The hearing was punctuated by a series of increasingly pointed exchanges, especially among Democratic and Republican committee members. At one point, a shouting match erupted between Mr. Gowdy and two Democrats on the committee about the focus on Mrs. Clinton’s email exchanges with Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to her husband and a personal friend.That makes it sound like Hillary was on the sidelines, which suits her interests.
But after more than six hours of testimony, exasperated Democrats on the Republican-led panel said they might quit their participation on the committee, declaring it a partisan sham aimed at damaging the leading Democratic presidential candidate.
I sat down to watch when it started. I thought she made a fine opening statement. Though I'm mostly a steely, distanced observer of political theater, it reached me when she said:
I traveled to 112 countries as Secretary of State. Every time I did, I felt great pride and honor representing the country that I love. We need leadership at home to match our leadership abroad. Leadership that puts national security ahead of politics and ideology.Maybe some actress coached her, but she got just the right emotional pitch on the word "love." I don't know that she's good enough to fake that, but even complete frauds can choke themselves up at the appropriate cornball moment. Still, I thought it was real. Hillary Clinton loves our country. Does she not?
I stuck with it for the first few rounds of questions, enough to make me think she'd make it through the ordeal unscathed, perhaps even with new luster. I had other things to tend to. Who can sit around all day watching television? It's the first part that matters. She was fine. After that, only really striking things are noticed, and apparently all that happened was committee members fighting with each other. Meaningless. Am I being too blithe? Point out what I should care about. And don't say: 4 men died. That was very well covered by Hillary at the beginning of her prepared statement.
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149 comments:
You should care that government officials can act like like the law does not apply to them. Instead it is "applied" to a film-maker who is unpopular, as a tactic to deflect attention, who then sits in jail.
And Obama had been derelict throughout. Where do the overlapping and convergent interests lie?
I blame George Bush.
You can always count on Ann for a movie review.
Hillary!'s acting coach indeed deserves kudos.
But she is still giving out differing stories and contradicting herself.
Ann's conclusion is proof, if any more was needed that the study of the law converts the student to a moral eunuch. Or, in the modern incarnation, into an simulacrum of their own devising.
Sincerity is the most important thing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
" ' Leadership that puts national security ahead of politics and ideology.' "
Like Obama's?
Alternative headline: Democrat lawmakers support lying, incompetence and geopolitical disaster for political purposes. Democrats with ByLines agree.
I wonder if Hillary would make a good secretary. No, I mean someone who takes notes, types reports and makes her boss coffee.
She lied to the families of the four men, right beside their flag draped coffins. She blamed a film she knew had nothing to do with it, then promised to put the filmmaker in jail, for making a piece of art. And then did that very thing!
So she threw and artist in jail to take the heat off of her own failures, which were forgivable in the first place. It's the lying afterwards.
Can we all agree that Hillary has lost more sleep about Benghazi than anyone in the history of the universe. Can't we, huh?
BTW, I never doubted that Hillary loves this country. Certainly far more than Obama could manage with an MFA in acting.
Hillary testified that she did everything humanly possible to make Libya a wonderful place. she spoke at length about all the things that she did. It was impressive and exhaustive. After her testimony I was shocked to find out that it was a failed state, meaning that it had no functioning government, in which various gangs of crazed killers train jihadists to attack anything Western. But she got just the right emotional pitch on the word "love." I don't know that she's good enough to fake that, but even complete frauds can choke themselves up at the appropriate cornball moment. Still, I thought it was real. Hillary Clinton loves our country. Does she not?
Phew. She made it through the session unscathed. Stevens, Smith, Woods and Doherty were unavailable to comment. But I'm sure they would have been happy to grease the skids for the first female president. Getting our priorities straight.
I do not agree she covered it well at all. She talked about it and then expected everyone to just shut up about it. Those 4 deaths are on her hands. While those men were fighting and dying - and calling for help - Hillary was meeting with her staff to make up lies to cover her own sorry part in this.
The question is not if Hillary loves this country. Its whether her love for power for herself is greater. If she was so easily willing to just abandon those 4 men as sacrifices to her blind lust for power, is that who we want as president?
People are surprised she did well in the debate!
Althouse is surprised Hillary has a heart and loves her country!..
I have seen her up and close since 2007. She did a fine job in 2007-2008 primary debates, better than Obama. But who was watching? She had good policy positions and plans for the country. But who was listening? You all got Obama. Deal with it.
There were 600 requests for additional security for Benghazi, but no one even complained to Hillary! that her favorite ambassador was making a real nuisance of himself?
Much less suggested that maybe something ought to be done for him, or at least looked into?
This seems very hard to believe.
Regardless of the email/internet video/deceptiveness, to me she seemed like a perfectly good bureaucrat who flip-flops with the slightest breeze. No evidence of leadership or real accomplishment. In fact the Obama/Clinton foreign policy actions have been one of naivete and stupidity causing great damage and exhibiting weakness, in addition to her past history of divisiveness and likely criminality. She knows so much that just isn't true and promotes policies (socialistic) that cannot work in the near or long term.
She is merely a vanity candidate, promoted by those who felt Bill Clinton was a good president and want to go back to the future.
600 requests for additional security went unanswered...Chris Stevens didn't have Hillary's email address...apparently she didn't have an official address...State Department staff were emailing each other stating that Susan Rice went off the rails on five Sunday talk shows...
