Carefully Scripted Benghazi Outrage from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — Stained Her Admirable Record — although almost No One in Her Camp Is Going to Notice

© 2013 Peter Free

 

23 January 2013

 

 

Long-running political connivers tend to get exposed — and how they react afterward reveals who they really are

 

Beloved Queen Hillary (sadly from my perspective) did poorly, when her moment of Inevitable Mistake caught up with her.

 

In a rational world, the Benghazi disaster (which was subject of Congressional hearings today) should siphon at least a few 2016 votes away from assumed future presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

 

The security lapses at the Benghazi consulate were significant enough to cast some doubt on her competence as Secretary.  Worse, her conniving substitution of Ambassador Susan Rice for herself on the television talk show circuit, immediately after Ambassador Stevens and staff were murdered, was reprehensible — at least, as assessed from the standard of honorable command.  One does not thrust a subordinate, much less someone outside the chain of command, into the fire that one has brought on oneself.

 

Pertinent to today’s hearings, after sacrificing Ambassador Rice’s future political career (in service of the Secretary’s own), Hillary Clinton appears to have taken political cover behind a convenient series of health excuses — a fall, concussion, and brain clot — so as to long delay her testimony.

 

The probably contrived delay presumably allowed Secretary Clinton to craft and practice the following insincere exchange with Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin:

 

Johnson: We were misled that there were supposedly protest and then something sprang out of that . . .  and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact and the American people could have known that within days.

 

Clinton: With all due respect, the fact is that we had four dead Americans.  Whether it was because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided that they’d kill some Americans.  What difference, at this point, does it make?

 

It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from every happening again.

 

© 2013 Fox News Politics, Clinton takes on critics over Benghazi at tense Hill hearings  — Clinton: “What difference at this point does it . . . “, Fox News (23 January 2013) (at 00:50 to 01:20 minutes into the video clip)

 

Watch the video, to get the full effect of Secretary Clinton’s pretended wrath.

 

 

Why Secretary Clinton’s rationale for steering clear of Senator’s Johnson’s question was not convincing

 

If one wants to “figure out what happened,” one has to know what actually happened.  There is very obviously a difference between a protest run amok, guys out for a “walk,” and planned terrorism.  Countering each has different ramifications.

 

Admittedly, Senator Johnson (a Tea Party Republican) was out to embarrass the Secretary.  But, so what?  Her record on Benghazi deserved it.  And his question, though hostilely drawn, was a rationally legitimate one.

 

 

Ramifications for 2016’s presidential election

 

I have been a Hillary Clinton supporter for decades.

 

But I am taken aback by near cowardly command performances.

 

And I find it difficult to excuse the kind of political sliminess that deliberately sacrificed an ambitious, but well-meaning and competent person like Susan Rice to its own ends.  Secretary Clinton’s temporary evasion of responsibility arguably ruined Ambassador Rice’s future (and deserved) rise in rank.

 

That is not okay.  Any more than the kind of arguably avoidable sloppiness that got Ambassador Stevens and colleagues killed.

 

 

From an objective, strategic perspective — the Benghazi consulate’s vulnerability should (probably) have been clear

 

That is where Secretary Clinton’s leadership could reasonably be questioned.

 

However, in fairness, the Commander in Chief’s emphasis on having her unceasingly travel to diplomatic would have left her exhausted (and killed virtually anyone else).

 

In my view, the fault at Benghazi may belong more to President Obama than to her.  A wise Commander in Chief occasionally reminds his subordinates of the Big Picture, understanding that the minutiae of their responsibilities can occasionally blind them to still larger threats.

 

 

In Secretary Clinton’s defense — her Republican adversaries “made” her what she is today

 

Both Clintons have been under continual assault from Republicans, who hounded them mercilessly and frequently without fair cause.  President Bill Clinton’s legally unwarranted impeachment at Republican hands epitomizes the brand of determined stupidity that still marks the party.

 

Secretary Clinton undoubtedly learned, over time, never to give her viciously minded political adversaries an inch.  Today, having been bent by the winds of excessively hostile political opposition, she cannot help the way she responds.  Her intentionally devious performance with Senator Johnson is evidence.

 

 

Looking forward to 2016

 

Were Hillary Clinton to be elected president, she would almost certainly reignite old 1990s hostilities to go with the new ones that we have created since.  I don’t think that would be a step forward.

 

 

Only time will tell — some astute writers think that Hillary Clinton is politically invulnerable

 

See, for example:

 

Matthew Cooper, Why Benghazi Hasn't Brought Down Hillary Clinton–and Won't, National Journal (22 January 2013)

 

 

The moral? — Mutual hatred breeds hostility and dishonor across both political aisles

 

Which creates a vacuum in effective and inspiring leadership.

 

Today, I was disappointed by Secretary Clinton’s evasion of Senator Johnson’s question.  And by her Benghazi record up to that point.  She is capable of being more — of being immense.

 

The lesson, if there be one in all this, is that:

 

Honor does not stoop.  No matter the provocation.