A Certain Level Of Disengenuousness

Housing Wire's Trey Garrison gives us fitting parting observations of last week's hearing by the House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigation concerning allegations that the CFPB is a veritable Paul Bunyon of stacked-high hypocrisy when it comes to employee discrimination.

There was a certain level of disingenuousness [sp.] that went beyond the usual political posturing at the House Oversight & Investigation Subcommittee investigating discrimination and retaliation at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Wednesday morning.

[...]

In a hearing with partisan heat just simmering, Democrats opened by demanding a standard of proof of the allegations that they’d never demand in any other similar investigation.

Meanwhile, Republicans – who want to keep pressure on the CFPB on as many fronts as possible – seemed to be embracing the vague, controversial legal theory of disparate impact, which says even if there is no discrimination, if the outcome isn’t racially balanced, then there is discrimination anyway.

Having U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, saying that he wants to make headway and not headlines in anything related to racial discrimination was, in fact, one of the ironies in a morning of ironies.

It's refreshing to see a reporter call them as he sees them. I also appreciate the well-deserved bi-partisan snark. It's as if one of the qualifications for serving in Congress is a post-graduate degree from Clown College. All Garrison is doing is pointing out the fact that both parties wear face paint and big red noses that go "beep-beep."

Trey also notes the irony of Representatives Green and Watters urging an expansion of the subject matter of the hearing to discrimination by all federal agencies, after doing their darndest to have the hearing cancelled, after initially calling for a hearing to be held. Those position pivots would have made the broken field maneuvers of Barry Sanders seem encased in in concrete, by comparison.

A final bit of snark addressed the fact that Rep. Watters noting that she was "overjoyed" with the subject matter of the hearing, racism. The Subcommittee's Republican Chairman just couldn't constrain his fist of snark.

“We welcome your new tone – remarkably different from tone of your letter,” McHenry said to Waters.

Give her a week. She'll feel equally strongly both ways.