I’m watching the Senate Abu Ghriab Prison Investigation hearings right now on CSPAN (pretty interesting stuff) and wondered how the committee members make sure they are not being wildy redundant with their proposed questions. Is there any administrative process where they discuss what they are going to ask between themselves or not? How do they make sure the committee questions are not overly repetitive?
By observation only, in the high profile, controversial hearings, the D’s and R’s meet separately to plan a co-ordinated defense or attack. A lot of time is spent stabbing the other side in the back.
In the lower profile hearings, it seems like its everyone for themselves and the questions were prepared by suboridinates, primarily to put the “me” in them. The questions were selected to puff up the individual political image of the questioner. A lot of time is spent patting each other on the back.