Ray McGovern:'Swear Him In' Provokes Expulsion

“Swear him in.” That’s all I said in the unusual silence this afternoon as first aid was being administered to Gen. David Petraeus’s microphone at the hearing before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.


It had dawned on me that when House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, invited Gen. Petraeus to make his presentation, Skelton forgot to ask him to take the customary oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I had no idea that would be enough to get me thrown out of the hearing.

I had a flashback to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in early 2006, when Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, reminded chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, that Specter had forgotten to swear in the witness, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; and how Specter insisted that that would not be necessary.

Now that may, or may not, be an invidious comparison. But Petraeus and Gonzales work for the same boss, who has a rather unusual relationship with the truth. How many of his senior staff could readily be convicted, as was the hapless-and-now-commuted Scooter Libby, of perjury?

So I didn’t think twice about it. I really thought that Skelton perhaps forgot, and that the 10-minute interlude of silence while they fixed the microphone was a good chance to raise this seemingly innocent question.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/091007a.html

and get over the shock........wow. Just wow.

Can it be that no one expected that they would not hear some measure of untruth?

I love Ray!

And for Skelton to get his ass thrown out of Congress.

would have been thrown out of a hearing in the US House of Representatives for simply asking if the witnesses had been sworn in, I would have said NO friggin way, I really would have responded that way.

No longer, it is now expected. Sadly.

:kick:

This country is fucked when you have military leaders unable to speak truth to power and have become a part of the problem..