3 Incredibly Outrageous Evasions by Hillary Clinton About Benghazi

During a long day of testifying before House and
Senate panels, outgoing Secretary of State – and presumptive
Democratic Party candidate for the presidency in 2016 – Hillary
Clinton batted away contentious questions from Republicans like Ted
Williams at a Little League game. She also soaked up extreme
adulation from Democrats (including a a not-so-coded call to run
for president by Sen. Barbara Boxer,
who said, “You will be missed, but I for one hope for not too
long”).

The scene reminded me of nothing so much as
Oliver North’s appearance before a joint Congressional
committee investigating Iran-Contra back in the
1980s. Not because of anything Clinton said but the way
that she carried herself and the ease with which she wrapped
herself in the flag and tragedy to obscure the simple fact that she
wasn’t going to answer anything. North famously showed up to
testify in a military uniform that had nothing to do with his day
job of subverting the U.S. Constitution from the basement of the
Reagan White House. Clinton couldn’t repeat that fashion statement
but she was able to pound the table and choke up at all the right
moments to evade serious discussion not simply of major screw-ups,
but major screw-ups that will go unaccounted for.

Three major evasions from her appearances yesterday
include:

1. “I take responsiblity.”

From a Fox News report of the Senate hearing:

During the opening of the hearing, Clinton said she has
“no higher priority” than the security of her department’s staff,
and that she is committed to making the department “safer, stronger
and more secure.” 

“As I have said many times, I take responsibility, and nobody is
more committed to getting this right,” Clinton said, later choking
up when describing how she greeted the families of the victims when
the caskets were returned.    

Taking
responsibility is the classic dodge in Washington,
where pols assume the mantle of leadership and them promptly do
nothing to address the situation for which they are in hot water.
What does it mean to take responsiblity for the absolute breakdown
of security at a consulate where your ambassador gets murdered
(along with three others)? Judging from Clinton’s subsequent
actions, nothing other than showing up when the dead are brought
home. Worse still is Clinton’s misting up over the tragedy. That
makes her a little too much like the kid who kills his parents and
then asks the court to take mercy on him because he’s now an
orphan.

2. “1.43 million cables come to my office.”

ABC News reporting from the House hearings:

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, asked Clinton this afternoon why
her office had not responded to a notification from Stevens about
potential dangers in Libya.

“Congressman, that cable did not come to my attention,” Clinton
calmly told the House Foreign Affairs Committee hours after her
Senate testimony this morning. “I’m not aware of anyone within my
office, within the secretary’s office having seen that cable.”

She added that “1.43 million cables come to my office. They’re
all addressed to me.”

Come on, already. The question is plainly not whether Clinton is
reading every goddamned communication addressed to her but whether
she’s got the right people in charge of assessing risk and making
sure resources are apportioned accordingly. Tragically, the answer
was no, especially given the fact that State
had cut security in Benghazi despite attacks prior to the
deadly 9/11 one! This just ain’t no way to run things.

3.
“What difference at this point does it make?”

From a CBS News account of a confrontation between Secretary
Clinton and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.):

“We were misled that there were supposedly protests and an
assault spraying out of that and it was easily obtained that it was
not the fact the American people could have known that within days
and they didn’t know that,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said.

“The fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a
protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and
decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this
point does it make?” Clinton responded.

Clinton’s statement may set a new standard for politically
motivated evasions of basic truth and decency. Seriously: What
difference does it make? Just for low-stakes starters,
there’s a guy in California who was put in jail basically because
the Obama administration said his stupid, irrelevant video trailer
for “The Innocence of Muslims” was to blame for anti-Americanism in
Libya and beyond. President Obama went to the United Nations and

bitch-slapped free expression in front of a global audience on
the premise that “Innocence” was the cause of the attack on
Benghazi. Our own U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, took to the talk
shows to peddle a line that was either
wilfully misleading or simply totally wrong (Rice was the
admin’s point person in early appearances about Benghazi partly
because, as Clinton explained yesterday, she doesn’t like doing
Sunday morning shows!).

Contra Clinton, it makes a great deal of difference because
understanding how this all happened is the first step to making
sure it doesn’t happen over and over and over again.

Congressional grillings of outgoing cabinet members are not the
best forum to seek truth and justice and too many of the GOP
inquisitors seem determined merely to score partisan points. Then
again, the Obama adminstration, at least when it comes to Benghazi,
hasn’t done much to be the transparent change it says it wants in
all areas of government. After a blistering Senate report on the
situation found “systematic failures,” essentially nothing happened
(at least that we know about). Two minor staffers have been booted
as a result of Clinton’s taking of “responsibility.”

Worse still: As Hillary Clinton leaves the high-stakes world of
international intrigue, she’s set to be
replaced by John Kerry, who somehow manages to be an
interventionist and supposedly informed by the nation’s
experience in Vietnam at the same time.

So things can – and likely will – only get worse.

2013-01-24 07:45:12

Source: http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/24/3-incredibly-outrageous-evasions-by-hill