Reasonable people can differ on who was most responsible for Trump-friendly Republicans not serving on the January 6 committee, but it was a shame that they didn’t.

Fundamentally, I don’t think there is any way to pretty up what was a riot that embarrassed the nation. On the other hand, there can be rival interpretations and different ways of looking at evidence, and having an adversarial process where these differences are aired and litigated often makes both sides better.

Certainly, we would have seen the cops-not-confronting-the-shaman footage during the hearings, and it wouldn’t have looked like a cover-up by committee Democrats too eager to drive a narrative to air the parts of that day that were potentially even a little bit politically inconvenient. Now, it’s too late.