Nothing new there. Nothing to see here.
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In the end, this concluded in a disaster for the Republicans and instead of their intended hindrance of Clinton’s campaign, all this eleventh-hour debacle has done is give her one less scandal to worry about. During the Benghazi hearings, the Republicans sabotaged every aspect of their reputations when it became clear that they’ve engaged in one of the most expansive, expensive, and vindictive attacks against a cabinet member ever.
Of course there were different motivations at work. (See Nixon, Richard Milhous.) But this time no one can say the country hasn’t been more than amply warned, though not by its sleepy watchdog of a press. And it is most likely that she would have beaten him for the Democrat nomination anyway. Four decades ago many – but by no means all – Republicans made similar complaints about the Watergate and impeachment hearings.
In both cases, the objective of the inquiry was legitimate.
Which is not to say that the committees did not go down a few blind alleys. Thus, Clinton wouldn’t have been impeached by the Republican House for lying and obstructing justice over personal sexual matters that had little to do with governing the country.
The headline should have read, “Clinton takes hours of verbal abuse and confrontation from GOP Benghazi committee members”. Remember, George W. Bush was the most expensive president in the nation’s history.
To Gowdy’s most zealous followers on that committee and among the public, the Benghazi incident is not important in itself, despite the ritual utterances of patriotism and the semi-divine status accorded any American who dies in defense of the empire: Dulce et decorum est, and all that.
Nothing was mentioned in your article regarding the fact that she knew the evening it occurred that the attack on the Benghazi compound was the result of a preplanned terrorist attack and not a reaction to an anti-Islam video, yet she lied to the American public by advancing the video explanation. Whether her sins were primarily of commission or omission, there is no denying that she does not have the leadership or the trustworthiness necessary to be President.
Also, again against the wishes of Bill’s staff, Hillary refused to publicly release the records from her time at the Rose law firm while Bill was governor of Arkansas.
The four who were found dead in the aftermath of the Benghazi chaos of that night were the US Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens; Sean Smith who, significantly, was known as “Vile Rat” in his online gaming community; and two former US Navy SEALs and Central Intelligence Agency contractors (CIA), Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. Conventional wisdom is that the United States has never had a female leader, which is just not true.
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As the former Secretary of State prepared to testify Thursday, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, insisted that this investigation was not a witch-hunt, as it has been repeatedly called, by telling Clinton, “I understand there are people frankly in both parties who have suggested that this investigation is about you”. It has now been proved beyond any doubt, not just beyond a reasonable doubt, that the entire administration knew the attacks were preplanned terrorism and that this random video had nothing – not 30 percent, not 20 percent, not 10 percent, not 0.0001 percent – to do with them. Actually, Gowdy said he would have to go through the transcript of the 11 hours of testimony to answer that question. The bar for honesty among politicians is so low that it is no longer news when politicians lie, only when they tell the truth. There was a re-election in progress of President Obama, that might have something to do with the delay. Like the first round of Representative Jim Jordan’s questioning about dueling simultaneous Benghazi attack narratives. The video lie tended to sustain it at a crucial moment. They also knew that, if the trouble was perceived as the foreseeable fallout of their Islamist empowerment policy, it could mortally damage Obama’s 2012 reelection bid and Clinton’s 2016 election ambitions. It quickly and predictably devolved into a partisan battle between Republicans intent on hurting Mrs. Clinton’s bid for the White House and Democrats who sought to make her look presidential.
