Fiona Hill rocks! Smart, sober and a match for anyone in that room.

[yonder]

Her closing answer to the Dr. congressman (Winntrab)? was remarkable, especially after making note of the fact that both Ratcliff and Turner had left the room.

[Sophiegirl]

1. I always considered....

....myself to have a great ability of recall, but Dr Hall makes me appear to have the attention span of a 6 yr old.

Brava!!!!

[comradebillyboy]

2. She's brilliant and superbly prepared. She's literally the smartest person

in that room.

[Gothmog]

3. A Warning to Republicans on Fiona Hill

This is from the guy who publishes the Lawfare blog and posts announcements of important events with a film of his baby cannon blasting something. I love the baby cannon.

This is a great warning to the GOP https://politicalwire.com/2019/11/21/a-warning-to-republicans/

Banjamin Wittes: “This is a good opportunity to say a few words about Fiona Hill, who has been a Brookings Institution colleague for many years. Fiona is a formidable person—a first-rate mind with genuine and unusual expertise in Russia policy.”

“She was not a Trumpist, in any sense, which made her decision to go into the administration a matter of some surprise among her colleagues. For a serious Russia hand to serve in Trump’s NSC was, after all, quite a leap. I am sure that Fiona has had to make compromises as a result of the contradictions inherent in that decision. (Imagine being a serious Russia person on the NSC during and after Helsinki, for example).”

“But it should be impossible to dismiss Fiona’s testimony as that of a Never Trumper. This is someone who was not a career bureaucrat who was willing—to the confusion of much of her professional cohort—to go into government in a political role to serve under Trump on Russia.”

“One other thing—a warning to the cocky Republican member who may try to be patronizing or think he or she is gonna have a good C-SPAN moment at Fiona’s expense: Fiona is smarter than you. She knows more. And she is impatient with idiocy. You are likely to embarrass yourself.”

[yonder]

5. I thought that Gym Jergens held back with his interview of her.

He must have somehow sensed that engaging her with his usual bluster wouldn't have worked out so well for him.

[Gothmog]

4. This makes me smile

Link to tweet

[oasis]

6. Solid. Unshakably courageous.

[Cicada]

7. A coal miner's daughter from northern England

Somehow after college in Scotland she was an intern on a US network morning talk show. A guest on the show from Harvard talked to her and told her she should apply to Harvard graduate school. She would never have done that otherwise. She says everything she has achieved she owes to Harvard opening its doors to her. I found her inspiring. I also was inspired by Laura Cooper, a civil servant who testified earlier, for many years usually the only woman in the room. She went to the foreign service school at Georgetown and served in distant foreign worlds like Russia and Ukraine. My life seems so dull to me when I picture Laura Cooper, her family on the other side of the world, walking the cold streets of Moscow and Kiev.