Any Matter, Any Time

Randall Terry was right Friday about exactly this much: We're seeing what a G.O.P.-led House is made of — again, I'd add.

Thought I'd seen plenty Thursday afternoon as I watched what turned out to be Hour 7 of the House Government Reform Committee's hearings on baseball.

"Rule 10, Clause 4C2 gives us the ability to hold a hearing on any matter at any time," committee chair Tom Davis said the Sunday before the inquiry. "We're the major investigatory committee of Congress."

On Thursday, Davis, on the behalf of his committee, reminded the nation and its ballplayers that "Our primary focus remains the message that's being sent to" — you guessed it — The Children.

The ballplayers, said Davis hours later, "have an opportunity today to either clear their name or take public responsibility for their action, and perhaps offer cautionary tales to our youth."

Generously, Dennis Kucinich — a Democrat, it must be said — paid forward his final minutes of "face" time to the ballplayers, whom he invited, in English and Spanish (for Sammy), to "speak directly to America's youth."

Steroids? They agin'em! Canseco too, rat tale best-seller to the contrary. And 'til you've seen Gold Glover Rafael Palmiero field questions about which is worse for America — ballplayers betting on baseball or ballplayers juicing (hint: play with steroids, lose it all) — well, let's just say Rafy, 'though he came up in the end with the right answer, his game ain't softball.

Our Congressional Pasttime
No longer amused by playing with a presumably innocent man's livelihood, the committee on Friday — at Jeb Bush's and the congressional leadership's behest — began playing a sick game with the lives of Terri Schiavo and her husband, Michael, threatening him and his irreperably brain-damaged wife with congressional subpoenas — states' rights , the Schiavos' rights , and simple decency be damned.

Any matter. Any time.

The Senate , it must be said, also is deep into Florida's and the Schiavos' business, and that as I'm writing this on Sunday morning, Bill Frist appears to be the face of the G.O.P.'s prying eyes.

Party history, like any forgotten history, is doomed to be repeated. Frist, should he linger too long on the front line of the culture wars, will learn his history the hard way come a presidential campaign.

And it'll be his loss.

Eyes Without a Face
The front line's a fine line that Congress — the Democrats and the Republicans — walk with us. We're always looking out for outrage, especially when we can get indignant without even getting up from in front of the TV.

Democrats play mad, sure — Missouri's William Lacy Clay, he's so honked he wants Mark McGwire's name off a highway! — but since the mid-'80s, whether it's Darling Nikki, Sister Souljah, or Grand Theft Auto, Dems have stuck to little-d demagoguery, and quietly quit while they're ahead.

No Q - U - I - T in the G.O.P. — unless it's over Medicaid or Social Security or, y'know, a federal issue.

Hey, we all love a damned shame, the dirtier the better. Did you hear? Michael Schiavo's got a girlfriend, and they've got kids, and they're all rich because his wife's a vegetable.

And there's fewer of us who'd say that to his face then there are watching Fat Actress.

When we think for five minutes like people living face-to-face in the real world instead of as the faceless, heartless, mindless viewership into which citizenship has deevolved, we know this much about the Schiavos: They're nobody's business, least of all the United States Congress'.

And while we all love to hate facelessly from home — whether it's Michael Schiavo, McGwire, Hillary, or Slick Willie we want thrown under our moral bandwagon — our bandleaders, our surrogate scolds? Scolds, them sooner or later we just plain hate.

Buchanan. Starr. Gingrich. C'mon, look at 'em (if you can find them). That's not us, what we're about. What you do and who you do it with, when and where you did it, whether you really love each other, your life, that's not our business — that's our entertainment!

Really. They're not us.

Frist forgets at his political peril what the faces of Republicans Past mean to us when we look at ourselves and see what we'd rather see than somebody like them, looking long and hard for somebody somehow worse than we are.

They Never Forgot
Two elephants, at least, remember the lessons of the '92 convention and the Clinton impeachment.

Jeb, looking for all the world like he's simply done all he could do, he'll be remembered for this outside Florida for Terri's Law — his "by-the-book" and "The Good Book" bonafides ready-made for '08.

And then there's the Master of the House, I wouldn't know him if he hit me with a hammer: Not-Newt himself, Tom DeLay.

Newt was the speaker, you see. DeLay's not, that's that teddy bear, Denny Hastert. DeLay's the leader, at least for the moment.

He's no Newt, simply because with Newt we knew where he stood: in your face at all times, 'til America told him his time was up.

DeLay and the House looked, learned, and left him in the shadows. And for all the hell DeLay's raised from Texas backrooms to Terri Schiavo's bedside, what's he look like?

Exactly.

So here's Tom DeLay.

Here's our business.

Take a long, hard look into the matter.

Any time.