The purpose of the subcommittee is to look into the politicization of US government agencies and its effect on our civil liberties. But last week's inaugural hearing of the committee was not at all a good look for the Democrats, who brought nothing but insults for the witnesses.

Things got off on the wrong foot very quickly, as Democrat committee Members seemed less interested in what witnesses Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger had to say than in attacking the messengers. Ranking Committee Member Stacey E. Plaskett, a Democrat from the Virgin Islands, began by calling Taibbi a "so-called journalist" who poses a "direct threat" to people who disagree with the work he has done on the "Twitter Files."

Taibbi, who to the likely dismay of the Democrats on the subcommittee is hardly a right-wing Republican, corrected Plaskett's smear, pointing out to her that, "I'm not a so-called journalist. I've won the National Magazine Award, the I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and I've written 10 books including four New York Times bestsellers." In addition, Taibbi pointed out that most of his journalism career was spent at Rolling Stone Magazine, which is hardly a conservative political outlet.

The Democrat decision to make this hearing a partisan political issue and attack the journalists who brought us the truth about secret US government censorship-by-proxy of Americans who hold views unacceptable to government elites is extremely unfortunate. The Democrat decision to attack honest liberals like Taibbi for bringing us the truth is baffling. Taibbi and Shellenberger and the other journalists involved in exposing government malfeasance in the Twitter Files have done a great service to all Americans concerned about the collusion between government and corporations to silence speech that the government does not like.