Today the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on Toyota Motors recent quality problems.  The House Committee has formerly invited Toyota CEO, Akio Toyoda to testify.

Expect lots of grandstanding by our fearless Congresspeople as they try to see who will have the most scintillating soundbite in an election year.  It matters little that the CEO of a Japanese company has little to do with operations at any level.  That fact has already been brushed aside by grandstanding Representative Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., who said "I'm naive enough to believe that a global CEO is a global CEO". 

Don't expect fairness, there is blood in the water and the political sharks are scared that it's their own. 

The Democratically controlled Congress's approval stands at just 18 percent with the rank and file Democratic approval dropping precipitously.  The Democrats have had a super majority in the Senate [until Scott Brown's recent election], a large majority in the house but can only muster 30 percent approval among members of their own party.  The recent problems at Toyota are providing a welcome distraction and expect the House members to milk it for everything it's worth.  With little to show for a years work Congress's accomplishments are few and the bills that have passed are wildly unpopular from the stimulus to healthcare reform.

Expect lots of media coverage of today's events.  Many in the media have long been complicit in helping the failed leftist politicians attempt to distract America from their failings. Don't expect anything concrete on how this problem could be averted in the future - these hearings aren't about engineering standards, or failure rate.  Today's hearings will be more about the Democrats fight for the political survival and relevance than it is about the safety record of Toyota.