Should've stuck around for the big guns...
I stuck with it for the first few rounds of questions, enough to make me think she'd make it through the ordeal unscathed, perhaps even with new luster.
You got nothing to worry about Ann. That's the way it will be reported. I mean, how can it not with all the vaginas in her press pool. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/hillary-clinton-women-press-214891
Did I mention that there are a lot of vaginas in her press pool, and perhaps twice the many boobs? And not one scruple between them?
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/hillary-clinton-women-press-214891
Do the thousands of Libyan refugees who died in the Mediterranean fleeing the hell that her war to unseat Khadaffy has unleashed give you any pause?
Does her support of Syrian rebels, a rebellion that has created huge waves of refugees, does that give you pause?
Does the fact that everything she touches turns to shit give you pause?
Nah, you don't really want us to mansplain you out of your sweet little fuzzy for Grandma Clinton.
It will be interesting to see if there is as much sexism among the female media as there was racism among the black commentators and reporters when Obama was running in 2008? http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/blog/2008/03/mainstream-black-columnists-and-barack-obama/
Gowdy was superb, but Hillary chewed them up and spit them out. She has a control over secrets that is like a 20 foot thick wall of upbeat refusal to admit a single thing was ever done wrong. The poor GOP boys were reduced to whining about their inability to touch her story that eveyone just knows isn't true.
Final score Hillary 100 and Republicans -50.
The Perry Mason moment just does not happen that often. You nearly always need proof by testimony other than the accused's story to convict them.
The Republicans would have been better off if they had taken the Fifth on today's session.
A lot more people than just the "four innocent Americans" died as a result of the Libyan caper.
Remember the time following Benghazi when FBI agents with much fanfare were sent to Libya to "investigate," but were stuck in tripoli for a month or more because "the Libyan government would not give them permission" to travel to Benghazi?
Well, today Hillary! testified that Libya was in total turmoil and did not have a functioning government.
So which government was it that told the FBI they could not go to Benghazi?
And why did they listen to it, when they could watch the TV in their hotel rooms and see itinerant TV crews filming al they wanted around the embassy and the "CIA Annex" and indeed casual tourists just walking around and picking up classified documents and other souvenirs from the sites?
Swallowing this garbage from Hillary! anf the State Dept. requires a much larger and flexible gullet than mine!
Apparently, patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels only when Republicans are claiming it.
Ted Bundy was a good actor, too.
So she threw and artist in jail to take the heat off of her own failures, which were forgivable in the first place. It's the lying afterwards.
Agreed.
Ridiculous that no one in the MSM seems to care.
"it reached me when she said"
Huh? You mean, it reached you as complete BS?
Thought you could spot a phony. Guess not.
By the way, just so we know in advance, what, besides all the things she has already done, could Hillary! possibly do to lose you?
Maybe some actress coached her, but she got just the right emotional pitch on the word "love."
No, no. She's a good actress all by herself. You could see that back in 1994 in some commercial she made about the health care plan.
What she has trouble with is improvisation. But with scripted lines, she can be pitch perfect.
She had quite a number of good lines. The situation was confusing. Everybody was working hard. People from the state Department go where there's no other U.S> presence.
She didn't help anybody find out what went wrong. She pretended that the options were close the mission in Benghazi or stay, but not maybe add some security. Not that the level and kind of security is the only question.
Here's are some good questions:
1) You talked to a lot of people the night of September 11, 2012. Did anybody lie to you? Was anybody misinformed? Now she can't say no.
2) Wewre you involved in making any decisions about the "talking points?" Who was?
3) Who were the security professionals who decided not to add security? One what basis? Was theer some constraint they were under?
4) Why didn't you fight the attyempts to claim this was spontaneous?
Theer are more quesitons, better ones.
Well, today Hillary! testified that Libya was in total turmoil and did not have a functioning government.
Details, please.
Here's an interesting question: is a blond female Caitlin Jenner dumber than a male brunette Bruce Jenner? Science may have an answer.
Boy, Lynch is sure having a hard time getting in the end zone from the one.
Hmmmm.....
but she got just the right emotional pitch on the word "love." I don't know that she's good enough to fake that
Hillary does not mean well. Women assume that she does. Foolishness is the feminine failing.
You don't want women voting.
Congressional hearings are boring and the coverage of them is even more boring.
She did well for herself.
Stall long enough and you are golden. Public boredom, including our hostess, will get you through. I'd say sadly, but the "book" on this is written, and it works.
I despise Hilary but the old bitch ran over the southern republican new confederacy. I hate her but admire her ability to stay awake through all this shit.
I wanted to hear something new that could nail the bitch.
Nothing.
Gowdy is a creepy shining freak of a "man".
Ads of him in the presidential race will be great for people in not southern states.
She is just smarter than those rural southern hicks.
She did fine but I still don't understand why she wanted it televised. There are bound to be a few sound bites that die-hards will pore over and package into ammo against her.
Between the debate and today she should have at least put to rest the rumors that she has some secret health issue.
She sounded coached-Hollywood-OK for a second, and that's all it takes to erase Hillary's lies, incompetence, corruption? wow.
The book is that Libya is even worse off now than it was under Qaddafi. Hillary, along with Obama and his other advisers, contributed to this. Her judgment, like Obama's and W's, is very bad.
