Committee ripped
As I was driving home close to the dinner hour on Thursday, I heard on the radio that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “was” testifying before the Benghazi Committee.
I assumed that the newscaster meant that she “had” testified, assuming that the proceedings which began in the morning had certainly concluded by that time. Lo and behold, when I turned on the television to watch C-SPAN well after dinner, I saw “Live” on the screen, the hearing still taking place. It extended until just after 9 p.m Eastern Time, so long that the secretary began to lose her voice.
Americans can agree that what happened in Benghazi was horrific: an atrocity. The State Department is responsible for the bungling of security needs of the embassy staff, playing a role in their deaths at the hands of terrorists. For how many more years, though, should the matter continue to be dissected and the secretary brought before Congress to attempt to answer the same questions again and again?
The committee’s actions are a disgrace, degenerating into rank partisanship which is clearly designed to bring down the individual who is all but certain to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2016. Republicans posed hostile questions to the Secretary in efforts to secure the proverbial “gotcha” moment and then Democratic members would offer a defense of Ms Clinton, citing the abuse of government on display in what was at its heart, a show trial.
We learned all we needed to know about the purpose of the committee when Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, speaking before he thought about what he was going to say, foolishly told fellow conservative Republican Sean Hannity on the air that its efforts were a success, linking it to Secretary Clinton’s declining poll numbers. Naturally, he and others who would open mouth and insert foot were told by South Carolina Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy to “shut up”.
I believe that reasonable, thoughtful, and informed citizens see the true motive of those who seek to keep Hillary Clinton coming before Congress to beat a dead horse. The unrelenting badgering renders her a sympathetic figure.
Oren M. Spiegler
Upper Saint Clair, Pa.