Hillary Clinton. Benghazi. Who cares?
Well, we do, of course. But we cared about Benghazi and this administration’s role in it even before Hillary Clinton testified, which finally happened today.
I submit that most people care in certain ways. Those who like Clinton probably see this as more of those nasty Republicans picking on a poor woman who is nevertheless strong and smart and tough and can take whatever they dish out. Those who don’t like her are probably those same people who were interested in the mess in Benghazi in the first place, and disinclined to accept the administration’s refusal to talk about it.
But most people don’t care in the sense that those who weren’t already following the details are not going to follow the details now. This National Journal piece explains why this will end up being a tempest in a teapot. But in my opinion it leaves out by far the most important point, which is that if the parties were reversed, the MSM would make a very big deal of it indeed, and people would react accordingly.
Highlights—or lowlights—would be Ms. Clinton shouting, “At this point, what difference does it make?” when asked whether the killings in Benghazi were really the result of a protest or a planned attack.
My answer to her question is twofold. My first answer is that it makes a great deal of difference in terms of whether Obama and members of his administration purposely lied to the American people to protect their own political ambitions or whether they were stupidly and ignorantly out of touch. But my second answer would be that hey, in a way, she’s right: at this point it makes no difference if it makes no difference to the majority of the American public.
“But in my opinion it leaves out by far the most important point, which is that if the parties were reversed, the MSM would make a very big deal of it indeed, and people would react accordingly.”
Yes. Right. Of course. And so what? There’s a story like this with this sort of non-slant every day of every week of every month.
You’ll wear out your fingers typing “if the parties were reversed” over the coming years. Be easy on yourself.
This cynical apathy has taken over most of America. We don’t care about the rest of the world, we don’t care about politicians’ character, we don’t care about truth, we just want positive outcomes for us. “How does it relate to me? Is it good or bad for me?” That gives the powers that be free rein to operate as they wish and then we’re doomed.
At least one member of the MSM thinks it matters:
http://twitchy.com/2013/01/22/boom-cbs-sharyl-attkisson-tears-into-obama-admin-over-benghazigate/
Hope she stays brave; they’re going to do all they can to muzzle her.
Update:
Rush just said there was not one question about the video.
Unbelievable.
holmes,
Don’t forget being cool. Everyone cares about Jimmy Choo shoes and Wagyu beef.
It makes a huge difference as to the level of her incompetence.
It being terrorism indicates that her disregard of prior intel (from the Brits and others) that an attack was immanent & her decision to disregard repeated requests for increased security RESULTED in those four deaths.
It being terrorism also reveals that she and Obama were ill-equipped to immediately deal with a terrorist attack and instead they left 30+ Americans to die while concocting their “blame the video” excuse.
carl in atlanta: yes, I saw that. She and Jake Tapper are the only two decent members of the MSM at the major networks that I can think of right now.
It makes a difference to a certain film maker rotting in jail.
What difference does it make rests with 1.) citizens who do care about the truth/facts politely and persistently letting their representatives they care, and 2.) republicans in the house and senate caring about the truth/facts. Congress needs to subpoena everyone involved, including all of the survivors.
HRC’s performance was at times an excellent example of skilled obfuscation, the masterful marketing of red herrings, and playing the emotional woman under stress who has been a heroine on the front lines dodging snipers in Bosnia. BTW, McCain surprised me with his hard line of questioning and his frank admission he doubted every bit of her testimony.
Rush made an interesting observation today:
“Do you realize just this week her [Hillary’s] campaign debt was paid off?…Do you think there’s any coincidence in the fact her campaign debt was paid off and her appearance before the joint committee today to talk about the guy in Benghazi? I don’t.”
Her question was a dodge, so that she didn’t have to lie about it NOT being terrorism (too obviously false), or having to admit that it was terrorism and then be questioned on WHEN she knew it was terrorism (since she perpetuated the “video” lie for weeks after). Did anyone ask her that?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote an essay, Live Not by Lies, which this administration has evidently reversed.
“my second answer would be that hey, in a way, she’s right: at this point it makes no difference if it makes no difference to the majority of the American public.”
in the long run, it shall make all the difference. As to whether America remains free to right the ship of state or becomes enslaved to the ‘benevolent’ rule of those who know best.
Benjamin Franklin wondered whether we could keep the Republic that had been born.
Lincoln observed that, “a house divided against itself cannot stand” and posited that, “if we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
“Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across the truth. Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business as if nothing had happened.” Winston Churchill
“There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.” John Heywood 1546
I suspect that a great many liberals, in their heart of hearts, sense the truth but pride “standeth in the way”.
Just by the way, I thought she looked really good. I’ve thought for a while now that she’s not interested in running for president anymore–she let herself put on a lot of weight, seemed to be drinking a fair bit, and her hair looked really dumb.
During her recent problems with passing out and concussions and all the rest, I thought well she’s either on the way out or on the way back; we’ll know when she shows up again. Well she’s shown up again, and she looks like she’s been to a fat farm. Campaign debts paid (I’m with Rush that that’s no coincidence), lookin’ fahn, ready to, um, run. Ha.