Hillary did a terrible job with the "reset" with Russia. Most of this is Obama's fault but Hillary is dangerously naive, as is Obama.
Qaddafi was a bad guy, but he was neutralized and cooperated with us. she essentially had him assassinated. I wonder why no one questions that?
Good job, frequent flier.
She deserves an Emmy for the moment of simulated agony over a man she didn’t give her email.
HILLARY: HEY, I THOUGHT CHRIS STEVENS WAS JOKING ABOUT SECURITY IN BENGHAZI.
Hillary vrs the mad hillbillies
it reached me when she said:
.... she got just the right emotional pitch on the word "love." I don't know that she's good enough to fake that, but even complete frauds can choke themselves up at the appropriate cornball moment. Still, I thought it was real. Hillary Clinton loves our country.
Repeal the 19th Amendment.
Thanks to American intervention Libya is a terrorist safe haven, Russia is rampaging in the Middle East and invading her neighbors, ISIS has outgrown it's JV uniforms, Europe is being over-run by Muslims from Africa and Secretary Clinton is asked for the reason she blamed the murder of four Americans on a video. Why do bad things always happen to her?
Anyone who believes The Clinton she-beast loves America is either a retard, or has an agenda. You went full retard, Professor. You never go full retard.
Poor Titus can't tell a rural southern hick from a big city southern hick. Gowdy is from Spartanburg. That's half way to Charlotte.
The Republicans just ensured a Hillary win. What utter fools.
Though I'm staunch moderate who has not an ideological bone in my body I wept when she said:
I traveled to 112 countries as Secretary of State. Every time I did, I felt great pride and honor representing the country that I love. We need leadership at home to match our leadership abroad. Leadership that puts national security ahead of politics and ideology.
She never called Republicans enemies. Never.
I love winning ugly!!
The truth is not in her. That's all you need to know.
Why should you care? Because everything that Hillary Clinton touched while Secretary of State is worse off than when she took over. And yes, that should be laid at the feet of her boss as well, but her record is one of dismal failure and disaster that our country will be a long time recovering from. She belongs in prison, not the White House.
Fox Butterfield, is that you?
Point out what I should care about. And don't say: 4 men died. That was very well covered by Hillary at the beginning of her prepared statement.
Based on the gnashing of teeth in evidence here, Clinton advanced her cause again. In particular she has put the 'too old' canard to rest. You may not like her but she is plenty sharp enough.
She never spoke with Stevens after his swearing in. She admitted she knew it wadnt the video, but told that narrative to the public.
She wasnt very involved in her responsibilities, only in her political ambition.
She looks tired, too. Apparently she is tired, by her own admission
Did anyone notice that the vaginas and tits in the Hillary press pool are all pasty white?
Coincidence?
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/hillary-clinton-women-press-214891
I think what makes her case particularly strong for POTUS is that she carried George W Bush's policy of destabilization and military interference in Iraq to Libya and Syria.
You would have thought that the gay community would have stood up for Stevens who, it is reported, was raped before he died. Apparently it's a tradition in Libya; Qaddafi was treated the same way. Still, politics makes strange sex partners.
That she told her own daughter the truth the night of the attack but told the nation another story for weeks (until safely after the reelection of her President is exactly what she's hoping to project. The reasoning behind the Rodham/Rice/Obama story was political expediency. We all know that. It is simply too much to ever admit it in public.
Now people born yesterday will come to believe that Hillary too knew the truth at the time and that there was no cover up. That is what she is banking on.
Still, you do have to admire the strong following that a perjurer and sex offender has when she's a Democrat.
The tell that Trey Gowdy failed to get Hillary Clinton today was at 8:15pm, when CNN was showing the ongoing hearing but Fox had moved onto their talking heads. The overall impression was of Captain Queeg's inquiry into who ate his strawberries.
I have never bought their stories about not knowing what was happening in Benghazi.
An ambassador and staff engaged in serious skullduggery on behalf of the State Dept. and a CIA station in a more or less hostile country and they do not have communications equipment, at least satellite phones to stay in contact with their mother ships? Not credible. State, CIA, and DoD were being told what was happening as it was going down.
There are several Obama supporters here who like to point out that only four lives were lost in Benghazi vs. the hundreds killed in Beirut under Reagan and thousands killed in NYC under Bush. They know who they are. That is not disputed. What is utterly different and most irksome is/was/ the lying and the cover-up the Administration engaged in during the run up to the 2012 election. President Reagan did not send out loyal minions out to spin facts; George W. Bush did not dispatch loyal minions to spin facts; Barack Obama did, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was one of his loyal minions. So in a sense, Hillary is defending and running on the President's record. She is the candidate both Biden and Althouse were hoping for.
She was given a chance to tell her well prepared side of the story and the democrats had their parts ready. But as the session wound down we got a glimpse of the weaknesses of the script. Why was Stevens there? Was there ever a point at which we can say we have all the emails? She was intentionally and willfuly blind to what was going on, and the whole isolation from knowledge about the security situation was not to avoid responsibility in the aftermath of an attack. She wanted to play dumb when questions about weapons came up. They did and she did.
"Clinton advanced her cause again. In particular she has put the 'too old' canard to rest. You may not like her but she is plenty sharp enough."
