The Commissions Commission

Recently, catastrophic events over the past four years have prompted congressional democrats to demand a series of hearings- commissions, if you will- in order to investigate why such events occurred- or more specifically, who was to blame for them. Originally a noble concept in the wake of the attacks of September 11, the commission eventually turned partisan and sinister, complete with defeated senators and former presidential advisors passing blame like a hot potato. Ultimately, after untold hours and taxpayer dollars were wasted, the members of the commission copped out and blamed President Bush.

Commissions seem to be all the rage these days in Washington, becoming as popular as multi-billion dollar, decade-long studies and subsidized Alaskan bridges to nowhere. Senator Hillary (D-NY) and others are calling for a Hurricane Katrina commission. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) will be calling for a commission on yesterday’s Los Angeles blackout, and Herbert Kohl (D-WI) is assembling a commission investigating why nobody knows who he is.

Perhaps in the midst of all this commissioning there should be a congressional commission investigating congressional commissions. This is analogous to how government bureaucracies have been created with the sole purpose of overseeing and regulating government bureaucracies. This Commissions Commission could be chaired by a sitting or former senator selected by holding a commission on the selection of commission chairs. The chairman would then assemble and select the most mediocre and forgotten former senators they could find who weren’t ousted in the Abscam scandal.

The commission would open with members calling outspoken partisan blowhards to testify to their own agenda, followed by dissenting members tearing them a new orifice. Over the course of the year-long hearings, responsibility (and more importantly, blame) would be sent back and forth with the frequency of an air hockey puck, the media covering it all. When polls finally indicated that enough Americans were fed up with the antics of the Commissions Commission, the commissioners would hastily prepare a final report to mask their utter lack of accomplishment (before planning a commission on why Americans don’t care about commissions). The commissioners would prepare their report, dripping with partisan nonsense and incoherence, in a book long enough to keep most Americans from reading it. Then the New York Times and CNN would report that the commission blamed President Bush, and Charles Schumer and Barbara Boxer would demand his resignation.

While these commissions are the most recent fad in Washington, they are part of a tendency that is nothing new either in Congress or politics in general. Since the establishment of the first colonial legislatures, when problems came around politicians made it look like they were solving a problem without actually having to do anything about it (and in the meantime voted themselves pay raises and built bridges to nowhere in Alaska). Meanwhile, valuable time and money is wasted in an attempt to make the opposing side look at fault. Blaming the other party for given problems, be they terrorist attacks, natural disasters, or the inability to win a national election, is as old as politics itself and is American as apple pie. In the meantime, the Senate is preparing a commission on the use and popularity of metaphors and similes, to be followed by one on food-related clichés.