The Benghazi Bullshit Knows No End...

 Yesterday we saw the House of Representatives vote 232 - 186 in support of a Select Committee into the Benghazi matter. This is hardly a surprise. Nor is the fact that the Committee will be weighted in favor of the Republicans. House Minority Leader Nancy Pulosi can complain all she wants about the unfairness of the unbalance but that's how these things usually are set up, and the Democrats have done the same thing in the past.

Just how valuable another investigation is really going to be is anyone's guess. I suspect we already know the gist of what happened. Security was not what it should have been. Communication was not what it should have been. Military assistance was simply too far away to render any significant hep. A brave and well-intentioned Ambassador may have been a little too brave to the point of recklessness. Chris Stevens didn't want big security teams surrounding him as he tried to make inroads with the people of Libya and gain trust. It may have cost him his life. Not to mention the other dead Americans that night, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. It is a true tragedy.

I'm not sure what the point of this House Select Committee really is. While I'm quite certain there will be passionate and theatrical speeches and admonishments and fists banging on tables for the cameras and microphones, I have little expectation we're going to learn very much new substantive information from these proceedings. More likely, it is an opportunity to keep the themes of Benghazi, 4 dead Americans, Hillary Clinton and President Obama all intertwined for a few more weeks. During which time Conservatives will hope for new campaign ad fodder and lots of fund-raising dollars. 

Its not entirely unlike the fifty-plus votes the House has taken on Obamacare. Every time they've voted, I've seen a fundraising email show up in my inbox. Only a madman would seriously think those votes were serious attempts at legislating. Likewise, I don't think the GOP really thinks they'll be the ones to uncover all the really good dirt and proof of who knows what? Think of the House as a Muscular Dystrophy Telethon of sorts. The appeals for money are never-ending. The difference is one is for a good cause and the other pretends its fighting for a good cause.

This isn't justice being pursued, its politics. As dirty and nasty as ever. Anything the House can do to continue to afflict pain upon this President they will. Anything they can do to put some dents into the Clinton for President car, they will. I'd love to think the House was really driven to find out what went wrong and how to prevent it. They're not. This is a device to be used to improve political positioning, power and control. If the tables were turned, perhaps the Democrats might do the same thing, but history tells us otherwise. After the bombing in Lebanon during the Reagan Presidency, there wasn't this non-stop, full court press of investigation after investigation after investigation. Four people didn't die in Lebanon, two-hundred and forty-one did. Go figure. 

There are two articles I've seen in the last few days that I think are worth your time on this subject. The first, by Salon's Simon Maloy, titled, "GOP's New Benghazi Lunatic: Meet Trey Gowdey, its substance free committee chair."

The second, by the Daily Beast's Micheal Tomasky, is called, "The B is Back: The Benghazi Hearings Are Bullshit."

Sources:

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/06/gop%E2%80%99s_new_benghazi_dreamboat_meet_trey_gowdy_its_substance_free_committee_chair/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/07/the-b-is-back-the-benghazi-hearings-are-bullsh-t.html

What should be the last words on the Benghazi "coverup"...

No, not really....

 Much has been written about Benghazi and most of its been wrong. While many on the right seem to have wanted it to be a scandal for obvious political purposes, it just isn't playing out that way regardless what your friends at The Western Center for Journalism, Fox News, etc. choose to say on the matter. 

Two articles for your consideration. 

The first, from our friends at Addicting Info, Egberto Willies has a nice piece featuring conservative columnist David Brooks of  the New York Times and his comments on last Sunday's "Meet The Press." In short, Mr. Brooks suggests the following to the notion that the White House and former Secretary of Hillary Clinton are co-conspirators in a massive cover-up. 

"There is an underlying narrative here which I actually think is wrong. The underlying narrative is it says this bunch of technically pure nonpolitical and then they produce a product which is then doctored by a bunch of political people either at State or at the Whitehouse; my reading of the evidence is that a very terrible event happened at a CIA, basically a CIA facility, they went into intense blame shifting mode, trying to shift responsibility onto the State Department, onto anywhere else, and the State Department pushed back. They said no, it is not our fault. It’s you facility. And so they push back and they say why we are suddenly releasing information that we haven’t been releasing so far. So the CIA was super aggressive, there was some pushback, out of that bureaucratic struggle all the talking points were reduced to mush and then politics was inserted into it. So I don’t think we should necessarily say this is politics intruding on a CIA pure operation."

Read the entire article here... 

The other article worth reading is from the Maddow Blog, by Steve Benen which addresses the alleged "cover-up angle". Once more, there appears to be no "there" there as the various claims wilt...

The White House yesterday afternoon released the inter-agency communications that went into crafting the "talking points" requested by Congress last September. Lawmakers already saw these materials months ago -- they found nothing controversial at the time -- but Republicans and the media decided it was time to see them again.

So, the administration, eager to put the matter to rest, released the documents. In turn, we learned what we already knew: there was no cover-up; State and the CIA engaged in a predictable bureaucratic "tug of war"; and this:

The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails, which were provided to congressional intelligence committees several months ago.

And with that, everything Republican conspiracy theorists desperately wanted Americans to believe -- there's a scandal; there's a cover-up; there's evidence the White House manipulated and lied about a crisis for political ends -- suddenly evaporated before our very eyes.

Read the full article here: 

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I don't think for a moment that Darrell Issa is going to go quietly into that good night. Why would he? He's getting a ton of facetime, is essentially in a "can't lose" position and apparently has no qualms whatsoever about politicizing the deaths of four Americans. Which is all he's doing. He's earning some chips for down the road in his career and who knows when and where he'll decide to cash those babies in? He's only 59, former Army guy, etc. so perhaps another attempt at the Senate might be on the horizon someday? Vice Presidential nominee someday for someone? Who's to say?  

It would be so much better if this time and energy were put into fortifying our Middle East operations for both the State Department and the CIA. Lessons should be learned from Benghazi and hopefully avoid another tragedy in the future. 

Sources: 

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/05/13/conservative-republican-david-brooks-gives-correct-perspective-to-benghazi-tragedy-video/

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/16/18295499-watching-a-scandal-evaporate-before-our-very-eyes?lite