Below The Beltway

Yesterday it was the turn of Members of the House of Representatives to discuss the state of the world oil market with oil executives demagogue before the television cameras:

WASHINGTON — Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz peered down at the executives from the nation’s biggest oil companies, arrayed before the House Judiciary Committee like five targets in a carnival dunk tank, wearing dark suits and ties instead of swim trunks.

It was the Thursday before the Memorial Day weekend — the ideal time for Congress to show its solidarity with angry American motorists. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, channeled the rage of every parent in America who has pulled into a gas station recently on the way to ballet lessons or soccer practice, letting loose on the men from Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP America.

“I’m a mom of three young children who filled up her minivan the other day for $68,” she said, seething. “Sixty-eight dollars — that’s real money. Maybe that’s not real money to the five people sitting here because $68 is like a nickel to you, based on the income you all earn.”

Ah, the sweet, indelible signs of summer. Baseball. Backyard barbecues. And dramatic Congressional hearings over the rising price of gasoline.

In what has become a regular show in the hearing rooms on Capitol Hill, the oil company executives took a second day of lashings on Thursday. On Wednesday, they went through a similar exercise with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

There was the usual show of nonsense from our esteemed Representatives professional class of pontificators, but the winner for demagogue of the day, if not the century, goes to Maxine Waters:

In one of the more pointed exchanges, Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, seized on the record $40.6 billion profit of Exxon Mobil in 2007. She pounded on the company’s senior vice president, J. Stephen Simon, demanding to know if gas prices would be lower if the company earned a few billion dollars less.

At another point, Ms. Waters brazenly suggested that perhaps the American oil industry should be nationalized, acknowledging that it was an “extreme step” but one that might be necessary if outsize profits and exorbitant gasoline prices continued.

“Thank you for being here today,” Ms. Waters told the executives. “If you feel a little bit beaten up on, we all feel beaten up on, so just share the pain. We get our behinds kicked every day in our districts about what is going on.”

But wait, it gets better, or worse depending on your perspective:

[L]et’s review what Rep. Maxine Waters said to the president of Shell Oil during a House hearing:

“And guess what this member would be all about? This member would be all about socializing — er, uh. [Pauses for several moments] …. would be about … [pause] … basically … taking over, and the government running all of your companies.”

Yep, that’s right, she’s talking about taking something right out of Hugo Chavez’s playbook and letting the government run the oil companies because, you know, the Post Office and DMV are run with such efficiency.

Here’s the video:

Link: sevenload.com

Notice how she comes oh so close to saying the world “nationalize” and then backs off ?