No, it turns out some Democrats weren’t being paranoid or doing spin. Yet another Republican admits the Benghazi committee was designed to go after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for political reasons. In so many ways, this 21st century is marked by some of the smelliest politics in our history — and increasingly it seems as if the only way the GOP will be able to remove the aroma is with CostCo portions of tomato juice. Think Progress reports:
A second House Republican has now conceded that the overarching purpose of the House Select Committee on Benghazi has been to attack former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In September, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) argued that one of House Republicans’ successes has been using the Benghazi Committee to drive down Clinton’s poll numbers. Though McCarthy tried to walk back his controversial comments, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) argued on Wednesday that the Majority Leader had it right to begin with.
“Sometimes the biggest sin you can commit in D.C. is to tell the truth,” Hanna said in an interview on Keeler in the Morning, a radio show in upstate New York. The third-term congressman paused for a moment, perhaps recognizing the importance of what he was about to say, before going on to agree with McCarthy’s original statement.
“This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton,” Hanna said.
He explained further why he believes the Benghazi Committee’s purpose has been in part to attack Clinton. “After what Kevin McCarthy said, it’s difficult to accept at least a part of it was not,” Hanna said. “I think that’s the way Washington works. But you’d like to expect more from a committee that’s spent millions of dollars and tons of time.”
And, of course, conservatives in Congress pushing this and writers and talkers that keep pushing Benghazi will likely try to discredit this guy. They’ll call him a RINO, but if this does pan out and history shows it was one massive political action, then members of the committee will go down in history as resembling the not-so-cuddly creature pictured above.
So expect the committee to zero in more on the emails now since the other approach didn’t work. The problem is this: unless there is some official verdict from a government agency that Clinton committed a crime with the emails, the committee’s credibility is now so compromised the only people who’ll be impressed will the the choir.
Journalists will tell you: one person saying something is far different than two people saying it. Two Republicans saying it was a political hatchet job (even with walkbacks later) is a trend.
The choir won’t care; but many other voters will. And between this further indication of costly political fun and games, threats to shut down the government and threats to let the country’s economy take a hit by defaulting on the debt limit, some voters could wind up holding their noses and voting against the GOP.
graphic via shutterstock.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.