“During her recent problems with passing out and concussions and all the rest…”
My engrained cynicism leads me to believe this was all a three card monte charade. Sooner or later the shell game is exposed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ZqDHAuBfM
How Do you Stop?
by Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight
“Hard bodies, soft emotions. So fast, so smart. The world is at your feet but what about your heart? Fame and fortune can’t hold you tight in the late, late hours of the night.
How do you stop before it’s too late? You choose and you lose if you hesitate. How do you stop
before it’s too late? You think love will wait so you don’t hold on and then it’s gone.
You’ve had success, lots of fancy friends, you’ve tasted the good life you thought it would never end.
One day you’re too young then you’re in your prime; then you’re looking back at the hands of time.
How do you stop a runaway train? How do you stop the driving rain? How do you stop the ripening corn?
How do you stop a baby being born? How do you stop love from slipping away?”
We are, IMO, beyond the point of rescue. It is too late to stop the runaway train. Assume crash positions.
Supposidly she promised a relative of a Bengazi victim that they would arrest the filmaker.
Also, her State Dept ran ads in pakistan appoligizing for the movie.
If it wasn’t the movie, why waste taxpayer money on ads? Why go after a filmaker?
And that isn’t getting into the implications of going after a filmaker for exercising his 1st amendment rights (even if hidden as enforcing parole violations), or the dubious idea of appogizing to Pakistan.
Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club has four good video points on what difference it makes. He doesn’t have to say much.
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/01/23/what-difference-does-it-make/
What saddens me is that this story can grow no “legs”.
Cf. Abu Ghraib, where a few stupid redneck enlisted reservists– 18 to 20 year old kids — secretly played sadistic or degrading games with a few Iraqi prisoners and were stupid enough to photograph themselves in the act. In that case we had the “lowest of the low” acting badly (but no one died) and my goodness — the NYT ran front page stories on this no less than 47 times.
Here, we have the holders of the very highest offices in America whose act or omissions have not only resulted in at least four deaths, but who so are obviously perpetrating a classic case of The Big Lie that they ought to teach this as a case study in Propaganda 101. They’re not even trying to come up with credible excuses. They don’t have to because America no longer has a functioning Press. God, this is hard to take.
“… it makes a great deal of difference in terms of whether Obama and members of his administration purposely lied to the American people to protect their own political ambitions…”
Of course they lied, that is what they do. They lie, cheat, steal, that is what they do. It is a deeply engrained pathology of their collective character. They lie with malice towards all who do not or even those who do bow down before their divine right. That is what they do with every breath.
betsybounds: did you read my post about Hillary in 2016? I think she will run, and I think she has an excellent chance of winning.
Those who like Clinton probably see this as more of those nasty Republicans picking on a poor woman who is nevertheless strong and smart and tough and can take whatever they dish out.
So … which is it? Is she a poor frail female who needs to be protected (I’m laughing as I type that), or is she a smart, tough woman who can take whatever the loyal Americans dish out? Are we the only people who see the contradiction in terms implicit here?
For my money, if citizens can’t question and also criticize government officials (even black and female ones), those officials are not fit to occupy their offices. Period.
It makes a difference to a certain film maker rotting in jail.
Not to mention the difference it made to Chris Stevens.
I think she will run, and I think she has an excellent chance of winning.
A doctor’s office today inflicted on us CNN, where the chyrons made pretty clear that the Reds at CNN support her. Example: “What next for HRC’s powerful resume?”
As a wise man once said to me, it’s the adjectives and adverbs that convey the subtext.
Will she ever stop lying to us? My magic 8-Ball says “NO”.
“Here, we have the holders of the very highest offices in America whose act or omissions have not only resulted in at least four deaths, but who so are obviously perpetrating a classic case of The Big Lie that they ought to teach this as a case study in Propaganda 101. They’re not even trying to come up with credible excuses. They don’t have to because America no longer has a functioning Press. God, this is hard to take.”
Not to discount the Press factor but the pathology goes deeper than that. Many Americans want to be lied to, in fact they insist upon it, anything is OK that allows them to maintain their denial.
Surely we’ve all noticed the cavalier dismissal of Benghazi by liberals? For them, Clinton’s “At this point, what difference does it make?” is a definitive dismissal of any need for concern. It’s ‘case closed’ as far as they’re concerned and without massive public outrage, Obama and the democrats can just sweep it under the rug because that’s exactly what liberals want to have happen.
The simple brutal truth is that nearly all liberals don’t want to face the truth because it overturns their entire world view. And as long as they don’t have to face the inescapable consequences of that world view, they don’t have to accept personal responsibility for what they are assisting in the creation of…a benevolent tyranny, that will of course, evolve into a hard tyranny, as it always must.
We are witnessing a large segment of the American public ‘looking away’, just as the German people did during the 30’s.