I think she can outwit a Republican Congressional committee but so could I. She is the worst person to ever be a serious candidate for president. If she should be elected, which I think is possible, the country would probably have a hard time surviving her.
I'm sure you are proud of her.
Which goes to finding out why Benghazi happened in the first place, which so far we have not heard boo about
And I think Hillary! and her State Dept. want to keep it that way regardless of what else they may have to admit to.
But why?
I looked at a portion of the questioning by Rep. Pompeo about State's failure to respond to 600 requests from the embassy in Libya for additional security. None of those requests apparently made it to the desk of the Sec. of State (or if they did, they've been wiped, "like with a cloth"), because Amb. Stevens, Clinton's good friend that she likes to call "Chris" at least now that he's dead, didn't have the "private" email address with which she did her business as Sec. of State. Clinton's response to Rep. Pompeo's questions about how this could be was: I deferred to the judgment of the security professionals.
Do you remember Harry Truman? A Democratic President and a hero to most Democrats (and many Republicans) for most of my life. He said, The buck stops here, not at the desk of the "security professionals", but at the desk of the guy in charge. Clinton is running for the biggest desk we've got. She spent four years at a smaller but still big desk. She's proved not only that she wasn't competent to carry out the duties of Secretary of State, but also that she lacks the character needed to carry out any responsible job.
Here's the video: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/10/pompeo-vs-clinton-600-requests-for-more-benghazi-security-were-ignored.php
Maybe some actress coached her
Maybe?
"Still, I thought it was real. Hillary Clinton loves our country. Does she not?"
No, she doesn't.
I assume the question was rhetorical but I felt like answering anyway. A person who loves her country doesn't destroy subpoenaed evidence and then feign senility when asked about it.
All that said she will get away with criminal actions that would land a less connected person several years in prison.
If the GOP thought that the media would actually look at the contradictions between her statements to the public and her emails then they're damned fools.
The Clintons ran out the clock, it's as simple as that.
She stood up well to lengthy questioning. It was an impressive display of acuity and endurance. I'd give her the win. But for all that, my takeaway is that she wasn't sufficiently proactive about providing security at Benghazi, that she deliberately either lied or obfuscated about the video, and that the whole email and Blumenthal thing is sloppy and dishonest......However, the fog of war has nothing on Hillary's word clouds. She really knows how to slip a punch. Not only that, the person who threw the punch, even in a scheduled bout, is shown to be guilty of assault.. It's no wonder that Sir Edmund Hillary's mother named her son after this brave woman.
I think Ann is just stirring the pot here. She is too smart to have any regard for Hillary Clinton.
Does she love her country? Sure, after $200 million, she adores this country and what it did for her.
The remarkable part is to me is that the hearing produced documents she authored on 9/11 and 9/12 showing that knew immediately is was a planned attack unrelated to the video. This in turn proves she and the administration were lying when claiming it was caused by the video. The liberal media will let her off the hook on it. Imagine is such evidence showed George Bush or Dick Cheney to be a liar.
If the State Department didn't have enough money to properly secure the Benghazi operation, instead of whining about Congress (and transitively the American people) for not giving here enough money, a real leader doesn't set up their people to fail. She should have shut it down.
A leader doesn't just let the wheels of the bureaucracy grind on mulching up hundreds of requests for additional security while a Sid Blumenthal has a direct, instantaneous pipeline. A leader doesn't sigh and say "that's how the system works". A leader takes action. Hillary didn't.
Every part of foreign policy under her watch turned to shit. She has to stand up and take responsibility for that.
Well when she's elected at least it won't be the first time she's proud of her country, nor the first time for her spouse...so that's an improvement, anyway.
Hillary Clinton loves Hillary Clinton
I'm amazed Hillary didn't use her fake Southern accent.
She, and Obama, from her own testimony knew the embassy was venerable.
They knew the embassy was pleading for more staff and gave them nothing, all the while upgrading embassies in other countries.
They knew they had destabilized Libya and had no control there.
And they knew in the first minutes it was a terrorist attack, not some protest over a movie.
YET THEY SENT NO ONE TO SAVE THEM. No jets with bombs, no helicopters, no Marines (but they did have UAVs to watch the show.)
Then Hillary's mail server kind of crashed and they thought their emails were all destroyed.
But don't worry folks, Hillary is a woman and must be the nominee!
Benghazzzz-zzzzzzzz
Nixon: I am not a crook.
Althouse: Good enough for me!
/rolleyes
"Though I'm mostly a steely, distanced observer of political theater" Self-deception alert!!!! Self-deception alert!!!!
Have a moment of critical self-reflection on anything and everything gay-related that you have blogged about all these years. You are NOT steely and and distanced. You have a gay son, and that gives you skin in the game.
Perhaps if your gay son had served in the deployed combat arms in this century, you would also be slightly less steely and distanced on the topic of leaving Americans alone under attack in a foreign mission when help WAS available. My son deployed three times with the USMC and let me tell you, your passion about mainstreaming homosexuality has nothing on mine about the notion that we should help our own. When he deployed, I accepted the idea he could die. I did not, and WILL NEVER, accept the idea that he should be left alone under fire when help was available. My fire of my contempt for the spineless political cowards who did this at Benghazi cannot be quenched in a million hearings.
False Grackle, the grackle whose son deployed so yours could enjoy his boyfriend in peace.
