Occasionally the World Suddenly Makes Sense

Occasionally the world suddenly makes sense. I guess those times are what they call “ah ha” moments.

You know all the oversight committees in Congress? It’s always bugged me that every time some major catastrophe occurs, the committees and departments and task forces seem to be looking the other way. And then it dawned on me: These groups are not in charge of oversight, they’re in charge of oversights. And, in fact, they’re doing a terrific job. Going back to 9/11, there have been a litany of oversights.

My curiosity got the best of me, and I did some research. I found someone inside the Washington beltway who would tell me the truth (a task in itself), and here’s what I found out:

The oversight committee is actually part of a whole system. It handles the generally mundane task of dealing with day-to-day events. It traces its origin back to the Nixon administration and the concept of “plausible deniability.” In order for the president to be able to distance himself from an event, Congress is charged with creating a plausible oversight, as in “Oops, it was just an oversight.”

In Nixon’s case, a simple oversight wasn’t adequate so the “overlook committee” was created. This is a “select” committee, meaning that only special people serve on it, and its existence is not very well-publicized. When an oversight isn’t adequate this committee makes a conscious decision to overlook something. Whereas an “oversight” is seemingly an accident, deciding to “overlook” is on purpose.

As you might expect, from time to time, intentionally overlooking something is not enough. When this happens, the issue escalates to the “cover-up committee.” Things don’t get to the cover-up committee without presidential involvement. However, in order to preserve plausible deniability, the president only communicates with the committee in code. It’s something like the nuclear codes and changes with each administration.

I don’t know what the code phrase is in the Obama Administration, but under George W. it was “Heckuva job, Brownie.”