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Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Dodge
PJ Media ^ | May 31, 2014 | Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted on 05/31/2014 10:57:58 AM PDT by jazusamo

Is Hillary Clinton a charlatan or just the crappiest lawyer in Washington? As the Obama Left likes to say, that’s a false choice. There’s no reason she can’t be both.

The question arises thanks to yet another excellent report on the Obama administration’s Benghazi fraud by the Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes. The Benghazi fraud is a prominent subject of my new book, Faithless Execution , which traces the debacle from the president’s unauthorized, unprovoked, and ultimately disastrous instigation of a war against the Qaddafi regime; through his (and Secretary Clinton’s) recklessly irresponsible failure to provide security for the American officials they mysteriously stationed in Benghazi (a jihadist hotbed that is one of the world’s most dangerous places for Americans); through the president’s shocking failure to attempt to rescue Americans under siege on the night of September 11, 2012; and finally through Mr. Obama’s carefully orchestrated deception, in which the administration tried to hoodwink the country into blaming the murders of our ambassador and three other Americans on a video rather than on his calamitous policy of empowering Islamic supremacists.

Steve’s latest report homes in on Mrs. Clinton’s infamous “What difference, at this point, does it make” caterwaul, emitted during tense questioning by Senator Ron Johnson (R., WI) during a hearing on Benghazi.

Apparently, the former secretary of state struggles to rationalize this appalling testimony in her forthcoming memoir, Hard Choices. As notorious for taking no responsibility as for committing blunders over which accountability becomes an issue, Mrs. Clinton complains that her “What difference” yowl has been distorted. It was not, she insists, an exhibition of callous indifference; it was, in Steve’s description, “an attempt to redirect the questioning from its focus on the hours before the attacks to preventing similar attacks in the future.” Or, as Mrs. Clinton reportedly writes:

My point was simple: If someone breaks into your home and takes your family hostage, how much time are you going to spend focused on how the intruder spent his day as opposed to how best to rescue your loved ones and then prevent it from happening again?

As Steve quite rightly observes, this is nonsense. By the time of Mrs. Clinton’s testimony, the Benghazi Massacre—and, indeed, even the Obama administration’s fraudulent “The Video Did It” cover-up of the cause of the Benghazi Massacre—was several months old. We were long, long past the intruder-in-the-home phase. We were in the accountability phase—the phase of: let’s now establish what actually happened and why, so we can then figure out how to prevent a recurrence.

Any competent lawyer knows that during the investigative and trial stages that follow a public debacle—to say nothing of an act of war in which American officials were derelict in responding to a murderous terrorist attack—the obligation of the witnesses is not to redirect the questions. It is to answer the questions. Any competent trial judge would have sustained an objection to the secretary of state’s evasive answer, striking it from the record as non-responsive.

Mrs. Clinton is a crappy lawyer if she does not get that, since a first-year law student would. And she is a charlatan because the transparent two-step objective of her performance was, first, to dodge questions about her conduct and, then, to wail that the questions must cease because she has already answered them.

Would that the Senate had better cross-examiners. One suspects that former prosecutor Trey Gowdy, who will chair the House select committee on the Benghazi Massacre, would have known to ask the right follow-up question that eluded Senator Johnson. To wit, “Secretary Clinton, how many times did you practice that little speech in front of the mirror before you came here today?” Then, after the smoke pours out of her ears, you keep asking the accountability questions until you get real answers—or, as in Mrs. Clinton’s case, until it becomes painfully obvious that the witness has no satisfactory answers.

Did Secretary Clinton really believe her job was to steer the Senate’s questions rather than answer them? Did she seriously believe her appearance as a witness was the occasion for moving on to the matter of preventing a recurrence of—rather than establishing accountability for—the derelictions of duty that resulted in the killings of four Americans? If so, that is the easy part. Clearly, we should make certain that she is never again in a position of responsibility for the formulation of American foreign policy and for the protection of Americans serving our country in perilous places.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: benghazi; clinton; hillary; scbenghazi; seeyounexttuesday; selectcommittee
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To: jazusamo

Hitlery should, can and will be “SwiftBoated”.