The lying and lying, the dissembling and pretending and excusing, the hiding and lying and lying and lying and destroying to protect the lies and lying - does it mean nothing? Oh no, nothing at all, she says she loves our country, that's all that matters, there are tears in my eyes, I feel something, I feeeeeeeeeel, to hell with thinking, to hell with understanding, to hell with reason so long as I can feeeeeeeel.
I was disheartened as I watched intermittently. She sounded good. Obviously her team coordinated with the Dem members on the questioning. The MSM will be able to show video of Hillary sounding reasonable, thoughtful, and caring. The same folks who believed in Obama's decency in 2008 will be happy to buy Hillary's b.s.
I heard Hillary tried to do the troll gimmick by offering to send her book to one of her questioners. Someone on her staff has convinced her that being an obnoxious dickhead is good politics. Unfortunately, the young left loves "pwnage" and people getting "destroyed" by "trolls."
Hillary ate these dumb motherfuckers lunch, and they are too stupid to realize they are sending her to the White House with this stupid obsession. The GOP thinks saying BENGHAZI over and over is going to take Democrats down. Republicans have glorified a small gang of terrorists more than every jihadist propaganda network ever could. But, working with terrorists is nothing new with Republicans
I see that GM is on duty tonight.
When he's done excusing the destruction of evidence and violation of federal law will somebody please let me know if he ever actually makes a point.
Wow garage is a blind partisan idiot. Who knew?
Garage Mahal was a Hillary partisan before he was an Obama partisan. They go back years and years. There used to be an Althouse commenter name Hoosier Daddy (who oddly disappeared after Meade married Althouse) who had his number.
Even Fox cut away from this nonsense, and you guys still think you won today. I wish I had a list of just conservatives to call on, because they such suckers.
You just wait, in the 10th hearing we're going to find the BENGHAZI PONY and take Hillary down!
Garage Mahal for the win. These hillbilly motherfuckers got destroyed today by Secretary (and soon to be President) Clinton.
I just hope we can wind up these Republican hillbillies enough over the next year so that they also hand us the House and Senate.
Bend these right wing hillbilly mother fuckers over and make them squeal like the little piggies they really are!
You really have to be watching with partisan eyes to see this woman glibly referring to the embassy personnel buying their own barricades because she denied them additional security as being "entrepreneurial". To say that they took advantage of a "fire sale", regarding this embassy that burned is utterly offensive. Emails entered into the record show that in the hours and days after the attack she told both her daughter and the Egyptian Prime Minister that it was a terrorist attack. And after that she spread the lie about the video being responsible, even telling that to the family members of the slain servicemen. It was a lie- She is caught in a lie of her own making, and an innocent American citizen was arrested and jailed on a false charge to support a lie created by the Obama administration to deflect blame for their mishandling of a crisis two months before an election. How anyone can consider this woman for the presidency, particularly democrat party members who are still squawking about Tricky Dick, well, you'd just have to lack principles.
These hearings will be a treasure trove for the ad makers who will be putting together those Republican political ads. She will be exposed as a serial deceiver who lied, and kept lying,to the nation about that "horrendous video". And for all her crocodile tears over the death of her "good friend Chris", she never contacted him once to ask him what he thought about his security, and even neglected provide him with her email address. She came off as an out-of touch Washington bureaucrat, more comfortable presiding over policy meetings that never end than actually running the State Department. And as for all those requests for more security from the Ambassador, well, protocol requires that they must be handled by the Department's "Security Experts." It's no surprise then, that Hillary never knew a thing about those 600 requests for additional security.
These hearings showed her to be either incompetent or stupid. The only argument is which one.
steve said...
Nixon: I am not a crook.
Althouse: Good enough for me!
/rolleyes
10/22/15, 10:12 PM
LMAO! Good one, bro! LOL! Too true!
'AP FACT CHECK: Clinton and critics on Benghazi, emails
"...CLINTON: In her opening statement, she painted her critics as arguing that it's never reasonable to plant diplomats on dangerous ground: "Retreat from the world is not an option. America cannot shrink from our responsibility to lead. ... If you ask our most experienced ambassadors, they'll tell you they can't do their jobs for us from bunkers."
THE FACTS: Republican lawmakers are not arguing that diplomats should never venture into risky conditions to represent the U.S. They cite investigations after the Benghazi attacks that condemned the State Department's decision to keep that post open with poor security despite a growing number of assaults on Western interests in the area.
The accountability board appointed by Clinton as secretary of state said the security in Benghazi was "grossly inadequate to deal with the attack." A bipartisan Senate committee report called keeping the Benghazi mission open under those circumstances "a grievous mistake..."'
She said she accepted responsibility for Benghazi. That's all you'll ever get from her ilk. Now it's all about blather and political posturing. In those areas Hilbilly is without peer.
Stupid Republicans.
One thing that has always bothered me in this whole sordid affair is the lack of military response. We've heard it was too far, too late. But what kind of fireman tells a panicked caller, "Sorry, we can't get there in time" then hangs up his phone and goes back to playing cards? You send the trucks, even if the house is ashes if for no other reason than to show you care.
We did nothing. This troubles me as much as the lies and obfuscations to follow.
Once written, twice... said...
Bend these right wing hillbilly mother fuckers over and make them squeal like the little piggies they really are!
