What’s more, the GOP seems determined to nominate someone whose views aren’t just unpopular with the vast majority of Americans but actively repellent to many.
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The House Select Committee on Benghazi, spearheaded by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), is “unfair and politically motivated”, according to the plurality of respondents in a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. This was at Joint Base Andrews, during the most sacred of rites: the return of the remains of Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, and Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, all slain in the line of duty in Benghazi. The Benghazi hearing wasn’t easy as well, as a negative result would surely have jeopardized Clinton’s chances. Ansar al Sharia is al Qaeda’s affiliate on the Arabian Peninsula.
Relevance to the Benghazi attack? Not only were mortars deployed by trained jihadists. It marks the resurgence of a toxic and unsafe current that has flowed beneath American politics and culture since the first Europeans arrived on this continent, and finds itself newly empowered and militant.
Nixon’s resignation in response to that onslaught by a Congress controlled by an opposing party provided a precedent so dramatic that succeeding Congresses were tempted to attempt to repeat it, regardless of whether the crimes of the presidents who followed came anywhere near Nixon’s. As Commentary’s Noah Rothman and others have noted, the press’ obsessive focus on Mrs. Clinton’s demeanor – her calculated calmness, her ostentatiously-telegraphed boredom, her scrupulous avoidance of soundbyte-worthy flare-ups – subordinates the substance the hearing to its superficial optics. A planned attack, not a protest.
To tell, then maintain, that kind of brazen lie under those circumstances – We’ll get that video maker, she said, and they did – that, say HRC’s sycophants, is gravitas, baby. That was at Andrews as they were receiving the body of Ty Woods, killed while saving American lives in the late hours of a terrorist siege during which his government made no effort to save American lives. She “took responsibility” but fired no one and didn’t herself immediately resign. The video lie tended to sustain it at a crucial moment. They’re being beaten down from every direction as the public is looking at them for the first time with a critical eye and sanity. The jihadists had been empowered by both the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime in Libya, orchestrated by Obama and Clinton, and the Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Egypt, championed by Obama and Clinton.
The Benghazi committee is approaching the longest congressional inquiry in USA history, rounding the bend at a cost of $4.5 million dollars.
Administration officials knew there would be trouble on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. What we learn – or don’t learn – about Clinton in the coming months could very well affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
So the administration swung into action. Once votes and money coalesce around a candidate, it will be more hard to count Clinton as the victor in any given contest. We’ve created more diplomatic security positions and secured more support from Marine guards.
The Benghazi siege began a few hours later. Obama took to the podium at the United Nations to proclaim to the world that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”. The campaign boost comes as Lincoln Chafee, the former senator and governor of Rhode Island, announced he was dropping out of the race, citing Clinton’s “good week” as a reason.
Why was he cooperating with law enforcement?
While the Select Committee on Benghazi may seem like political theater, it is serving a key role in American democracy. Nakoula, a small-time con man whose prior conviction made him susceptible to revocation of parole, was the flawless foil.
The article regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s questioning in the Benghazi hearing (“Clinton grilled on Benghazi attacks”, October. 23) was significant in its failure to report facts that offered insights into the integrity and leadership of this presidential candidate.
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Three years after the deadly attack, Congress and the American public are still learning what happened and why.
