If you had been Hillary Clinton yesterday, and you could have spoken your mind without any risk of political or other retribution, what would you have said the Republicans on the committee?

I would have said exactly what she did and exactly what I have been saying, we have lost Americans and other lives and have indured destruction in many other terrorist attacks on Embassies. Where were the Republicans when our Yemen Embassy was attacked? What about in Lebanon? The Republicans only seem to care about the life of our diplomats and not others who have died in Embassy attacks. Don’t all lives matter? Don’t we care about all terrorism on our embassies? What about 9/11, done inside of our country? WTH? They have selective amnesia. It’s why so many were so stunned by 9/11. People were not taking attacks on embassies, military installations, other western countries, and even other attacks here in America as seriously as they should have. They care when they see it as a tool to get rid of a political candidate. Disgusting.

I would have said that the whole investigation was one big farce, and I would have pointed out, contrary to the Republican opening remarks, that other high ranking Republicans were on record saying how they were hoping the investigation would harm Clinton’s chances of getting elected president.

It would have been nice to break in to one of their little showboating diatribes and ask: “Excuse me, but do you think I will have time to go to the bathroom and be back before you get to an actual question?”

I would have told them the truth and let the cards fall where the may. I really think that’s what she did, within certain security parameters which the Republicans took total advantage of knowing that there are certain things that can only be discussed with people with high security clearance and in camera—not in a public forum.

It was torture watching that hearing. The Republicans made total asses out of themselves. They really think we commoners are stupid. It was unbelievable. I’m not a Hillary fan and I still had my reservations about the true objective of this committee before the hearing. For risk management purposes, we need to know what went so horribly wrong at Bengazi so we may not experience that again. As late as Wednesday, I still had a modicum of faith left that this was the true purpose of the committee and that Hillary’s charge that it was a vehicle to assassinate her character was just politics as usual. Even after Kevin don’t-ever-me-anything-really-important McCarthy (R-Principal’s Office) came out and bragged about the Benghazi Committee being a Republican tool to destroy her candidacy, I still held out that maybe somebody was interested in future damage control.

But after yesterday? Jeezuz. What a bunch of assholes. Even the Watergate hearings didn’t get that nasty. I have a lot more respect for that lady after yesterday. She took it, kept her shit together, nearly choked to death once, was told she laughed inappropriately at something that really was funny (I mean the thought of Hill having a young, buff pro over for late-night stress relief is funny, don’t you think? I mean, who is projecting here?) and sweated for eleven fucking hours in the same room with these guys, most of them hostile and only interested in taking her down. She made them look like schoolyard bullies. But they didn’t need much help in that department.

Hell, just spending eleven hours in the same room with Chairman Trey I-jerk-off-to pictures-of-Joe-McCarthy Gowdy (R-Tobacco Road) sans interrogation would sicken me.

OK. That’s my tl:dr for the day. Sorry.

Well, I suppose telling the truth might have been a novel response. At least one that nobody would have expected. I would have told them that yes, I isolated myself from my ambassadors so that they had no way of communicating with me. I didn’t give them my email, my phone number, or even my address so they could write me a letter. I would have said that all needs to change so the the Ambassador (the most knowledgeable person in country) can communicate any and all problems directly to me. That wall of bureaucracy needs to be torn down. Give those guys that are risking lives, at least a fighting chance.

But no she decided to plead ignorance and then lie about what happened. As if that makes it OK. At least take responsibility for what you have control over.

Why Angry Old Men Calling a Meeting to Yell at a Woman Is Always a Spectacular Failure

“Even Fox News abandoned coverage of the hearing in the afternoon – about three-and-a-half hours before it was actually finished – and started covering unrelated topics, despite the network’s near-obsession with the deadly 2012 attack for years.”

Quote from This article

@Jaxk Could they not email or call her? I didn’t get the impression they couldn’t get a security concern to her if they had one. What I heard was security concerns typically were reported to the security people.

I’d ask them to refund the taxpayers and demand that they pledge, on national TV where all us voters can hear them, to use their money instead of taxpayer dollars for their witch hunts and smear campaigns. If the RNC wants to fund such things themselves, then fine, but between the Benghazi hearing and Obamacare alone, they have wasted more time and money than can go unpunished.

And whatever little shred of legitimacy these hearing had is (at best) undermined by the fact that the only way it could’ve turned up anything new is if their previous attempts were so incompetent that the people conducting the investigation should’ve been fired years ago.

rojo – That article was excellent.
I also thought of Anita Hill during these proceedings.
””””””””””””””””
Shakespeare’s line: “What fools these mortals be.” Midsummer’s Night Dream.
Seems fitting, doesn’t it?
So much wasted energy and money for politicians trying to make a name for themselves via this committee’s stupidity. Politicans. Jeesh.

Congressman Jordan kept talking about “transparency” and “patterns”. I would have told him that anyone with a comb over like his should avoid using those words.