And Deliverance from evil, & for Thighness the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, forever!
Living without an aim is like sailing without a compass
____________________________
FIFA 16 Ultimate Team Coins
Blogger Once written, twice... said...
Garage Mahal for the win. These hillbilly motherfuckers got destroyed today by Secretary (and soon to be President) Clinton.
Hillary Clinton is married to an Arkansas hillbilly named William Jefferson Clinton (aka Billy Blythe). It's how she got her last name.
I really wonder what kind of thought process is initiated when liberals unleash themselves as blog commenters.
"Repeal the 19th Amendment."
I'm afraid that one--of all the amendments of all time--was unrepealable upon passage.
But the 18th? Lol, ok, maybe the 19th made that one obsolete too. Because... we all need excuses for when we get drunk and screw and then regret it.
The odds of a congressman landing a punch against Hillary Clinton are roughly the odds of an ordinary man landing a punch against a professional boxer.
I can't wait for Hillary! No reallary!
I mean, how much worse can it get?
Oh, wait.
Trump and Hillary!
Lol... I can't stop laughing. This makes all the other shit for all these years worth it.
"Though I'm mostly a steely, distanced observer of political theater, it reached me when she said:
I traveled to 112 countries as Secretary of State. Every time I did, I felt great pride and honor representing the country that I love. We need leadership at home to match our leadership abroad. Leadership that puts national security ahead of politics and ideology.
Maybe some actress coached her, but she got just the right emotional pitch on the word "love."
----------------------
Altparse...WTF?
I mean..is there something at Amazon I can buy to quell this illogic? Something?!
"Meaningless. Am I being too blithe? Point out what I should care about."
1. I handled a lot of TS/SCI material when I was in the army as part of my job. If I had done what she did with that information I would be in jail. Bradley Manning is in jail for it. The only thing keeping her out of jail is she is rich and powerful and her supporters are disgusting amoral people.
2. She lied about the cause of Banghazi to save the reelection campaign of her boss. She stood on the caskets of dead veterans and told that lie to the faces of their family members. She told that lie to the american people and did dishonor to the dead. She had an american citizen thrown in jail to buttress the lie.
3. If Hillary is elected her complete lack of humanity and integrity will push many over the edge. Resistance will no longer be passive. Have fun with that. We will.
Ann misses the point, the hearings proved that HRC lied about the video as the cause of the attack. How someone gains luster after being caught in another lie is weird.
garage mahal said...
"Benghazzzz-zzzzzzzz"
I would like to introduce you to some SEALs. I would like you to say this to their faces. I would like to post the results on youtube.
"We need leadership at home to match our leadership abroad. Leadership that puts national security ahead of politics and ideology." Said the person whose initial action was to lie to the American people about the attack particulars for purely political reasons and whose every subsequent action has focused on avoiding any type of accountability, also for purely political reasons.
You should care that Ms Clinton does not follow rules established for the the good of the country, that she lies without hesitation about important matters, and that there is no reason to believe she would not continue to flaunt rules and lie to the American people as president. If that does not give you pause, what would?
"We need leadership at home to match our leadership abroad. Leadership that puts national security ahead of politics and ideology."
Perhaps Ms. Clinton missed the part of poli-sci class at Wellesley where they explained that the words "politician", political", "policy" and "politics" are related.
For the record, after 9/11, Bill Harrison, the CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, sent out an email to everyone in the company saying that anyone with any concerns about life safety or physical security should respond to him directly. I very timidly wrote him an email saying that when the ground floor lobby was full of people from the fire drills, you couldn't hear the loudspeakers cuz the bodies soak up the sound.
That day, he didn't respond to me directly but he told his admin to action it and she CC'd me on all of that. Within the week they were putting up all new speakers in the lobby.
The buck stops with this woman. If you elect her, yes she will be sticking it into the other half of your countrymen, and maybe that's all that matters anymore. However, if she governs like she has been, we can look forward to more of the same. Don't you think...Does she seem like she's learned anything except how to get over on congressional hearings? That really good enough, Ann? Perhaps it is for you.
After thinking about it, let's not be too hard on Hillary. She was just a secretary. It wasn't her policy to destroy Libya. She didn't invent the lie about a video as the reason for a few lads getting rambunctious in Benghazi. She just repeated them and mouthed the words. Just following orders. Those were designed to get Obama past his re-election campaign. She just took the trips that Ann's first affirmative action president told her to take. A good water carrier who helped carry out the destruction of American influence in the world. That was Obama's policy and it's a secretary's job to follow orders.
On the personal side, it gave her and her partner a chance to get really, really rich; a goal that she had ever since Arkansas. Plus she's got a good shot at being president. A few dead Americans and a plethora of global foreign policy disasters is not too high a price to pay.
Being the forgiving creature that I am, I decided that a mere secretary is not responsible when a government screw up as badly as this one has. Others are not as magnanimous.
