Are The Benghazi Hearings Earthshaking?

Tomorrow the hearings in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will begin at 11:30 am. The witnesses will be:

Mr. Mark Thompson
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism
Mr. Gregory Hicks
Foreign Service Officer and former Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affairs in Libya
US Department of State
Mr. Eric Nordstrom
Diplomatic Security Officer and former Regional Security Officer in Libya
US Department of State

In true Washington form, a lot of the expected testimony has already been leaked out (can’t anyone in that city keep a secret?).

There is a lot of damaging information that has already come out, but most of it was not new to people who were willing to look past the mainstream media. The significant part of what is happening now is that much of the media that blindly supports President Obama has begun to cover the story. Sharyl Attkisson at CBS has been covering the story from the beginning and posted a story at CBS News yesterday which claimed that Special Forces were barred from going to help when Benghazi was attacked. The article includes excerpts from Gregory Hicks’ interview with congressional investigators on the House Oversight Committee in April. Please follow the link above to read the interview.

Benghazi was mishandled from the start. That area of Libya has a history of radical Islamist terrorists and the annex at Benghazi should have either been guarded like Fort Knox or shut down. Decreasing security before the September 11 attacks was foolish and dangerous. The goal of the Obama Administration may have been to give the perception that the war on terror ended with the killing of Osama Bin Ladan, but they were very foolish to let their guard down in Libya. Had the Special Forces been allowed to go into Benghazi, we might have saved Ambassador Stevens, but the ensuing news reports would have been a nightmare for the Obama Presidential Campaign. That fact may have been a major part of their calculations in how they responded to the incident, altering the talking points, and lying about the some of the details. .

So what happens next? I don’t know. I don’t want to see President Obama destroyed by this. He is guilty of lying, incompetence, and a bunch of other things, but impeachment would be a serious mistake on the part of the Republicans. Even if it were deserved, it would never pass the Senate, and even if it did pass it would give America Joe Biden as President. Either way, there is no happy outcome. The good that could come out of this is that Congress will continue to hold the President’s feet to the fire when he is lying and will begin to limit some of his more unconstitutional actions. It would also be nice to see the American press begin to cover this President objectively, but I really don’t believe in unicorns.

 

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