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Along Life’s Way
“Hear” or There
By Lois E. Wilson
I have been spending time each day watching the testimony of the
witnesses at the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry
hearing. My observation of it reminded me of a poem I wrote in
2010 called “Telephone Tattle.” It is a game we played at parties when
I was a child:
We arranged chairs and sat in a ring.
All wondered what the next round would bring.
You’d whisper into your neighbor’s ear
A silly phrase you hoped they’d mishear.
They whispered what they thought you had said
To the next person—thus it was spread.
The last announced the message, now strange;
We marveled at how the words did change.
In communication, mix-ups may unfold.
So it is best not to believe all you are told.
One of the witnesses, David Holmes, relayed dialogue he had heard
coming over another person’s phone while they were dining at a
restaurant. The phone was not on “speaker” but he claimed he was able
to hear the conversation. Several TV shows have tested the incident as
he described it and found that it was unlikely that he could have heard
much of anything.
A lot of the testimony has been hearsay which is not usually admissible
in most trials. The witnesses have used many phrases such as: I heard,
I thought, I presumed, in my mind it was, I felt, I suspect, etc. The
question could be: “If you use hearsay—doesn’t that mean you weren’t
there, say?”
Rep. Mike Quigley from Illinois posed that “hearsay evidence can be
much better than direct evidence…” Is that what you think when a child
has told you the pet Fluffy ate the hot dog, but the only one with
mustard all over his face is the child?
Too many are ready to accept a sham and say, “It’s neither here nor
there.” But thankfully a few on the committee are probing deeper; they
aren’t willing to accept “I heard it from D who heard it from C who
heard it from B. who was told it by A” They want firsthand information
and confirmation from those who were actually there.
Your might rebut and say this column is hearsay. But thanks to the open
hearings, I was able to see and hear for myself. I’ll tell everyone
else who missed or doubts the events, “You had to be there and watch it
unfold on TV. Don’t accept “Tattle Testimony.” You should watch, look,
listen, study and then judge for yourself.
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