Illuminating and skewering sound-bites are either lucky happenstance or unlikely surprises at congressional hearings, where the testimony is often controlled by the majority party, the patter is planned, dull and technical and the party in charge offers up softballs to its own knights and is prepared to cut off unpleasant scrutiny.
Little of that happened Thursday when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was invited by sympathetic GOP chairman Darrell Issa, at a time when Walker was something of the golden boy of GOP politics, to testify before the House Oversight Committee exploring “tough choices” in state budgets.
But a few weeks can tarnish any golden boy, especially when the opposition is prepared and the party in power isn’t. The GOP is suffering internal disarray over Walker. He is no longer the featured hero on many Republican websites, no longer touted as the face of the future, not when his actions in Wisconsin have clearly electrified progressives. Many of his supporters are in the fight of their political lives against recalls. Many of those who voted for him last year are now part of the resistance. They may not be ready to move over to the Democratic side, but they hardly think his image has been helpful or even traditional Republican. While some like Trump and Palin are scooting over to the Tea Party side for political advantage, pragmatic citizens are not about to swing so harshly in their basic human values.
