A gaggle of U.S. senators questioned HHS Secretary RFK Jr. at a Senate hearing yesterday, and Kennedy's performance was masterful.
Democratic senators tried to discredit Kennedy, asking a barrage of zinger questions that Senate staffers had prepared in advance. Unfortunately for Kennedy's inquisitors, the questions were so convoluted that the Senators had to read them, which made their indignant tone seem feigned and insincere.
At times, I felt like I was watching a Jason Statham movie. Kennedy punched, kicked, pirouetted, and bobbed like an action hero set upon by a gang of street thugs.
Kennedy told Senator Maggie Hassan that she was "just making stuff up," and he dismissed Senator Ben Ray Lujan's rambling questions as "gibberish." And he defanged Senator Warren's nasty questions by reminding her she had taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies. Warren was so taken aback that all she could do was shriek.
It would be hard to say which Senator was most humiliated at the hearing. My vote goes to Senator Lujan of New Mexico, who was clearly outmatched intellectually by Trump's Health Secretary. Luhan ended his questioning by saying he wouldn't give Kennedy a lapel pin because the Secretary didn't deserve it. Luhan's statement was so bizarre that Kennedy, a masterful public speaker, was briefly speechless.
Public health policy is a complicated topic, particularly as it pertains to the COVID-19 vaccinations. It's easy to get bogged down in obscure and esoteric discussions about what "the science" says.
Kennedy's detractors sought to frame him as an irrational madman, whose administration of the Department of Health and Human Services would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. But their attacks fell flat.
Kennedy's responses to hostile interrogation were so clear and succinct that most objective observers will conclude he is a knowledgeable and civic-minded public servant dedicated to making Americans healthier. As he has said repeatedly, the United States is the sickest nation in the developed world. No one disagrees with him.
If the Democratic Senators hoped to discredit Kennedy at yesterday's hearings, they failed miserably. Indeed, his "up yours" performance before a band of buffoons endeared him to the American people. The Dems brought a knife to a gunfight, and RFK Jr. blew them away.
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Note: I found the brilliant image of Kennedy in an adapted Norman Rockwell painting on X. I don't know who to credit, but it is an inspired artistic expression.