First Public Hearing for January 6 Committee is January 9, on Prime Time Television

“Overture, curtain, lights

This is it, the night of nights

No more rehearsing and nursing a part

We know every part by heart

Overture, curtain, lights

This is it, we’ll hit the heights

And oh, what heights we’ll hit

Let’s get on with the show, this is it”

Do you remember “The Bugs Bunny Show” on Saturday morning television? That was the catchy theme song, with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck doing a vaudeville number to accompany it. My brother and I would watch it. I loved the cute concept of the cartoon characters getting ready to put on a show for the audience.

Here we are in 2022, and we’re ready for another show. It has been built up to for a year. The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol was formed in May, 2021. The Committee has decided to hold six public hearings in June, less than the eight originally expected. The first of these will be Thursday, June 9, at 8pm Eastern Standard Time. There will be five more, one in prime time on June 23, the other four apparently to be in the daytime hours, but not completely confirmed.

Denver Riggleman, former moderate Republican Congressman from Virginia, who has been advising the Committee, said today that the hearings will be exciting and concise; that “I think people are going to be absolutely surprised how much was known with multiple groups.”

The Committee has interviewed over 1,000 witnesses. There are some of the very best Congresspeople on the committee, as Kevin McCarthy was so upset that Speaker Pelosi would not approve the two insurrectionists that he wanted to put on it, that he simply refused to participate, allowing this to be a committee of serious people, without the usual Republican dismantlers of democratic processes.

A headline in USA Today says: “January 6 Committee’s long-awaited hearings promise revelations. Will a divided U.S. want to hear them?”

A classically typical media framing. The country is divided, so maybe that means that Americans don’t want to hear what was uncovered about the only attack on the Capitol which has ever been carried out from within? If the Trump forces don’t want to hear it, then that’s more important than the facts of the insurrection, which almost led to a takeover of the government? That’s not the way that the media used to cover things, but apparently it is now. If people were not interested in WWII, and preferred to listen to swing music, that would be the story with today’s media.

This effort to minimize everything; to mute or negate it due to the people holding their hands over their eyes and ears, is disgraceful. We hope that there are millions of people who want to watch this, and who are open to learning key facts. And we very much hope that what is learned will have a powerful effect on the public consciousness, that people will see how frightening this all was, and how terribly dangerous a place the country became, and still is, given the continuing plot to take it over by totalitarians.

We know that the Trump forces will do everything they can to divert, and distract, and lie about things, and talk about Hillary’s emails. The goal, as usual, is to throw up so much smoke and fog and yelling, that people will shrug and lose interest, and the media will care more about eyeballs than what is important. Let’s see if the people will surprise the media. If as children we could look forward to Saturday cartoons, as adults we can look forward to and carefully follow the battle for the survival of our American democracy. Curtain up!