I’ve got this guy named Joe who insists that the proper phrase is “here, here” whereas the SD Mailbag says it is “hear, hear” …
Joe doesn’t accept the SD Mailbag as an authoritative source… but in searching the web, almost everything either uses the SD as its source, or comes up 404.
I’m in a cabin in the mountains with a crappy 24k dialup so I can’t do a whole lot of extensive searching…
…does anyone have some other sources that may provide the answer as to which is correct?
The OED lists the origin as “Hear him!,” which by the 19th century had mutated into “Hear! Hear!”
The subject line should of course read “Hear, hear”…
ooh OED is always a good source…
Oh Q.E.D. thank you 
Now when Joe gets back from walking around with my father in law by the lake I’ll show him
Hope you bet a steak dinner or something on it. Heh.
The OED ought to be enough for anyone, but a Google search on “hear, hear” hansard also finds any number of references to Hansard (the official minutes of the UK Parliament).