The Benghazi-Industrial Complex

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The tin foil loons on the far right will fall for the BIC all the same - just because their puppeteers tell them so.

The Benghazi-Industrial Complex

Perhaps if the Republicans can’t beat Hillary Clinton fairly in 2016, they can make her so disgusted by the prospect of running that she’ll stay out of the race.

That’s where the Benghazi-Industrial Complex comes in.

Clinton’s 20-year sojourn in public life has been bracketed, jarringly, by two pseudo-scandals, both involving the tragic and less-than-fully-explained death of an important man in Hillary’s orbit. In between there have been assorted smears and public humiliations, including real traumas like Monicagate, the cumulative effect of which has been to make Hillary reluctant to reenter the political game. Or so many of her friends and aides say, and so Republicans must be hoping.

It all began in 1993 – just six months into her term as first lady – with the death of her close friend, deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, whose shocking suicide on a grassy knoll outside Washington fed a never-ending meme of Clintonian perfidy. (Rush Limbaugh still sometimes makes jokes about Hillary’s opponents ending up “in Fort Marcy Park.”) As Clinton left Foggy Bottom two decades later, she was hounded by angry right-wing allegations in the final months of her tenure as secretary of state that the Obama administration had covered up the real reasons for the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, in the early morning hours of Sept. 12, 2012—in part to fend off Mitt Romney’s campaign criticisms and perhaps even, in the more elaborate version of this conspiracy theory, to protect Hillary’s 2016 ambitions.

There were, and are, legitimate questions about Clinton’s conduct before and after Benghazi. She was, after all, the first secretary of state to lose an ambassador in the field since George Shultz in 1988. According to the conclusions of her own Accountability Review Board, chaired by retired Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering and vice chaired by former Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen, “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” might have contributed to the four deaths. (Even so, somewhat controversially, the report confined its findings to the failures at “senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department,” Diplomatic Security and Near Eastern Affairs, and did not cite Clinton.) In emotional testimony before Congress just before she left office, Clinton said that she had not personally read an August 16, 2012, cable from Stevens that raised questions about security, and she did not appear to know about a decision to turn down a request for more security in Libya, as detailed in a House Republican report in April of last year. “I didn’t see those requests. They didn’t come to me. I didn’t approve them. I didn’t deny them,” she said.

If all that is true—and it would indeed be unusual for a secretary of state to be personally making decisions about diplomatic security arrangements—it’s fair to ask why Clinton seemed to be too busy to deal with new threats in a critical region or appear herself on TV to discuss the murder of a U.S. ambassador. Sure, we know that Hillary hates doing the Sunday talk shows, but so what? She bore far more responsibility for Benghazi than the unlucky person the administration sent out in her stead, then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, whose shaky performance deep-sixed her own Foggy Bottom ambitions.

But these are issues of competence, not corruption. There is as little evidence that Clinton or anyone else in the administration engaged in a cover-up of Benghazi as there is that Hillary ordered the whacking of her old friend Vince Foster. It is a fantastical notion that continues not just to survive but thrive, in defiance of any application of fact, among the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary decried so long ago.

Last week saw an abrupt resurgence of Benghazi conspiracy-theorizing when the conservative group Judicial Watch released previously undisclosed emails from the White House obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request (headline: “JW Finds Benghazi Smoking Gun!”). This event was followed, like clockwork in a time bomb, by yet another hearing held by Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee. Pursuing their standard playbook dating from the Whitewater years, leading Republicans called for a whole new round of probes.

“We need a joint select committee to find out the truth about #Benghazi — NOW,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted, and the House promptly convened one. Issa melodramatically subpoenaed Clinton’s successor, John Kerry, to explain the administration’s “disturbing, perhaps criminal” behavior in withholding a Sept. 14, 2012, email from Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.

The Rhodes email, in truth, did little but to lay out an unsurprising and fairly standard strategy for prepping Rice for her TV interviews later that week on Benghazi and other issues. But, innocuous as it was, that didn’t stop the Benghazi-Industrial Complex (call it the BIC, for short) from resurrecting its favorite term: “smoking gun.” "If this is not a smoking gun, proving beyond any doubt, the story told by the administration about Benghazi was politically motivated and fabricated, nothing will ever prove that," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has been eagerly trying to shore up his conservative credentials to fend off a Tea Party challenger. Rush Limbaugh declared on his radio show that “the memo shows that there was a massive cover-up.”

