¡Benghazi! ¡Benghazi! ¡Benghazi!
It arises sometimes, perhaps with disdainful regularity, that we find ourselves engaging the question of who and what really, really sucks. I've made the sports analogy before about politics; it really does seem strange how one can be so unprepared, unskilled, and insensate, and expect to compete in the highest tiers.
A quick summary of this principle in motion might be found in
Steve Benen's↱ offering today, which noted that while,
"So much of American politics is a Rorschach test", the end result of yesterday's eleven-hour hearing before the House Select Committee on Benghazi can be reasonably argued as,
"Nearly everyone who saw this ignominious display – left, right, and center – agreed that congressional Republicans had an opportunity to advance their cause, but they blew it".
Five paragraphs to sum up:
At one point, during Rep. Mike Pompeo’s (R-Kan.) attempt to badger Clinton, John Podhoretz, a prominent conservative writer and former Republican speechwriter, said on Twitter, “Why doesn’t Pompeo just go over and swear her in for president now – if he goes on like this he’ll practically get her elected.”
It was that kind of day for Republicans.
Podhoretz’s concerns were surprisingly common among conservatives. Erick Erickson lamented the fact that the hearing proved to be a “waste of time.” The Washington Examiner’s Byron York characterized the hearing as “very, very good news for Hillary Clinton.”
The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis wrote midday, “Unless something happens, it’s starting to look like Hillary Clinton won’t merely survive this hearing – she will have come out on top.” Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw said, “This hearing is turning into a disaster on wheels,” adding, “Jesus, I spend half my day criticizing Hillary Clinton and even I find this set of questions embarrassing.”
Even Fox News abandoned coverage of the hearing in the afternoon – about three-and-a-half hours before it was actually finished – and started covering unrelated topics, despite the network’s near-obsession with the deadly 2012 attack for years.
This really was supposed to be a big deal for Republicans. Yet the buildup narrativew does not entirely make sense; at what point could anyone reasonably have expected this hearing to actually accomplish anything useful? Yesterday,
Mr. Benen reminded of the history:
Which strategic genius in Republican Party thought it’d be a good idea to pit Hillary Clinton against obscure, unprepared, far-right members of Congress? Why on earth would the GOP go out of its way to make the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination look like the adult in the room?
Clinton has often been blessed by incompetent opponents, but this is ridiculous.
What’s more, it’s too common. In early August, congressional Republicans scheduled hearings on the international nuclear agreement with Iran, and despite having months to prepare their best arguments and sharpest questions, they had nothing. Slate’s William Saletan attended all three hearings and came away flabbergasted: “Over the past several days, congressional hearings on the deal have become a spectacle of dishonesty, incomprehension, and inability to cope with the challenges of a multilateral world…. I came away from the hearings dismayed by what the GOP has become in the Obama era. It seems utterly unprepared to govern.”
A month later, congressional Republicans scheduled hearings on Planned Parenthood, and once again, they had months to prepare, organize their thoughts, coordinate their lines of attack, read their own charts, etc. And yet, they again seemed hopelessly lost.
As we discussed in September, conservative partisans should see congressional Republicans as poor allies, in large part because they don’t seem to do their homework especially well. They create opportunities to advance their interests, but then let those opportunities pass as a result of negligence and incompetence.
And, you know, when we consider it that way, yeah, it does occur to wonder just what pathway House Republicans thought they had.
Which, in turn, brings us to
Kurt Eichenwald↱, whose mammoth article for
Newsweek bears the apt title,
"Benghazi Biopsy: A Comprehensive Guide to One of America’s Worst Political Outrages".
The historical significance of this moment can hardly be overstated, and it seems many Republicans, Democrats and members of the media don’t fully understand the magnitude of what is taking place. The awesome power of government—one that allows officials to pore through almost anything they demand and compel anyone to talk or suffer the shame of taking the Fifth Amendment—has been unleashed for purely political purposes. It is impossible to review what the Benghazi committee has done as anything other than taxpayer-funded political research of the opposing party’s leading candidate for president. Comparisons from America’s past are rare. Richard Nixon’s attempts to use the IRS to investigate his perceived enemies come to mind. So does Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting during the 1950s, with reckless accusations of treason leveled at members of the State Department, military generals and even the secretary of the Army. But the modern McCarthys of the Benghazi committee cannot perform this political theater on their own—they depend on reporters to aid in the attempts to use government for the purpose of destroying others with bogus “scoops” ladled out by members of Congress and their staffs. These journalists will almost certainly join the legions of shamed reporters of the McCarthy era as it becomes increasingly clear they are enablers of an obscene attempt to undermine the electoral process.
(Boldface accent added)
―End Part I―
I imagine there was a lot of soiled Republican underwear last evening. As the day wore on, one could visibly see the desperation in the faces of the Republican inquisitors. There for a while, I thought it could go on into the the early morning.