By now you’ve probably heard of this bit of utter Republican embarrassment: Patrick McHenry, Chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs, calling Dr. Elizabeth Warren, assistant to the President and interim head of the new department to oversee credit protection for Americans a liar. It comes in at about 0:58 or so and watch the expression on Dr. Warren’s face:
WARREN: I have other obligations I committed to based on the representations of your staff, and our effort to try to accommodate you and rearrange our schedule to accommodate you.MCHENRY: Look, Ms Warren, it was a simple request. Your staff had a request, my staff said we’re trying to accommodate you. We’re going to get you out of here in ten minutes if you just…
WARREN: No, Congressman, we had an agreement.
MCHENRY: You had no agreement.
WARREN: We had an agreement for the time this hearing would…
MCHENRY: You’re making this up, Ms Warren…
CUMMINGS: Oh, please…
MCHENRY: This is not the case. This is not the case.
CUMMINGS: Mr Chairman, you, you just did something that I, I’m trying to be cordial here, but you just accused the lady of lying…
MCHENRY: She’s accusing me of making an agreement that I never made.
CUMMINGS: I think you need to clear this up with your staff…
MCHENRY: I have…
CUMMINGS: That may have moved this thing around 50 million times and she’s got to go to another hearing.
WARREN: Congressman, not to another hearing, to another meeting. Congressman, I would be glad to answer questions for the record. We can do that if you’ll just send us questions for the record we’re glad to answer them and they’ll be a matter of the public record.
Another Democrat on the committee later apologized to Dr. Warren on behalf of the entire committee. In his apology, he made the obvious more obvious: this is not about oversight. This about a deep hatred and resentment for Dr. Warren. She threatens their bankroll, she was appointed by President Obama and, most egregiously to the GOP, she is a woman in a position of power. Here’s Rep. John Yarmuth with his apology:
I apologize to the witness for the rude and disrespectful behavior of the chair, the snarky comments about a Senate race, and the questioning of your veracity when there is documented evidence that you are being totally truthful indicates to me that this hearing is all about impugning you because people are afraid of you and your ability to communicate in very clear terms the threats to consumers and the threats to our constituents and possibly very, very effective ways to combat them. In one respect, I congratulate you for instilling such fear in the committee – the Majority side – and some aspects of the business community because they understand how effective you are in getting the message out to the American people that there are better ways to do things.
The best part? There’s two. First, McHenry’s Facebook page went into full meltdown mode as everybody who learned of this, it appears, jumped on to tell him what a complete and utter asshole he is. Here’s mine:
We have a fierce advocate for American credit consumers in Dr. Elizabeth Warren. Your treatment of her yesterday was like that of a petulant but not-so-bright bully, trying to prove his toughness against the smartest kid in the class because he isn’t smart enough to compete otherwise. How you rose to your position of power is beyond understanding. You owe Dr. Warren a full apology.
Also, too? Somebody made this awesome animated GIF of Dr. Warren’s “Oh no, you dident” moment:
