[jrumbut]

Musk rightly draws attention because he's in control of a lot of money and companies that are significant players in important industries (including defense). Some of the interest is prurient, and he plays games with it, but he is a legitimate subject of inquiry.

As far as the members of Congress go, sly insults is an upgrade from a lot of what has happened the last few years.

And we have a tendency to remember politics as being gentler than it was. Check out this absolutely childish exchange from the 1980s: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/03/06/...

It's easy to dig up any number of these, which used to be buried in the back pages of a newspaper rather than playing out and being memorialized on the web.