Anyone who has seen the Conyers hearing (except Dana Milbank) knows that it will eventually go down in history as the first real congressional airing of BushCo's lies and impeachable offenses. As Sam Seder said yesterday, June 16th, 2005 will be remembered as the date of the tipping point .
Given this, I'd love to get some kind of agreement on what to call this historic event. I like "The Basement Hearing" because it automatically prompts questions about WHY it had to be held in such undignified quarters.
This got me thinking about another famous gathering of political outcasts who made history by gathering in a humble place and making a pact to speak truth to power.
more on the flip
This is from the Wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_Court_Oath
The Tennis Court Oath (serment du jeu de paume) was a pledge signed by 577 members of France's Third Estate on June 20, 1789. It was an early beginning in starting the French Revolution.
King Louis XVI had locked the deputies of the Third Estate of the Estates-General out of their meeting hall, Menus Plaisirs; they met instead in a nearby indoor real tennis court, because it had started raining, where they adopted a pledge to continue to meet until a constitution had been written. 577 men signed the oath, with only one delegate refusing. This was a revolutionary act, and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarch.
The Tennis Court Oath is often considered the moment of the birth of the French Revolution. See also John Ashbery's poem of the same name.
Nice episode to keep in mind as we spread the news of the historic event that just took place out of the view of the nation.