actually look at the witness. Expression and tone of voice, posture and gestures can say a lot.
Even better, pay attention to how often anyone on the panel asks a witness to clarify their testimony or ask a follow-up to someone else’s question. That shows they are actually listening.
It may also show whether a hearing is actually looking for new information.
Insight the Third
Where is this hearing going? Newspapers and magazines like things simple. Someone said this, then someone said that. Now, as a result, something is likely to happen.
Sometimes a hearing covers a broad range of things - say a public hearing on a proposed school budget - and there isn’t time for all the details to get an adequate presentation, let alone adequate coverage.
That’s why those obnoxious reporters ask the same questions until they get an answer - how much is the budget going up, or how is the tax rate changing, or are any programs being dropped.
But that process misses a lot of things that can turn out to be important. That’s why I used to go out in the hallway during public hearings and talk to the people in the audience and the speakers who didn’t seem to say all they wanted to in their allotted five minutes. One thing I learned is that just because you may have trouble expressing yourself in public doesn’t mean you don’t have something important to say.
It’s why I got a strange feeling from listening to all those Republican members of Congress give the same “liar, liar, liar” talk every time they got to ask a question - and for several days after when they held Ppress conferences. It made me think they really weren’t trying to get any new information at their fact-finding hearing at all.
Insight the Fourth (and last)
Whether you liked the hearing or not, and whether you thought it was worth paying attention to or not, you will get another chance to see it. And not as a re-run.
One nearly-certain rule for hearings on controversial hearings is that they generate more hearings, kind of like an out-of-control bureaucratic alien life form.
Committees that hold hearings create sub-committees. People who testify ask to come back with new information. People who saw the hearing and feel they have something else to say start showing up. If the ratings are good - or the hearings stir up their base - the people running the hearing may want to hold another one.
When the Republicans released their 2016 report on Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi killings, it covered two years of hearings - four public hearings and 33 congressional hearings - and ran on for 800 pages. It took a long look at the 2012 terrorist attack (she was Secretary of State at the time) and found she had no direct roll in the death of four Americans.
And, oh yes, it cost about $7million.
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