Why Congress would be better off holding no hearings at all

OPINION — Nobody loves a congressional hearing more than I do. The gavel, the suspense, the minutiae — I love it all. But until members of Congress can control their worst urges during televised hearings, they should suspend them altogether or risk losing the meaningful value of all congressional hearings in the process.  I hate to “both sides” this one, but Democrats and Republicans were equally guilty of making an absolute mockery of the hearing process last week. Between the out-of-control Corey Lewandowski hearing in the House Judiciary Committee, the superficial embarrassments of the climate crisis hearing at a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, and the decades-old partisan rehash of the D.C. statehood hearing in House Oversight and Reform, Congress managed to make an essential part of the legislative process look like a new form of political corruption.