Update:
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) nobly declared today that a Democratic boycott of the House Benghazi select committee investigation would result in Republicans having to “have to adhere to a higher standard.” One wonders what standards they were planning to adhere to, if Democrats participate.
In an equally magnanimous gesture, Boehner promised Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that if she appoints members to the committee, “they will be treated fairly.”
Perhaps, if Democrats kowtow to other Republican demands, they will be treated even more fairly.
In the meantime, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is defending Mrs. Clinton on the Benghazi witch hunt, saying that people who are criticizing Hillary Clinton over her handling of the Benghazi attacks are engaging in “cheap politics,” according to Politico.com
Original Post:
The Benghazi sharks are circling the tragedy once more, smelling blood again, even raising campaign cash off the September 2012 tragedy at our Benghazi Consulate.
The sharks have held 13 public hearings, released 25,000 pages of documents and held 50 separate briefings. (I am sure this includes a few rebuttals by Democrats)
They are still claiming that “acts of terror” do not really mean acts of terror. That even if the President was referring to “acts of terror,” he was referring to other “acts of terror,” or engaging in some other sinister “ambiguity.”
I have not seen such parsing of two words since Bill Clinton’s parsing of the word “is.”
The frenzy only intensified last week when the GOP-led House rammed through a measure establishing a select committee to open a new investigation — the eighth one — on Benghazi.
The select committee’s witch hunt won’t be the only “inquiry.” Other GOP-led congressional panels continue their probes, “including a House Oversight investigation which just last week took the extraordinary step of subpoenaing [Secretary of State John Kerry.]”
Benghazi has once again become the GOP’s battle cry, replacing their previous one, “Obamacare” –now a mere whimper. According to the Washington Post, “the fine folks up on Capitol Hill have mentioned the word ‘Benghazi’ 72 times during floor speeches in the past eight days” and “[N]inety-eight percent of the mentions since January have come from Republicans.”
Last week, Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina representative picked to lead the committee, said that he plans to call former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a witness.
It has already been a year and three months since Republicans tried to pin the Benghazi tragedy on the Secretary when she appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, so it must be time to try again, especially since Clinton may be running for president in the 2016 elections.
This time, I hope I can watch the entire charade.
In January 2013, when Secretary Clinton was testifying, there came a point where I could not continue to watch.
Here is why, as I wrote on January 23, 2013:
“I am sure thousands of Americans watched the entire, long-awaited appearance and testimony of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
I watched — some of it.
I watched and listened carefully to the Secretary’s opening statement.
A statement wherein the Secretary:
• Provided the “sobering facts” that since 1988, there have been 19 attacks on American diplomats and their facilities, including Tehran in 1979, our Embassy and Marine barracks bombed in Beirut in 1983, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, our embassies in East Africa in 1998, consulate staff murdered in Jeddah in 2004, the Khost attack in 2009, “and too many others” and the sobering fact that since 1977, 65 American diplomatic personnel have been killed by terrorists.
• Took responsibility and reasserted her commitment “to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger, and more secure.”
• Described the actions that were taken immediately after the Benghazi attack, the investigations that were launched to determine exactly what happened in Benghazi, the lessons learned and the steps taken for improvement.
• Recalled how the very next morning after the attack, “[she] told the American people that heavily armed militants assaulted our compound,” and how she vowed to bring them to justice and stood with President Obama in the Rose Garden as he spoke of an “act of terror.”
• Described how she has accepted every one of the Accountability Review Board’s recommendations and that she has asked the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources “to lead a task force to ensure that all 29 of them are implemented quickly and completely, as well as pursuing additional steps above and beyond the recommendations.” Also, that 85 percent of specific items translated from those recommendations “are now on track to be completed.”
• Underscored the importance of the United States continuing to lead in the Middle East, in North Africa, and around the world, saying, “Our men and women who serve overseas understand that we accept a level of risk to protect the country we love. And they represent the best traditions of a bold and generous nation. They cannot work in bunkers and do their jobs. So it is our responsibility to make sure they have the resources they need, and to do everything we can to reduce the risks.”
I also watched Mrs. Clinton choke up when she recalled receiving the caskets of the four slain Americans last September. “For me, this is not just a matter of policy. It’s personal. I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews. I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers, the sons and daughters, and the wives left alone to raise their children,” she said.
The Secretary did show emotion of another kind when unfairly accused by some of the Senators.
In a heated exchange with Sen. Ronald H. Johnson (R-Wis.), Clinton pounded the witness table as she strongly defended Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, against his charge of “purposely misleading the American public” about events leading up to the Benghazi attacks. Rice said in television interviews five days after the attacks that they grew out of a spontaneous protest, rather than a planned terrorist operation.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Clinton said of Johnson’s accusation. “The fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information.”
Clinton told Johnson he was wrong and that he was missing the point with a narrow focus on the wording of the script Rice used.
She said Rice related talking points developed by the intelligence community. Questions remain even today, she said, and it is “less important” to determine what motivated the attackers “than to find them and bring them to justice.”
I watched that exchange and I continued to watch an angry Senator, still bitter over his loss in the 2008 presidential race, inconsolable about slippig into the political shadows and desperately attempting to hold on to any bit of limelight, continuing to relentlessly and personally attack the Secretary and, his favorite target, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.
Yes, I listened to Senator John McCain’s tired, old tirade.
But when the camera turned to McCain while Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) came to Rice’s defense, suggesting that perhaps we could have a hearing on “five words: ‘Iraqi weapons of mass destruction,’” which did not exist and for which “Thousands of Americans lost their lives,” and I saw Senator McCain smirking, I turned the TV off.”
Some things never change and bad movies only get worse with time — especially if they are remakes.
Image: www.shutterstock.com
