A congressional covid committee? No thanks.

According to this report, there is bipartisan support for creating a congressional Covid-19 Commission. It would be modeled after the one that, for better or (in my view) worse, examined the 9/11 attacks. The proposed commission would investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and the responses of the Trump and Biden administrations.

The plan is proposed by the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Health Committee — Sens. Patty Murray and Richard Burr. It calls for a 12-member panel with subpoena power to “get a full accounting of what went wrong during this pandemic,” (Murray’s words) and to make recommendations for the future.

The fact that Patty Murray wants such a commission is two strikes against it. Burr’s support leaves the count at 0-2. Call it a foul ball.

There is probably some merit to conducting a sober investigation of the pandemic, if any entity could be trusted to do it well. But the pandemic has been so politicized that I doubt such an entity exists or could be created.

If there is a body capable of fairly and competently investigating the pandemic, it’s certainly not Congress. Strike three.

However, I can see why members of both parties might want such a commission. There are plenty of Republicans in Congress who either dislike Trump or just don’t want him to be the GOP nominee in 2024. Similarly, a growing number of congressional Democrats would be happy to see Joe Biden swept aside.

A Covid-19 Commission would pave the way for highly publicized attacks, fair and unfair, on the way Trump and Biden handled the pandemic. On the surface, the attacks would seem partisan — Dems attacking a GOP president and Republicans attacking a Democratic one. But the Democratic attacks would serve the purposes of some Republicans and vice versa.

Or am I being too cynical?

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