Hillary dances but stumbles in Benghazi hearings

Hillary Dances but Stumbles

 The View from the Middle

What should you expect from The View From the Middle concerning Hillary Clinton’s testimony yesterday on Benghazi?  You should expect a dispassionate analysis – the truth, which is difficult to come by in Washington and, unfortunately, from the mainstream media.  And you shall have it.  You will remember that after Ms. Clinton’s first appearance in front of Darrell Issa’s committee, I declared Hillary the winner, despite her horrible “what difference does it make” gaffe.  Yesterday, she was not the winner. 

Those who blindly support her simply on Wednesday because she is a democrat or a woman will probably rationalize how they can still support her today.  Those who think she is a serial liar and the worst person we could put in The White House in 2017, will not change that opinion, but it is with the Independents that Hillary could suffer a decline.  Of course, none of this will make a difference in the primary, but could impact the general election.  All that is to be seen.

The partisanship was thick from the very beginning.  Democrats spent most of their time attacking the committee and its chairman and occasionally asking some softball question like, “how did you (Hillary) balance the need for security with the real needs of the country?”  This was usually accompanied by a tear rolling down the questioner’s cheek or at least a pained expression on their faces.  Hillary then went into an obviously pre-planned answer that allowed her to look as Presidential as possible. 

The Republicans did occasionally get too personal with their attacks, which helped Hillary act out her victim roles, but they did at least ask questions.  The most effective questioners for the Republicans, thus also for the entire committee, were Jim Jordan of Ohio and Trey Gowdy, the chairman, from South Carolina.

Jim Jordan went after one of the three key issues of these hearings.  What was the source of the story that Susan Rice spread on five Sunday talk shows that this entire event was a demonstration about an anti-Islamic video gone wrong?  Mr. Jordan laid out a very damning series of e-mails that Ms. Clinton sent to her daughter, Chelsea, the President of Libya and the Prime Minister of Egypt that clearly stated that this was a planned terrorist attack.   All of these communications were within 24 hours of the attack.  The most damning was the e-mail to the Egyptian Prime Minister that stated, “We know there is no connection between the attack in Libya and the video.  It was a planned attack, not a protest.” 

I don’t know how much more obvious he could have made it, that she and the President and Susan Rice were selling a scenario to the American people that they know for a fact was not true.  Some people may have missed this.  Some may try to minimize it, but I predict that this new, revealing information will haunt the Secretary for quite some time, just as her “what difference does it make” comment did.

Trey Gowdy caught Ms. Clinton in another deception.  She described her e-mails from Sidney Blumenthal as “unsolicited”.  She didn’t qualify.  She implied they were all “unsolicited”.  Mr. Gowdy then showed e-mail after e-mail from Ms. Clinton that included obvious solicitation for his input.  He showed e-mails from her that ended with “Please keep it (the information) coming” or “do you have any more info” or “what are you hearing now”.  You may think this is a minor point, but I think it demonstrates Ms. Clinton’s habit of misleading all of us until she gets caught.  She finally suggested that Mr. Blumenthal’s input “started out” as unsolicited.  But we don’t know that either, do we.

Mr. Gowdy also demonstrated very clearly that Mr. Blumenthal, who didn’t work for the State Department and was even shunned by The White House, had infinitely more access to Ms. Clinton than her good friend and Ambassador at a high-risk site, Chris Stevens, had.  This does bring into question how involved Ms. Clinton was in the security of our diplomatic corps despite the fact that it was mandated of her by previous ARB’s (Accountability and Review Board). 

The final question for me is, why didn’t we send some resources to Benghazi as soon as we found out it was under attack.  The story is, we didn’t have time to get there.  Of course, that is a ludicrous answer; because at the time we didn’t have any idea how long this attack would last.  In fact, it lasted 8 hours.  Could we, should we have done something?  I think the answer is, yes.  Maybe we’ll find out more from General Petraeus in the upcoming weeks.  Let’s hope so.