If you got to watch some of the House GOP’s grilling of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton live on on TV last week, you couldn’t help but be struck by the seeming anger, outrage and passion aimed at her in suggestions (and charges) that she had allegedly failed to do all to keep the dedicated men and women who serve in our embassies and consulates safe. Why didn’t she do more? Why wasn’t security beefed up? Etc. Now it is CONFIRMED that one reason was one mentioned by Ms. Clinton: the House GOP had cut funding for embassy security. And it did so “consciously.”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) acknowledged on Wednesday that House Republicans had consciously voted to reduce the funds allocated to the State Department for embassy security since winning the majority in 2010.
On Wednesday morning, CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien asked the Utah Republican if he had “voted to cut the funding for embassy security.”
“Absolutely,” Chaffetz said. “Look we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have…15,000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, a private army there, for President Obama, in Baghdad. And we’re talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces. When you’re in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices. You have to prioritize things.”
For the past two years, House Republicans have continued to deprioritize the security forces protecting State Department personnel around the world. In fiscal year 2011, lawmakers shaved $128 million off of the administration’s request for embassy security funding. House Republicans drained off even more funds in fiscal year 2012 — cutting back on the department’s request by $331 million.
This is just anpther indication of how ideology trumps all, but then they assume there is plausible deniability if they are brought to task. It’s like the race is on to see which one can seem the most unfeeling and show that they are implementing talking points. The priority on so many of these issues is to stick to a stated ideological narrative.
The bottom line: the House GOP stuck to its ideological guns and sliced the money for embassy security and now they’re asking why there wasn’t more security at American outposts.
A ceremony presenting the certificate pictured above to the House GOP is in order.
Or, failing that, THIS.
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.