Admiring Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg goes before congress

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) cast out a fishing hook with hope. "I hope you might commit to returning to Westchester County [place of Zuckerberg's early days] perhaps to do a forum on this or other things. I hope you'll consider that. We'll be in touch with you but I know that Ardsley High School is very proud of you."

Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was angling for more infrastructure from the Lord God Zuckerberg. "My state, I'm from West Virginia, and thank you for visiting and next time you visit, if you would please bring some fiber because we don't have connectivity in – in our rural areas like we really need, and Facebook could really help us with that."

Rep. Kevin Kramer (R-ND) suggested a prospective pool of future employees for the tech giant. The company's base could thereby be diversified. "Maybe even your next big investment of capital could be in some place like, let's say Bismarck, North Dakota."

The coup de grâce, the confession that seemed to implicate founder, company and interrogator, was the admission by Zuckerberg that his own data has been the subject of appropriation and use. Everyone had found the "malicious third party", those shady geniuses creating apps sporting personality quizzes. (Aleksandr Kogan and Cambridge University researchers, no less!) The irony of this went begging out the door, as did much credibility over the process of hauling Facebook's founder before a body that long ago descended into murmurs, formalities and school child admiration.