My colleague Dan Balz hit the bull’s-eye Sunday when he wrote that the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s hearing last Thursday put “a spotlight on a damaged congressional oversight process”, revealing committee members misusing information to damage Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential hopes and embarrass the Obama administration. The criticism has become sharper after Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, appeared to brag in a television interview about how the committee was hurting Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. In a truly remarkable display of disrespect, Clinton entrusted her personal email address to Blumenthal rather than to Ambassador Stevens, which might help explain why hundreds of emails requesting upgrades to security in Benghazi went unanswered. Rubio should’ve known that the Central Intelligence Agency was revising their analysis of the attack. “Losing any one of them, as we did in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico, Haiti and Libya, during my tenure was deeply painful for our entire State Department and USAID family, and for me personally”.
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I asked myself, “What about her are these people so afraid of?”
It may have been interesting, but I also compare it to the Greek legend of the man/god/demigod sentenced to pushing a boulder up a hill each day only to wake up the following morning with it at the bottom of the hill again. “America can not shrink from our responsibility to lead”, said Clinton, seated before the House panel investigating the September 2012 attack at the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which four people were killed, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Early on in the hearing, Elijah Cummings, Democratic representative for Maryland and member on the Benghazi panel, said, “It is time now for the Republicans to end this taxpayer-funded fishing expedition”. “Oh, they changed it from ‘attacks” to ‘demonstrations.’ Who gives a f*** about that?! Would you have not followed them?
The committee confronted Clinton with this email exchange, between her and daughter Chelsea from the night of the attack.
At the same time, one has to wonder how this would have played out had Clinton and the Obama administration been more judicious about their findings from the outset of the 2012 attack. State Department documents confirm this. Previous investigations may not have covered up facts, but they were not aggressive.
The rant claimed the fiery attack is a protest against the film.
“If the Libyan people didn’t have a government capable of providing security, and we didn’t have USA military in Libya, then we have two options”. While it is true that the media has to make money and that they might get more “clicks” or “hits” by posting the article covering the hearing with GIFs than an in depth analysis of the content covered, the citizens of this country have a right to media coverage that is less biased and more focused on the issues than the system we are now subjected to.
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Now whether Hillary Clinton gets prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act is about as likely as a sighting of the Loch Ness monster in Times Square. Does speculating about suspicions with incomplete information now qualify as “lying?” Gowdy thanked Clinton before adjourning the hearing at 9 PM. Carly Fiorina stated she can be Clinton’s “worst nightmare”. After a strong debate performance on October 13th, however, Clinton’s poll numbers began to climb back up, arguably due to the media’s strong assertions that Clinton “won” the debate.
