Hillary In Hiding

For once, I am inclined to believe Hillary Clinton. The U.S. Secretary of State, suffering from a sick stomach, has reportedly fainted and bumped her head. As a result, her spokespeople have already announced that she will be unable to testify at the Benghazi hearings, although she was not due to appear until December 20, many days after the vaguely reported fainting spell.

Already, the internet is resounding with a chorus of “How convenient!” (See here and here, for example.) Many, upon hearing this news, are assuming that Clinton, who has been hedging for a month on whether to appear at the congressional hearings, has concocted yet another excuse to avoid facing the music on a scandal which, if pursued with integrity, would likely end her political career, to put it mildly.

I, on the contrary, would like to give Secretary Clinton the benefit of the doubt on this one. Though I have never participated in a cover-up involving the brutal murder and defilement of people under my direct employ, I can only imagine that if I had, and if I were being called on the carpet to answer questions about my role in events surrounding a seven-hour terrorist assault on my representatives in Libya, and the subsequent disinformation campaign being managed, in part, out of my office, I would be feeling sick to my stomach, too. I imagine I might even faint, as the day of reckoning approached.