CT Blue

Apparently at least one Democrat has learned the obvious lesson of the last several years. Incoming House Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings isn’t about to give minority Republicans subpoena power in the new Congress. 

Let’s step back a bit and consider the context in which we’ve learned this. The execrable Chuck Todd asked Cummings whyever he wouldn’t give this power to the Republicans, since Cummings felt it was unfair for the Republicans to take it away from the Democrats:

CHUCK TODD: You did not have your own subpoena power when you were ranking member.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: That’s right. For a long time.

CHUCK TODD: And it was the first time that had ever happened, compared to previous congresses, correct?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Right.

CHUCK TODD: Do you plan on granting your ranking member, whoever it is on the Republican side, subpoena authority?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: No, no.

CHUCK TODD: So why not? Explain why you wouldn’t. If you believe this is something that should’ve been granted to you when you were in the minority.

You see, Chuck believes that when we’re talking about Democrats, they should follow the golden rule, and do unto the Republicans as the Republicans shoulddo unto them, but never do. Cummings is declining to do that, and with extremely good reason.

I think I’ve mentioned on this blog before that years ago I read a very persuasive article in Scientific American, that argued, in essence, that the most successful strategy to change someone else’s behavior is to engage in tit for tat. That is, when in the position to do so, give the offending party a taste of its own medicine, in the same dosage as they administered to you. It is the only way to make the offender pay a penalty for bad behavior. Were the Democrats, to do as Todd so obviously believes they should do, they would essentially be rewarding the Republicans for their bad behavior, since they would receive the message, loud and clear, that they can engage in bad behavior without consequences.

I realize this is so obvious that it hardly needs saying, except by way of explanation to people like Chuck Todd, who resolutely insist on the one sided both siderism that the Beltway media has engaged in for years. But I thought it was worth pointing out that it is happening again, and that it’s good that Cummings, at least, is having none of it, and, one hopes and suspects, neither are any of the other Democrats. That represents a change from past Democratic behavior, when they’ve caved to Beltway thinking.