Benghazied

Benghazied 

The President called it a terrorist attack from the very beginning, (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html) but the implications persist that he had something to do with what others said.  He didn’t and he didn’t need to do so. The effort to keep the “cover-up” alive is being pushed by a few political nobodies who believe that the American people can be brainwashed into thinking that the President of the United States is a threat to democracy.  It is all so sad.

What we are seeing now is self-promoting politicians taking advantage. When America is distracted, those with the most opportunistic motives tend to rise to the top. Look at the record.  The House majority stood silent after the mass murder of school kids.  They have made only 100 votes since the session began, compared to 300 in previous years.  Helium was voted on, as was the 37th effort to sink Obamacare.  The House passed an emergency airline bill to make sure that flight controllers were in place for their trips home during the break.  With a lot of time on their hands the House majority needed a really big deal.  So we all get Benghazied.

In the 8th Congressional District, Rep. Fitzpatrick has stepped right up to declare that “he wants answers” on Benghazi and to inform us of his support for a huge hearing to get those answers.  The taxpayer should be aware of what a hearing involving a committee of 19 Congressmen will cost.  It will be a publicity convention for anybody that they can find who will follow the script. There will be big travel expenses for testifiers, funds for extra lawyers, extra researchers and writers, big communication efforts and salaries and perks as usual for legislators who aren’t doing anything else to justify their continued presence in Washington.  It will cost millions and guess what?  Rep. Fitzpatrick already knows the answers.  It was a terrorist attack with garbled follow-up reports, corrected as more accurate information got through.  Didn’t that just happen in Boston? 

Getting on television and sending important sounding emails is apparently preferable to increasing the State Department budget for security.  Ambassador Rice used contrived talking points inappropriately, bureaucrats writing speeches wanted to spin the spin, mistakes were made and we have already heard all that a gazillion times.  To quote the Secretary of State, “What difference does it make now?"

In Bizarroland, the motive “must be a plot by the President to cover up responsibility” for: 1. Underfunded security?  Oops.  That would be the province of the Republican House.  2.  Unfettered public speech including mistaken pronouncements?  Dear me.  Even full-on fibs on a variety of topics have been heard from Republican notables, some spoken by candidates for President. 3.  What Really Happened?  A violent gang of murdering jihadists attacked a United States embassy outpost, killing and burning.  We get that.  Check with events in Islamabad, Beirut, Kenya, Jordan, Pakistan. Remember the 9 embassy personnel killed in other attacks from 2004 to 2008.  What about the persistent violence against Americans and Afghani citizens in the war that isn’t a war?  Violence is happening and continuing to happen.  

The Democrats have acknowledged facts that were already on the record.  They screwed up by speculating about which perpetrators should be held responsible. In doing so they succeeded in giving the sillies a platform from which to scream, "Cover up!" for months and months and months.  Meanwhile the CIA and the Marines and whoever else gets assigned to find the murderers must do their jobs without any attention at all from the righteous attention grabbers.  No serious effort to spend more money on Embassy security will be forthcoming.  The current House budget cut the State Department by 13%, and the sequester cut it further.

We must hope that more cautious heads will prevail and that stability and respect can return in time to deal with some very serious issues ahead for all of us.  A Congress with a 13% approval rating is not showing anybody very much, despite all the noise. 

Ann Melby Shenkle, May 2013