Senator Dan Coats Embraces Stereotypes Of Olds By Showing Up At Wrong Hearing And Asking Questions Anyway

 
 Ever had an old person walk up to you on the street and ask you a completely bizarre question, like, “Why do all the apples send moonbeams into your brain?” No? Well, doesn’t happen to us either. But at a Senate hearing yesterday, David Cohen, undersecretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, was testifying and had that kind of experience when Indiana’s Sen. Dan Coats decided to ask a question, per WaPo:  

After he’d finished a lengthy opening to his question, a staffer slipped Coats a piece of paper. Coats read it to himself, looked up, and said, “I just got a note saying I’m at the wrong hearing.”

AFTER the question? Coats will never win the Most Observant Senator Award. And we bet that some staffer somewhere is getting an expletive-laden lesson in how not to be a fuck-up.

Coats was preparing for an Appropriations hearing on military stuff, and was clearly ready for that hearing. In fact, he was happy that the witness had responded to some letter he had written:

Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) was prepped for an appropriations hearing on the defense budget when he took his turn Wednesday afternoon, flipping papers on his lap, reading from them and commending the witness for his department’s prompt response to a letter Coats had sent about a military accounting office in his home state.

It was then that he read the note from his staffer and had his Rick Perry "Oops" moment.  We guess that when you are a senator, you don’t even bother looking at the witness, or even around the room, to make sure you are in the right place? We feel sorry for the Burger King fry guy who will soon be quizzed about auto dealers in Indiana next time Coats mistakes his lunch out for a Commerce Committee hearing.

In any case, we were thoroughly impressed with Treasury’s David Cohen, who replied:

“Well, that would explain why I didn’t know anything about this letter,” said David Cohen, undersecretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.

Coats, who is 70 and is serving his second stint in Congress (he was Senator from 1989-1999, and then he was Ambassador to Germany for a while), said this was the first time this had ever happened to him. He then ripped off the staffer’s arm and beat the staffer to death with it, mumbling about the difficulty of finding good help these days.

Coats did try to laugh it off on the Twitters:

We imagine that pretty soon, Treasury’s David Cohen will respond with: “@SenDanCoats – Crimea river, bro.”

Or at least we hope so.

[ Washington Post ]