Last Thursday marked the 700th day since the Select Committee on Benghazi was authorized. To put “700 days” into perspective, the 9/11 commission only took 604 days to investigate the worst terrorist attack in our country’s history, including writing a report that was endorsed by all members of the commission (of both parties). The Select Committee on Benghazi has been going on longer than the federal investigations into the assassination of JFK, Hurricane Katrina, Watergate, and the Iran-Contra scandal.
This investigation isn’t even the first investigation into what happened at Benghazi, it is the eighth Congressional investigation. And a lifelong conservative Republican and a major in the Air Force Reserve who worked as an investigator for the committee complained that the committee was primarily focused on attacking Hillary Clinton. And House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy even bragged about how the committee had succeeded in dragging down Clinton’s poll numbers.
It is a purely political operation, paid for with your taxes to the tune of almost $7 million.
Yet the committee lives on, with no end in sight. Even questioning Clinton for 11 hours last October wasn’t enough, even though virtually no new information emerged (how could it, after all those investigations?).
You know, the Republicans aren’t stupid. They keep doing this because they know it works. And not just to rile up their base against Clinton. It has also worked to convince liberals that Clinton is plagued by scandals.
I just wish the same amount of effort had been spent investigating the war in Iraq, or why Dubya failed more than once to keep us safe from terrorists.
4 Comments
“why Dubya failed more than once to keep us safe from terrorists.”
I’m thrilled that you’ve finally come around IK to the Trump position on this issue! Now if you could just stop being mean to poor Bernie…
I’ve been saying that for a very long time. I prefer to think that it was Trump who came around to my position. Or at least to stating what everyone already knew.
I guess the Republican working paradigm is “when you got nuthin’, you got nuthin’ to lose”. When they feel there’s finally no more traction to be had there they’ll just move on to the next juicy target. The email “scandal” is always there as a reliable canard when needed and that one is likely to dog her at least throughout her (first?) administration.
Obama didn’t do her any favors either when he recently admitted the biggest mistake of his admin was having no concrete plan in place for Libya post Qaddafi, as she was his SOS at the time, and the initial uncertainty about what precipitated the attack on the embassy and the ensuing chaos that led to premature speculation by her and her aides only added fuel to the fire, so to speak.
Clinton was the driving force in what was described as a “51-49” vote on whether or not to intervene in Libya. The attack that killed the four Americans, while tragic, has been blown out of proportion. That the “investigative” process is such bald-faced political hackery ought to have voters enraged. But this administration, and Clinton, should not get a pass for intervening in yet another MENA conflict without a firm grasp of what was happening or any sort of plan for follow on support.
The Libyan intervention certainly broke with the Obama Administration’s general guide of “don’t do stupid shit” in foreign policy (a guide which Clinton later derided… perhaps tellingly). It just doesn’t sit well with me that the Secretary of Defense (neé War, remember) was arguing for no intervention while the Secretary of State was calling for bombs to fly.