Today’s the big day when Republicans and Hillary Clinton get to grandstand at each other, make noises that will sound bold to their respective supporters, and then hopefully take a bow and move on their their lives.
Naturally, the hearings were tense and bitter and unpleasant, so please do not subject yourself to the misery of watching them. (Obama certainly isn’t.) As Bernie Sanders and Larry David have pointed out, America is sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails that are the star exhibits at today’s performance.
“I would imagine I have thought more about what happened than all of you put together,” Hillary told the Republicans. “I have lost more sleep than all of you put together.”
Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan accused Hillary of lying about the cause of the attack — she said it was exacerbated by an anti-Muslim YouTube video, Jordan said it was because Obama had done a shitty job of destroying Al-Queda.
“I am sorry that it doesn’t fit your narrative, congressman, I can only tell you what the facts are,” she said.
Hillary also pointed out that the State Department had appointed its own Accountability Review Board that made 29 harsh recommendations for improving security after the attack, so WTF is the point of this congressional probe?
“Previous investigations were not thorough,” said South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy. That’s probably because previous investigations were not sufficiently damaging to Clinton.
Indiana Representative Susan W. Brooks brought her own props: two stacks of emails, which she placed on the desk in front of her. She pointed out that Hillary had sent far fewer emails during the year in which the attacks took place.
“Most of my work was not done on emails,” Clinton said.
When accused of releasing misinformation about the attack in the initial days, she responded, “We were in a position of trying to make sense of a lot of incoming information.”
Alabama Rep. Martha Roby went after Clinton for not knowing whether the US was even in Libya — a ludicrous accusation, considering she was Secretary of State. The basis for Roby’s assertion were emails from two state department staffers who didn’t work directly with Clinton.
Democrats on the panel seem eager to shut the whole thing down. “What is impossible is for any reasonable person to continue denying that Republicans are squandering millions of taxpayer dollars on this abusive effort to derail Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign,” said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.
So far the Benghazi investigation has cost $4.7 million. Money well spent, congratulations everyone.
