By Michelle Malkin
Has there ever been a time when 18-term liberal Democratic Rep. Henry Waxmans nostrils werent flaring indignantly at corporate executives and entrepreneurs? For more than 35 years Waxman has made it his taxpayer-funded business to use the power of government to undermine private business.
The man wields his gavel over the free market like a Damoclean sword. He throws the weight of his congressional chairmanship around like a sumo wrestler walking across hot stones.
No one should be surprised by his latest thuggish efforts to silence companies speaking out about the cost implications and financial burdens of Demcare -- least of all those companies.
This is the Eliot Ness-wannabe who serves proudly as the lefts chief inquisitor. This is the Capitol Hill haranguer who herded tobacco company CEOs in front of the cameras made them raise their right hands and cackled as he forced them to testify under oath about the evils of their products. Waxmans demagoguery then was so over the top that it prompted Washington Post columnist William Raspberry to write that the Capitol Hill inquisition masquerading as legislative hearings reminds me of nothing so much as a witch-hunting Joe McCarthy.
Last month Waxman stacked the deck at the Toyota inquisition hearing with auto industry-bashing Naderites. In 2007 he held court over the Valerie Plame show trial. And in February 2008 he wasted four hours on a nationally televised interrogation of baseball legend Roger Clemens and his trainer. Republicans called Waxman out on his Captain Queeg-ish vendetta against Clemens.
The debacle was dubbed a Roman Circus. After squandering public resources on congressional showboating over steroid use Waxman himself confessed that he didnt think it was a hearing that needed to be held.
When he isnt abusing the deliberative process to add to his press-clipping collection and serve up red meat (er blue meat) for the TV airwaves hes short-circuiting hearings to ram through political power grabs masquerading as reform. Waxman pushed massively expensive complicated cap-and-tax legislation through the House last year by leapfrogging over subcommittee debate. He also staved off Republican efforts to slow down and scrutinize the behemoth bill by hiring a speed reader to plow through the 900-page bill during mark-up.
Waxman himself couldnt be bothered to familiarize himself with the trillion-dollar regulatory tyranny stuffed into his own bill. When a GOP colleague on his committee
asked him whether he knew a specific provision had been embedded in the proposal with his name on it Waxman snorted: Youre asking me?
The indignant interrogator then went on to question the patriotism of anyone who dared ask questions about the climate change tax scheme -- and accused conservatives of rooting against the country.
Now Waxman is targeting the heads of Deere Caterpillar Verizon and AT&T with invitations they cant refuse to testify at an April 21 hearing on their public statements regarding Demcare-caused writedowns. Waxmans fishing expedition letters sent out last week asked the company heads to produce copious documentation.
Business execs are damned if they do disclose how the costs of the new federal health care taxes will hit their bottom line and damned if they dont. If they stay silent theyll be violating Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure requirements passed by Congress after the Enron scandal. If they talk theyll be paraded in front of the camera like those poor tobacco heads Waxman waxed more than 15 years ago.
Whos next? On Monday Prudential said it would take a $100 million charge in the first quarter thanks to Demcare. In Colorado the Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. said the health care law will cost $2 million a year starting in 2014. AK Steel Corp. 3M and Valero Energy have all announced similar writedowns. At this rate if Waxman insists on hauling up every last truth-teller in the marketplace hell be holding an inquisition-a-thon a day.
And that would suit the Witch Hunter of Capitol Hill just fine. If he isnt meddling he isnt working. And if he isnt using his powers to bully bulldoze or bankrupt his enemies he is failing the gods of progressivism.
Michelle Malkin makes news and waves with a unique combination of investigative journalism and incisive commentary. She is the author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild .
