Has there ever been a more arrogant member of the House of Representatives than Dan Goldman? After garnering the spotlight serving as Nancy Pelosi's impeachment lawyer against Donald Trump, the trust fund baby decided to parlay that into a political career. Because failure is always rewarded in the Democratic Party, he ended up a congressman from New York. 

Since taking that perch, Goldman has shown himself to be an empty suit who must have gotten his law degree simply based on his family's connections. That's the only explanation I can come up with given how vapid and unimpressive he comes across during hearings, especially when he tries to pretend to be a legal expert. 

When faced with journalist Michael Shellenberger on Thursday, who has been at the heart of exposing the federal government's censorship regime, Goldman was left completely out of his depth. In one exchange, the congressman tried to argue that the Hunter Biden laptop had been manipulated by Rudy Giuliani. Shellenberger then casually leaned back in his chair and called him out for pushing conspiracy theories.

WOW. @RepDanGoldman still doesn't believe that the Hunter Biden laptop is real.

How embarassing. pic.twitter.com/hg4KLLxpRh

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) November 30, 2023

There is no evidence whatsoever that Hunter Biden's laptop was manipulated by Giuliani or anyone else. That is a far-left claim made by those who want to convince people to not believe their eyes. The pictures and videos of Hunter Biden taking advantage of women and doing crack cocaine are real. The emails, as testified to by people like Tony Bobulinski and Devon Archer, are real. Bringing up Giuliani is just a cheap distraction tactic.

Here's the full clip so you can get an idea of how ridiculous Goldman looked. At one point, Shellenberger had the entire room laughing.

In which @danielsgoldman once again beclowns himself by trying to pick a fight with @mtaibbi and @shellenberger at today’s @Weaponization hearing on social media censorship.

The end is so good. 😂😂

Cc @mirandadevine pic.twitter.com/3qOkUesQMv

— Meara (@MillennialOther) November 30, 2023

The final exchange in the clip was perhaps the best. Here's what was said. 

SHELLENBERGER: By the way, part of the operation, Congressman Goldman, part of the operation was to change the terms of service. So you see them constantly trying to change the terms of service. It was 35 percent of the URLs that were (unintelligible) were labeled, removed, or soft-blocked. That's all forms of censorship. Censorship is not just removal. 

GOLDMAN: But 65 percent were not so how could the government be so coercive that they would...

SHELLENBERGER: Does the First Amendment say that the government can censor 35 percent? 

GOLDMAN: They're not censoring! They're flagging and the social media companies...

SHELLENBERGER: Do we have 35 percent of a First Amendment?

GOLDMAN: It's not the First Amendment. It's the terms of service as you said, and they are flagging it for the social media companies to make their own decision. That is not the First Amendment. That is the terms of service. 

SHELLENBERGER: Congressman, you are an attorney. You know that four federal judges have already ruled that...

GOLDMAN: And I know that it's on appeal in front of the Supreme Court right now!

It's hard to fathom how someone can be that stupid, unwittingly or not. Full stop, it is not the government's job to "flag" posts on the internet for social media companies to take down. There's a reason that type of behavior is normally seen as illegal coercion, namely because of the power imbalance at play (and as mentioned, four judges have agreed with that already). If the government comes to a company and says "You should take this stuff down," there is a level of authority and possible punishment for not complying that comes with that. That is Shellenberger's point.

Goldman is a lightweight. He shouts a lot and leans on his law degree, but he comes across as a vapid know-nothing who is willing to defend any government tyranny. That's probably because he is.