Posted on 12/27/2012 12:47:52 PM PST by Kaslin
Sec. Clinton may have gotten out of testifying last week because of the concussion she sustained after fainting, but that doesn’t mean she’s in the clear on Benghazi just yet. The Washington Examiner has the details:
Republican senators will refuse to confirm Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as Secretary of State until the nation’s current top diplomat, Hillary Clinton, testifies about her handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack.
“The Senate is expected to take up Kerry’s nomination in early January, but multiple Republican senators have already said they won’t agree to a vote on Kerry’s nomination until Clinton testifies about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi,” The Cable’s Josh Rogin notes.
Although Clinton vowed to adopt the 29 recommendations in the Accountability Review Board’s report, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said the document still leaves many unanswered questions, which the secretary “will need to personally address.”
For instance, Clinton was “the first cabinet-level official to acknowledge that terrorists played a role in the assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi,” as the article states, yet prior to that she was perfectly content to denounce the First Amendment by placing blame squarely on the anti-Islam YouTube video. The State Department even went so far as to spend $70,000 in taxpayer funds to buy ads on Pakistani television stations featuring Clinton and Obama denouncing the film.
Of course, there are a host of other questions lawmakers want to know regarding what happened leading up to and during the attack that left four Americans dead, which the report failed to cover. If Clinton was willing to take responsibility (even if it was 35 days after the attack), it’s time for her to come out of hiding and testify about her handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack.
Gheghis = Genghis
Ed Markey says he’ll run for Kerry’s Senate seat in the special election:
If Kerry isn’t confirmed until mid-January at the earliest, he won’t resign until then, and the special election won’t be held until 145-160 days after the resignation (with Governor Deval Patrick appointing a placeholder to the Senate until the special election is held), so we’re looking at a June special election, when all the college kids in Boston have gone back to their home states and when turnout likely will be lowest. I like Scott Brown’s chances against an old fart like Markey who has spent his entire life in Congress.
Ed Markey was sworn in as a member of Congress on November 2, 1976, and will have served over 36-and-one-half years in the House by the time the special election is held. What’s the record for the longest House career before being elected to the Senate? I remember DJ pointing out, when Ben Cardin was elected to the Senate in 2006 after 20 years in the House, how rare it was for someone to give up so much House seniority for a Senate seat.
OK, I looked it up, and, at least among men who served in Congress at least 36 years, the most years of House service prior to serving in the Senate were 32 years by Frederick Gillett (R-MA). Perhaps someone was elected to the Senate after serving more than 32 years in the House, but certainly not after serving 36+ years. So Markey’s election to the Senate would be unprecedented.
My douchebag of a congressman... I know it’s asking too much, but it would be such a gift if the human windbag resigned from Congress to run for the Senate.
One of Kerry's biggest admirers is none other than AZ McPain.Can "Lovable Lindsey" be far behind?
I think it was Speaker Gillett who set the record. Markey, of course, doesn’t have to give up his seat to run. Still, the stupidity of trading in over 36 years of House seniority to be a backbencher in the Senate while in your late 60s takes the cake. Even if he wins, he won’t get more than a term or two before death or a hungrier Dem takes him down (or a Republican). Another problem for him is that he probably isn’t very well known outside his district. I recall seeing a poll showing Brown ahead of all the House members in a matchup. Brown could easily paint Markey as a 4-decade long career politician dinosaur.
I could care less if the bitch testifies. I do care if my Republican senator votes for John f’n Kerry. If he does, he will not receive my vote in the future. I did not vote for a senator that approves of traitors. Do I expect anything less? Of course, Republicans have no principles and no ability to articulate positive values and policy for our republic.
His district is DC. So are all of the career politicians.
I guess he’s tired of being back in the minority in the House.
It looks like he is the guy, Kerry and the widow Kennedy have endorsed him as has the DSCC.
Sure seems like a crappy choice to me.
I suppose Deval will appoint him so he will be the incumbent.
Unless he’s too fearful to leave his House seat with victory not assured.
But it seems like he doesn’t want to be in the House anymore.
I don’t think Markey will take the chance of losing and having to leave Washington; he’ll ask Patrick to name a placeholder.
My prediction assumes that the RATs don’t change the law to get rid of the quick special election; if they change the law and the appointment lasts until November 2014, then I think that Markey will accept the appointment.
You got that right.
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