WASHINGTON, D.C. (LNN) —Sen. Beauregard "Beau" Hensley presided over a marathon six-hour session of the Congressional Balloon Hearings on Thursday, using his position at the head of the committee to deliver what colleagues privately described as "less a hearing than a re-election announcement."

The senator, who has chaired the hearings since their inception, opened the proceedings by declaring the missing balloon "the defining question of our time" and demanding that the assembled witnesses account for its whereabouts. Over the course of the day, according to the official transcript, Sen. Hensley asked "where is the balloon" a total of ninety-one times.

"I am not here to make friends," the senator said, addressing a mid-level Nordstrom logistics coordinator who had testified under oath that she had never personally handled a balloon and did not know where any balloon was. "I am here to find the balloon. This nation deserves its balloon. Look into that camera and tell the American people where the balloon is."

The witness, visibly overwhelmed, stated for the record that she did not have the balloon. Sen. Hensley called this answer "exactly what the balloon lobby wants us to believe" and requested that it be stricken.

The hearings referenced the founding Balloongate incident no fewer than two hundred times and featured a scale model of the Nordstrom store where it occurred, which the senator gestured to at length. At one point Sen. Hensley produced the 147-Page Balloon Request Manual and read from it for forty minutes, including a passage concerning an orphan.

The committee adjourned without locating the balloon. Sen. Hensley announced additional hearings. The nation holds its breath. This is a developing story.