Let’s face it: The BIC is here to stay, fueled by a mania on the right to somehow, in some way, validate Issa’s declaration that Obama is the “one of the most corrupt presidents of modern times” and, above all, to tarnish Clinton ahead of 2016 by linking the former secretary of state directly to the deaths of Stevens and the others. “Which is Hillary Clinton’s worst scandal?” asked a Tea-Party affiliated site, TownHall.com, conveniently providing boxes to allow participants to check-mark an episode from “her shady history”: Benghazi, Vince Foster, Whitewater or Travelgate. Another Tea Party site went further still, headlining a recent thread, “Hillary Clinton: The Butcher of Benghazi?” and illustrating it with a photoshopped image of her holding up bloody hands. “Someone tweets about Benghazi every 12 seconds. Not every 12 days or every 12 minutes, but every 12 seconds,” National Journal recorded last week, citing the social-media tracking firm Topsy. In the past 30 days, Benghazi and Clinton have been mentioned almost in unison on Twitter, with the former earning 219,325 mentions to Hillary’s 219,163. Benghazi has, in effect, become Hillary’s social-media twin, at least among conservatives.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/hillarys-nightmare-the-benghazi-industrial-complex-106332.html#ixzz30r0LYQ6J

Edited May 5, 2014 by Mr. Big Dog

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

If people focused this hard on 9/11, Bush wouldn't have been elected again. Oh well.

[lostinblue 1,989]

If people focused this hard on 9/11, Bush wouldn't have been elected again. Oh well.

The president took issue.

"The suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our UN ambassador, anybody on my team, would play politics or mislead when we lost four of our own, governor, is offensive," he said.

2nd debate...

[GandD 5,966]

How come no one uses the political ads thingy anymore?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Yes, you're one of the despicable people that loves to play politics with this tragedy. Carry on, right wing soldier, your war against facts and decency!

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

If people focused this hard on 9/11, Bush wouldn't have been elected again. Oh well.

I think I know here Bush was when 9-11 happened and I don't think he told the military to stand down

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Bush was in a classroom somewhere in Florida holding a book upside down while pretending he can read when the attacks happened.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

The president took issue.

"The suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our UN ambassador, anybody on my team, would play politics or mislead when we lost four of our own, governor, is offensive," he said.

2nd debate...

Guess it's easier to avoid something.

I think I know here Bush was when 9-11 happened and I don't think he told the military to stand down

Yeah, because Benghazi was just as clear cut.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Okay, so I am obviously rapidly aging and my memory is beginning to fail me. Someone please remind me what military assets exactly prevented the 3,000 civilian deaths on 9/11?

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Okay, so I am obviously rapidly aging and my memory is beginning to fail me. Someone please remind me what military assets exactly prevented the 3,000 civilian deaths on 9/11?

Why is it so quiet in here?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Why is it so quiet in here?

Because it's hard to argue with people that have their head so far up their back sides, that they have to resort to lies and manipulated pictures, to defend an President that is obviously lying and and engaging in a cover up.

So instead of accepting the truth, let's just Photoshop a picture and do the usual. Holler Bush or Reagan, Post a face palm and live in total denial.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/bushbook.asp

FALSE

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Because it's hard to argue with people that have their head so far up their back sides, that they have to resort to lies and manipulated pictures, to defend an President that is obviously lying and and engaging in a cover up.

So instead of accepting the truth, let's just Photoshop a picture and do the usual. Holler Bush or Reagan, Post a face palm and live in total denial.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/bushbook.asp

FALSE

Are you talking about MBD, or LIB? The upside down book issue is silly, I'll be the first one to say it, but I find it appalling that the biggest terrorist attack happened here on our soil, and the Right, who's screaming for blood when it comes to anything else, didn't blame Bush. Four deaths happened a couple thousand miles away, Obama is 100 percent to blame.

Either it's all okay or none of it is.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Are you talking about MBD, or LIB? The upside down book issue is silly, I'll be the first one to say it, but I find it appalling that the biggest terrorist attack happened here on our soil, and the Right, who's screaming for blood when it comes to anything else, didn't blame Bush. Four deaths happened a couple thousand miles away, Obama is 100 percent to blame.

