printHillary Clinton owns the Benghazi hearing, mainly because Republicans are both stupid and malevolent, concerned with self-aggrandized huffing and puffing and posturing.
A clever bunch of people would have arrived at the House Benghazi committee hearing with a surprisingly terse, focused and unanimous mandate. First, they would have disavowed the actual intervention in Libya. Predicated on the first, the second move would be a short proposition to Hillary. It would go something like this:
“You were the one, Madam Secretary, who cracked the whip at Foggy Bottom. It is our informed opinion that you had resolved to run the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, as one would an open community center. In contravention of the safety of our staff there, you meant above all to telegraph to the world that the war you and war-lords Samantha Power and Susan Rice launched was a success, when in fact, Madam Secretary, your gunpoint democracy in Libya has been as fruitful as G. Bush’s faith-based forays into Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, let us trace the ‘stand down’ orders that issued from the mindset aforementioned. It will take an hour, not more. We don’t expect to squeeze much from you, but let us do those dead men our due diligence. … etc. …”
And pigs will fly.
Instead, Hillary, slightly rehearsed, but speaking in a calm, surprisingly sonorous voice, is showing herself to be a master bureaucrat, in command and able to memorize the ins-and-outs of her office at the time these poor men died waiting on her help.
A masterful performance by Mrs. Clinton; a fail to the generally flailing GOP.