Benghazi. Again.

This morning the (U.S.) House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform met to hear three so-called "whistle blowers" from the State Department testify about Benghazi.  For eight months Republicans have been repeating the same tiresome talking points.  They keep repeating them even after exhaustive investigation by the Accountability Review Board and a no-holds-barred Senate hearing on the subject have shown those talking points to be empty accusations.  South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has been repeating the talking points to every media outlet that will give him camera time ever since—no doubt posturing for his next election. 

 

I was able to hear only part of today's testimony on the car radio.  I have a lot of respect for Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and liked what he had to say about honoring those killed in Benghazi, and stressing the importance of hearing and protecting"whistle blowers" from any government entity.  Cummings then said something that needed saying:  That the House hearing was all about politics and the hope of finding something to discredit Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State when the Benghazi post was attacked.   Republicans dream that somewhere, somehow they can make Hillary into something less than the mega-popular "might be" Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, whose popularity numbers are nearly off the charts.  There's no subtlety in the GOP lawmakers' motives for turning Benghazi into "Groundhog Day."  They're after Hillary.  Period.

 

Earlier today Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who participated in the Senate hearing on Benghazi, said he was" fairly satisfied" about how the Benghazi tragedy was handled—after testimony at the Senate hearing and reading the cables and reviewing other evidence.  The top military people in our country have testified that everything was done that could have been done, sad though the outcome, with four American lives lost.  An independent Accountability Review Board gave a positive report, assigning zero blame to the Secretary of State. 

 

Media-reported leaks had indicated today's whistle blowers would be making major news at today's hearing.   Committee member Matt Cartwright (D-TX) said he was on the edge of his seat, expecting a bombshell at any moment.  Not only did no jaw-dropping revelations come out of the hearing, Rep. Cartwright said there literally was no new information offered.   He did say that witness Gregory Hicks, deputy mission chief for the U. S. in Libya gave his account of the day of the attack, and it was interesting to hear a from someone who had been there.  But no new insights or facts came out.  He said the hearing was "a waste of time."  As far as I know, none of the three who testified (Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson, and Eric Nordstrom) had anything to say about not being "allowed" to tell their stories.  

 

One more thing.   As Republicans continue their efforts to smear Hillary Clinton, when they say that the public wasn't given accurate information after the attack, when they say someone (and they mean Hillary) in the State Department didn't take the Benghazi attack seriously enough,  and as a result four American lives were lost, I have this thought:  If they want to talk about lives lost and someone "paying a price" or being "held accountable," I'd like to refer them to the invasion of Iraq.  We still don't know everything there is to know about the non-existent"weapons of mass destruction" that led the Bush Administration to invade Iraq and involve the U.S. in a decade-long war of choice.  I'd like to hear someone ask the next  GOP lawmaker who makes the "Four Americans were killed in Benghazi" statement this:  "And whom would you hold accountable for the 4,486 American soldiers killed in Iraq and the approximately 151,000 (estimate from the Iraq Family Health Survey) Iraqis who died?" Not to mention all the human beings who were horribly maimed there.  Did President Bush and his team ignore the Presidential Daily Briefing saying Bin Laden was determined to attack America, that he might use airplanes?  Sure looks like they didn't take the PDB warning seriously.

 

Somebody, please ask them.  It's way past time.