@JLeslie – According to the testimony, Stevens did not have Hilary’s personal email, he did not have her cell phone, nor even her physical address. He only had the email and phone numbers for the Dept of State. Those messages to Hilary at that email were sorted by he aids and sent where the aids deemed appropriate. According to Hilary, when Stevens sent and email to here about his security concerns they were routed to the security folks and Hilary never saw it. I find that a bit of a stretch but if we are to believe Hilary, the 600 security requests sent to her about Libya were all routed to the security folks and she never saw or heard a word about it. When she was asked directly if she had ever spoken with Stevens between the time he was appointed and the time he died, she said she did once but couldn’t remember when or about what.

It seems pretty obvious that Hilary had herself walled off so that any communication intended for her was handled by her staff and never got her attention. That sort of filter would never happens without the tacit approval of Hilary.

I disagree @Jaxk. People in high office have to have a few hundred folks working on their behalf and determining importance—like triage. They can’t be expected to read and respond to every shred of email or correspondence that someone wants them to see.

@Dutchess_III – I don’t disagree with that but they still need some means of getting through for their direct reports. Hilary said that Stevens was the most knowledgeable person on Libya yet she gave him no way to contact her directly. His only avenue to get to her was through her email at the State Dept. and she never read those. Believe me I understand the volume of emails but if you report directly to me, you should have a way to contact me. Stevens didn’t but it would seem he thought he did. None of his messages apparently, ever got through the filter.

@Jaxk You do understand that email is not the preferred method of communication between a Secretary of State and an ambassador. They have cables, which is a secure, in house messaging system.

@filmfann – There is no evidence that I have seen that any cables made it through Hilary’s filter either. Cables were sent but Hilary denies any knowledge of their content. If there was some avenue for mind reading I haven’t heard about it.

@Jaxk So they didn’t clear it through you?

@Jaxk ~If only we had some form of technology that was near-impossible to intercept and some way to make such messages indecipherable to those who do intercept it; some form of encryption…. but 2015 technology just isn’t up to the task.

@Jaxk I can see your side. My question would be did Stevens feel like if he asked for Hillary’s help or to speak with her would she respond? I would want to know if he felt intimidated to ask. Similar to how doctors have all those gatekeepers usually. Receptionists, nurses, and often times as the patient we feel it is abundantly clear the doctor does not want to come to the phone or get an email directly from a patient.

Chris Stevens was so experienced, and I got the impression he would be able to get a message through.

The question in my mind is if Hillary had received some of the same messages the security people received, would she have trumped everything and taken fast action, or relied on security anyway? Would she have been more inclined to take less risk.

It also sounded like the access to escaping the embassy when under fire could have been better, and if they had had masks to breath through the smoke, it would have made all the difference. Very sad.

@JLeslie – How Stevens actually felt, we’ll never know. He’s dead. What we do know is that Stevens sent emails and cables to Hilary. Hilary claims she never saw them. We know that a couple of months prior to the 9/11 attack the British closed their consulate in Beghazi after an RPG attack on their Ambassadors motorcade. Apparently this didn’t spark any questions from Hilary or any communication with Stevens. Hell, even the Red Cross pulled out of Benghazi and Hilary never even said ‘hey, how you doing out there’? She apparently never even asked her staff how things were going in Benghazi because if she did they would have had to tell her about the 600 security requests. Her complete detachment from those she sent into harms way is what has me astounded. Hilary is the one that said Stevens didn’t have her email or cell phone. Stevens would have assumed that the messages he sent with Hilary’s name on them would have been read by Hilary even if she forwarded them on to someone else for response.

To be honest, I don’t believe she never saw or knew about all those requests. It’s simply a bridge too far for me. But if you believe that she is telling the truth about not knowing them there is no other conclusion than that she was completely detached. Remember 600 security requests from an area that had numerous attacks and she never knew or inquired about any of it. How would you like to work for someone like that. Sounds like the old ‘Mission Impossible’ line ‘If you are discovered or captured, we will disavow any knowledge of you. This tape will self destruct in 60 seconds.’ Of course they knew the terms going in, Stevens didn’t.

@Jaxk I don’t know what to make of it.

@Jaxk Entirely correct, as far as you go.

Those with executive power tend to do a ton of delegation, and I’m not entirely convinced that the physical security of one particular embassy is enough of a pressing concern that any high-level diplomat/secretary type has a hand in it.

I will grant that a good executive will want at least some level of awareness of what’s going on beneath them, but I don’t think that a full-on Congressional hearing was required to do what should’ve been done before Hillary served in any capacity other than First Lady. I seem to recall Secretaries of State requiring senatorial approval before taking the job, and Clinton getting resounding bipartisan support (a vote of 94–2) in her confirmation, so any questioning of Hillary’s competence implies that the entire Senate failed in their due diligence.

And regardless of her role in all of this, there are plenty of other people who should’ve been investigated and questioned as well; most of them people who are paid for no job other than embassy security, and who probably already told at least one of the previous committees all that they know. Boehner felt the same way, and it cost him his job.

Now, if you want to argue that Hillary is someone who would do anything to cover her own ass, well, despite all of our disagreements over the years, I would not only concede that to you, but hand it to you on a silver platter with a cherry on top.

Well, there is always the thought that Ms. Rice went to Congress and out and out lied.
What to do, what to do….