Even by Election Day way back in ’12 it had been established that at Clinton’s urging the administration of President Barack Obama had bombed an odious but defanged dictator out of power in Libya and thus ushered in an power vacuum where various Islamist terror groups thrived, then ignored repeated pleas for more security by the unfortunate men and women who were sent into the resulting anarchy to serve the government, that when the long foreseen terrorist attack at last occurred they lied to the American public that it was the entirely unpredictable result of a spontaneous demonstration sparked by the local populace’s understandable outrage over an obscure YouTube video critical of Islam rather than a well-planned attack by the terrorist gangs that were assuredly being routed, then had the filmmaker imprisoned on a parole violation for exercising his First Amendment rights and assured the United Nations that “the future must not belong to those slander the prophet of Islam,” and withheld information from government and press investigators to cover it all up. None of this prevented Obama’s re-election, and even the resulting scandal about Clinton’s use of a private and unsecured and most likely illegal e-mail server in apparent attempt to keep further embarrassing facts away from public scrutiny hasn’t changed the media perception that she’s still the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
For reasons they cannot adequately explain to us, all of our Democratic friends are quite insouciant about the whole affair. Had it happened during a Republican administration we expect they’d share some at least some of our outrage about it, but in this case they find all sorts of excuses. None seem at all upset that we bombed some Middle Eastern dictator out of power, even though he’d verifiably surrendered all his weapons of mass destruction after the invasion of Iraq and posed no immediate threat to America’s national security, and even though they take a much dimmer view of such actions during Republican administrations. A columnist for a recently-defunct local “alternative paper” blamed the deaths on the daredevil recklessness of the ambassador, despite the repeated pleas for more security, and his readers seemed to accept that a Secretary of State should be doing whatever Clinton doing at the time to deal with such minor matters as the security arrangements for some remote consulate. That she blamed it on a spontaneous demonstration against some obscure and easily targeted filmmaker in order to help her administration’s re-election doesn’t seem to trouble a Democrats’ conscience, either, as they can ascribe any Republican criticism to rank political partisanship and their otherwise steadfast commitment to the most irreligious sorts of free speech ends short of any slander against the prophet of Islam. As for the highly irregular e-mail arrangement that now figures it in the scandal, even the only credible challenger to Clinton’s presumptive Democratic nomination says to great applause that he’s sick of hearing about it.
Pretty much everyone that’s not a true believer in the Democratic faith has already concluded that Clinton is incompetent, dishonest, and thoroughly despicable, too, so there seems little to be gained from another day’s further confirmation of what has so long been obvious. At this point, though, we appreciate even the most futile gesture.
"Still, I thought it was real. Hillary Clinton loves our country. Does she not?"
And you probably want River City to have a band.
You can't say that Hillary lacks courage. After all, it takes guts to blame Ambassador Stevens for his own death.
She had her way, when she lowered her voice, and talked about the sleepless nights, it was a gripping performance, which is the way I would put it so I can remain neutral on this. But showing that she really cared, et cetera or at least giving that impression. And that's what's going to be shown.
And the only thing that's going to be shown on the committee other than that, in the clips is going to be that Trey Gowdy interchange with [Rep. Elijah] Cummings. Which of course is a conflict reality TV. And a nice little bit of heat.
We're not going to get the contradictions, we're not going to get the facts, we're not going to get the real story underlying it. We're living in an age where what you say and its relation with the facts is completely irrelevant as we see in the presidential campaign. And it's carrying over into the hearings.
-Krauthammer
Ann ate it up. Good girl.
Folks 2012 is done and in the past. This hearing was not going to change minds on the left or the right. Each side will find its moments to declare "See, see!"
You still have an election ahead of you. For that you will need to convince the independent undecideds, the 8 - 10% who aren't reflexively partisan.
Bengazi won't do it.
Althouse: Hillary Clinton loves our country. Does she not?
No.
Advancing the welfare of the USA, or of the Planet Earth or the Galaxy, by any amount however large is unimportant to her against augmenting her personal wealth by an amount however minuscule.
When you wonder why we show you no mercy, this is it.
"garage mahal said...
"Benghazzzz-zzzzzzzz"
I would like to introduce you to some SEALs."
You know that garage is immune to shame and would never go near anyone in that icky military. Neither would his / her soulmates on the left.
Always good to include a source link, Moneyrunner.
Benghazi and the Difference It Makes.
Every part of foreign policy under her watch turned to shit. She has to stand up and take responsibility for that.
-----------
Let GWB/Cheney stand first for judgement...
Fen said...
When you wonder why we show you no mercy, this is it.
Exactly
Ann, I tend to agree that she did fine, but only in the sense that she would have had to completely botch it at this point to take damage. She's being graded on a curve.
The objective facts of the situation make her look terrible. If you assume she did nothing nefarious, the murder of a diplomat is a massive and humiliating failure. This is the sort of thing that ends careers.
It's just complex thinking. Women would be taken seriously if they could see that sometimes it doesn't work, for instance in politics. It can be turned off when appropriate once some self-awareness takes root.
Complex thinking is great around the house.
A Lillian Hellmann for the 21st century.
Her testimony was a veritable haboob as regards truthfulness, however confidently delivered.
Why isn't this woman in prison?
@Moneyrunner,
Of all the dictators in the Middle East to oust, Qaddafi was the least offensive. He wasn't actively inciting terrorism and he wasn't rattling sabers at neighbors. He was just getting a bit too Elton John in his clothing selection and was very interested in unifying the all the African states into a mutually supporting coalition. He'd even publicly denounced the 9/11/01 attacks.
As we've seen in the rest of that area, those "peaceful protests" that Qaddafi was cracking down on quickly became militant every other country. I suspect that Qaddafi understood this better than anyone else, and was likely telling everyone that the protests were just a prelude to deep trouble.
