January 6 Committee Hearing Day #1 Post Mortem —

Bennie Thompson has his moment

Congressmen & Co-Chairman of the January 6 Committee — Bennie Thompson, Mississippi — Official Photo — Public Domain

It was appropriate, at least to me, that a congressional representative from Mississippi, Bennie Thompson, gave the opening statement at the first televised January 6 committee hearings. This is because of history.

Forty nine years ago this summer, Senator Sam Ervin, also a southern congressman (Senator from North Carolina), was the Chairman of the Senate Watergate hearings in Washington D.C. Those hearings, televised in the daytime, helped to expose the criminality of the Nixon administration and bring his presidency down. Nixon resigned, as he should have, on August 8, 1974.

Like Sam Ervin, in 1973, Bennie Thompson opened the January 6 hearings with that famous casual, but dignified, southern drawl of a voice known well in the South. I have heard it thousands of times. Sam Ervin, back in 1973, also made it famous during the Watergate hearings. As a boy, I remember it day by day that summer.

Here was Mr. Thompson last night:

“I am Bennie Thompson, Chairman of the January 6th, 2021 Committee. I was born, raised and still live in Bolton, Mississippi, a town with a population of 521, which is midway between Jackson and Vicksburg, MS, and the Mississippi River. I am from a part of the country where people…