Either it's all okay or none of it is.

It's amazing that we can't ever discuss Obama without something Bush or Reagan coming up.

[Crashed~N2~Me 970]

Are you talking about MBD, or LIB? The upside down book issue is silly, I'll be the first one to say it, but I find it appalling that the biggest terrorist attack happened here on our soil, and the Right, who's screaming for blood when it comes to anything else, didn't blame Bush. Four deaths happened a couple thousand miles away, Obama is 100 percent to blame.

Either it's all okay or none of it is.

Obama is not to blame for their deaths. SOS Clinton gets that nod.

Some1 in the administration goofed at the least and spun pure despicable BS at the worst. The problem = No1 in the administration will hold the individual(s) responsible accountable so, it rests on Obama's shoulders for not making it happen. & it definitely makes Clinton look a belly crawler..

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Uh-oh. New poll suggests 'blame Bush' may not be working like it used to...

http://www.caintv.com/uh-oh.new-poll-suggests-blame

Dems may have to find something else to blame...

Terrorism? Bush's fault. The Ukraine? Bush's fault. Benghazi? Bush's fault. Smallest labor participation rate in 30 years? Bush's fault. Terrible GDP? Bush's fault. Soaring gas prices? Bush's fault. Stagnant 'recovery?' Bush's fault. Mid-East collapse? Bush's fault. ObamaCare's many failings? Somehow, mysteriously, also Bush's fault.

No matter what disastrous policy the Obama administration implements, you can be sure that - when the chickens come home to roost - Democrats will blame Bush. Along with "Racism," blaming Bush has become one half of their logic-defying Romulus & Remus of excuses. It's ridiculous, but it's all they've got. So they've gone with it over and over again.

But that may have to change. A new poll shows that the "blame Bush" magic is on the wane.

From the FiveThirtyEight blog:

"over the past year, polling data has begun to suggest that Bush is no longer quite the liability he once was for the GOP, and that most Americans no longer see the current economy as something Obama inherited.

Since April, Bush’s favorable rating has averaged 49.3 percent. His unfavorable rating has averaged 46.3 percent. More Americans now like Bush than dislike him."

FiveThirtyEight cites a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll to show a marked increase of Bush's favorable numbers since he left office. You'll recall that, in his final days as President, he was struggling to hang on to a 30% approval rating.

If you're thinking that the approval rating of an ex-President, along with that of a possible lame duck, isn't all that important, you're probably right. More interesting is Democrat strategy going forward....

Moreover, the percentage who believe that Obama inherited the nation’s current economic conditions has dipped below 50 percent for the first time. According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, it’s just 46 percent of Americans. Although that’s only one poll, it’s far beyond the prior low of 56 percent recorded by the NBC survey.

Uh-oh. New poll suggests 'blame Bush' may not be working like it used to...

The fine folks over at FiveThirtyEight do everything they can to remind us that, even if he is climbing the ladder of public opinion, Bush is still below water. They point out that even Jimmy Carter manages to boast an utterly inexplicable 58% favorable. Their conclusion?

None of this data suggests that Bush is popular or should be trotted out by Republicans in the 2014 midterm elections.

That's sage advice. The GOP should not be trotting out "Bush was awesome" as a central plank of its 2014 campaign. Thanks, FiveThirtyEight, for that oh-so-insightful nugget of wisdom. No one could possibly have figured that out on their own.

However, if Bush's 49% popularity rating isn't good enough for 2014 bragging rights, what does that say about our glorious commander-in-chief? He's currently languishing at 39-41% depending on the poll. If Bush is still a GOP millstone, despite being 6 years out of office and enjoying a near 50% approval rating, how can any Democrat candidate possibly defend the Obama administration?

Behold the definition of "toxic."

If these trends continue, by the time 2016 rolls around Obama and the Democrats will finally be forced to own their terrible economy. Their incompetence will be their own, and no amount of blame will change that fact. Anyone associated with the administration will be tarred with the same unpleasant brush. Luckily for Dems, they're not going to run anyone who served as a faulty part of Obama's trainwreck.

....oh wait.