Those are the emails I want to see, communications from the Qaddafi government to our State Department.
>>Though I'm mostly a steely, distanced observer of political theater
I'm hoping that was satirical because no, you're not.
So her emails indicate that the video story was a lie. She lied because it was potentially harmful to Obama's reelection narrative.
Althouse, you OK with the government lying about terrorist attacks to protect their political careers?
Of course, this doesn't even get at what kind of protection our diplomats on the ground in Libya were requesting, leading up to the attack, and what their superiors in Washington were saying and doing in response. Is it fair, or is it "partisan," to ask whether their concerns were given proper weight, and their requests addressed in meaningful ways, especially given that they were slaughtered like pigs, and lies about the motivation for the attack were being concocted before their bodies were even cold?
Is there a more egregious example of cold-blooded, calculated political ruthlessness in American history, in the context of their deaths? Part of the Republicans' problem, we're told (besides being icky and stupid, of course), is that they don't exert this level ruthlessness to win elections. You can't exercise power, the logic goes, unless you win and hold political power, by any means necessary. Is this how Americans want their politicians to win power?
The Left already has answered that question, after laying the necessary ground work, of course, by ridiculing the committee chair for his corn-pone accent and funny hair: It's time to move on, time to elect someone because she has a vagina.
Let GWB/Cheney stand first for judgement...
Good point. We won't vote for them either.
She wrote an email to Egypt and Chelsea Clinton stating that she knew this was a terrorist action [the email to Chelsea, oddly enough, uses a pseudonym.] She then went ahead and lied to American citizens because, I guess, she thinks we're stupid.
But, hey. Pitch perfect on the love.
"Ann misses the point, the hearings proved that HRC lied about the video as the cause of the attack. How someone gains luster after being caught in another lie is weird."
-- Most Americans are not going to take the time to take two separate facts and swirl them together to reach a conclusion, especially one that makes them unhappy.
Hillary demonstrated her luster depends upon her ability to stand neck deep in her own shit and declare that she likes the smell. And that we all should like it too, as we sink up to our necks in her shit, too.
That is presidential leadership ability, right there, I don't care who you are.
Watching Democrats and their MSM deflector shields celebrate Hillary's testimony performance reminds me of the Jersey Shore/Bensonhurst guidos celebrating Gotti acquittals.
I am truly disappointed. Our esteemed blog leader has not bothered to listen to the important hearings of yesterday and offer us original, learned commentary. Instead, we are told that she didn't bother to watch much of it, and because she feels that Hillary 'loves her country', the whole affair was 'meaningless',that Hill basicaly won the exchange.
Going to 112 countries is an activity, not an accomplishment (Fiorina) and Hill gets zero credit for lovng her country, just as a corrupted drug dealer gets no credit loving his children; its expected.
Once again your commenters are confusing the verbs should and is.
Richard Nixon: I am not a crook.
Hillary Clinton: I love my country.
German has a word -- selbstverstaendlich -- that can be roughly translated as "things which shouldn't need saying".
She allegedly told the father of one of the victims that the person who made the film would be arrested and prosecuted. That alone should disqualify her from the Presidency. I mean, this is her attitude toward free speech?
Imagine if someone at Cabinet level in the Bush Admin had been as incompetent as her, and allowed a disaster like Benghazi to happen - then lie publicly about the cause. And it was subsequently discovered (after 2 or 3 years of stonewalling and non-cooperation) in their private emails that they knew and communicated the truth as to the cause of the disaster to those they trusted.
The MSM would have a FIELD DAY, hounding that Cabinet member out of office and making Bush fall on his sword for the incompetence and medacity of that Cabinet member.
That Cabinet member could never run for political office again.
Instead, this Cabinet member is being given a coronation to the POTUS nomination, and the MSM just looks the other way. I weep for my country.
Hillary Clinton loves Hillary Clinton, money, and possibly her grandchild. I think that's probably the complete list.
Loves her country? That's a laugh.
Matthew Sablan said... 10/23/15, 9:36 AM
She wrote an email to Egypt and Chelsea Clinton stating that she knew this was a terrorist action [the email to Chelsea, oddly enough, uses a pseudonym.]
It wasn't an e-mail to Egypt. It was a telephone conversation, of which the State Department made notes. There are notes also of aconversation with a Libyan official. No oral conversations were ever recorded, and no noted made except for foreign officials.
Chelsea used a pseudonym on the clintonemail system. It's a fluke that we have it.
That's because Hillary Clinton intermingled official, personal and business e-mails on the same system, and then she had to make official nemail available, and came to an agreement with the state Department as to how to do it, and because the subpoena the State Department had [the committee didn't know about her e-mails being all off the state.gov system at that time, so Hillary Clinton had not yet been subpoenaed herself] referred to anything about Libya or Benghazi, a separate search was made for them, so we got the closest thing we could ever get to a memo to herself or diary entry about Benghazi.
She then went ahead and lied to American citizens
She was very careful in her choice of words.
because, I guess, she thinks we're stupid.
No, because she was a loyal Democrat and didn't want to contradict what what other people in the government believed, or argue with the CIA if the president wasn't.
She didn't think we are that stupid - that's why it was Susan Rice on the network interview shows and not Hillary Clinton.
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