It cannot end well.
What does it matter? Well try saying that when an airliner crashes. We study airplane crashes to try and find out how we can avoid more crashes. When we are attacked successfully by al Qaeda wouldn’t it be a good idea to find out what happened so we can do things to prevent more successful attacks?
That’s why it matters. But to Hillary and the Obama machine it’s all about setting a narrative that relieves them of accountability. If they could have figured out a way to blame W for the attack, I’m sure they would have put it out there.
When she admitted she had never seen the cables asking for more security because that function was handled by their DOS “security experts,” I thought Rand Paul made a good point when he told her she should have been relieved of her duties because she never read those cables or asked to be informed of any pressing security issues. She, of course, has been far too busy jetting around the globe making nice with our enemies to attend to such minor matters as the safety of DOS personnel. Some may consider her to be “the smartest woman in the room.” I consider her to be much like Obama. All hat and no cattle.
Now, where have I seen this movie before? —
Ahhhhh yesss, the (Bill) Clinton administration.
George Stephanopoulos would daily lie, deny, lie, deny, lie, deny, until whatever the issue was, would become impossible to dismiss any longer.
And then ol’ [young!] George would disingenuously proclaim, “are you still talking about ^that^? — it’s ^old^ ^news^.”
Worked then, works now.
%$#@ the mainstream media.
And the beat goes on yeah the beat goes on . . .
That was the line (“who cares?”) that made me do a double-take. These folks are all so sealed in their corrupt, no-one-can-touch-me-no-matter-what-I-do bubbles that it doesn’t even occur to them when they shoot their mouth off. I’ll bet Hillary came home tonight and was scratching her head wondering what it was that she said that might have given anyone pause. And after 15 minutes or so, she prob. just said, “Who the *&@! cares what they (the people) think?!
And she’s prob. right. Sadly, as we have watched in disbelief Obama dropping one tone deaf remark after another nearly everyday, they’re all buried so deep by the MSM that no one can even find a quote if they wanted to.
Huh? Was that another way of saying, “you guys know we all lie, but if you don’t catch us when it goes down, get over it!”
The irony is also quite rich. Too bad some senator didn’t have enough guts (and admittedly political incorrectness) to say back to her, “After you husband was caught cheating on you right in the oval office with a pretty YOUNG thing, and then, lying about it — badly — on national telvision while you stood by him and knew otherwise, DID YOU CARE!!!!!!!?”
(Unfortunately, that would be chalked up to more right wing evil conspiracy, and libs and women who love Hillary because she’s a woman would hiss and cry foul!
(Hmmm, when Hillary runs, think she’s counting on getting 95% of the female vote as Obama did the Black vote? I actually know many women — bright, educated women — who have said they’d vote for Hillary in a NY minute if she ran.
Never mind the issues, the consequences, or anything else that matters to a country so deep in doo-doo. Which is pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Wonder how she’ll get thru it without blaming it all on Obama — who’s help she’ll undoubtedly need in campaigning.
I don’t think the news blackouts worked this well in the past (I think). I think in; is this an issue where normal people really don’t care what happened or do they just don’t know about what really happened? I’m sort of leaning towards news blackout. Obama has the media so in line they’ve become very effective IMO. In the past people would break ranks and things would fall through and get reported.
It is time to think about leaving the USA.
I feel like a German Jew in 1933, with the exception that most thought themselves Germans first, Jews second, and ignored the spoken and written evidence readily at hand.
I remember all those celebrities talking about leaving the nation if Bush got re-elected.
betsybounds: did you read my post about Hillary in 2016? I think she will run, and I think she has an excellent chance of winning.
oh… so it cant happen here, and no matter what, we just wait for the next election to fix things. do you think a woman who wanted to reset with russia, whose husband was a fulbright scholar to soviet union during vietnam, and all that… is going to do anything different?
but thats if our dear leader, the black Jesus, the second coming decides to step down for some other.
i bet lots of people thought that Hitler would be out next election… but by the time the election time came, they were under statist rule..
so this idea that hillary will run is silly. if she does, it wont be any more honest a race than now.
but i wonder… what kind of state we will have in a couple of years once they dont raise the welfare or they even drop it…
right now, professors are finding their hours being cut and are losing their insurance and pensions and on and on.
yet, the vagina monologues (technically illegal) bake sale promoting womens pederasty and rape as a norm is in the lobby.
Ymarsakar Says:
“I remember all those celebrities talking about leaving the nation if Bush got re-elected.”
Except we are really thinking about it. I am at least. We are not Sweden. Socialism in power here will be messy.
One (big) problem: where do you go?
csimon Says:
“One (big) problem: where do you go?”
I was looking at Uruguay. The prez is a socialist but not the Castro kind or even the Obama kind. Re: there is public healthcare but you can freely buy private if you want. You can own guns. They don’t have a problem with Americans or giving citizenship to them if they want to move there (that’s a big ‘tell’ imo of where people stand / what they’re about…)…