21 posted on 05/31/2014 12:06:33 PM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: newheart
Actually, it was 3:40 PM in DC when the attack started. That's about 4 hours into Hillarys Happy Hour
22 posted on 05/31/2014 12:10:37 PM PDT by digger48
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To: jazusamo
 photo AR-140419848_zpsabd19829.jpg
23 posted on 05/31/2014 12:17:28 PM PDT by RetSignman
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To: jazusamo

Excerpts from her book seem drawn right from “Animal House” wherein Eric Stratton exhorts his fellow underachievers: “We’re not going to sit here while you badmouth the United States of America!”


24 posted on 05/31/2014 12:32:06 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: jazusamo

“Hard Choices”, what a joke.


25 posted on 05/31/2014 12:43:41 PM PDT by Recon Dad (Force Recon Dad)
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To: jazusamo
I'm not sure who I can't stand more, Hillary who directly lied to the families of the Benghazi victims, or the media, who can obviously see that she lied in this Youtube video and others, but yet still continue to cover for her.

Hillary Clinton - The Benghazi Lie From The Beginning - The Internet Video

26 posted on 05/31/2014 1:09:18 PM PDT by Conservative Gato
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To: newheart

I thought the same thing reading Obama’s statement, leave no one behind except those at Benghazi....


27 posted on 05/31/2014 1:21:57 PM PDT by Engedi
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To: Engedi

Bttt


28 posted on 05/31/2014 1:42:00 PM PDT by txhurl (Trump/Cruz '16, and everybody else for Cabinet members.)
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To: jazusamo

“My point was simple: If someone breaks into your home and takes your family hostage, how much time are you going to spend focused on how the intruder spent his day as opposed to how best to rescue your loved ones and then prevent it from happening again?”

So, how did Hillary do by her own criteria:
1) Does Hillary claim that she spent ANY time trying to rescue “her loved ones”, aka US personnel in Benghazi? Any evidence that she took effective measures? Any measures? If so, it’s a well-kept secret.
2) Hillary made major, very public, efforts to focus on the anti-Islamic video, including promulgating an “apology to Muslims” on Pakistani and Middle-eastern TV. Wasn’t this false narrative all about “how the intruder spent his day”?
3) Can you “prevent it from happening again” without honest assessment of the attackers’ motives, why US security measures were no woefully inadequate, why the US Ambassador was at an unsecured facility, why help was unavailable or not dispatched, and who was responsible?

Hillary fails on every point.


29 posted on 05/31/2014 2:01:51 PM PDT by Chewbarkah
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To: Chewbarkah
If so, it’s a well-kept secret.

Hillary herseff would have been the first to trumpet any positive, honest efforts to rescue those "loved ones" with which she was even the most tangentially involved, just as she quickly trumpeted that Islamists took Stevens to a hospital to be revived (see (extremely graphic) picture to judge for yourself Mrs. Clinton's definition of "humanitarian").

If suggesting how the focus should have been on how to prevent the "family" from being attacked again, wasting $75,000 of taxpayer dollars and Pawkeestawnee TV air time--not to mention Barry and Her time making such a farce--would have never come to the fore, as it was such a stinking turd of a lie. She never operated on that basis.

Not long ago, all US citizens were advised "out of the blue" (no events leading up to the decision) to leave Libya, which doesn't begin to suggest that in the intervening year and a half that the State Department has spent time or resources beefing up security for our citizens and employees there.   So much for preventing any future attacks, eh, HDRC?

HF

30 posted on 05/31/2014 2:57:57 PM PDT by holden
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To: jazusamo

She should have been stood in front of a concrete wall with a blindfold and cigarette a long time ago.


31 posted on 05/31/2014 3:18:42 PM PDT by Old Yeller (Anything is possible, if you don't know what you're talking about.)
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To: DoughtyOne
Hillary never wastes a crisis---she has a cute way of bouncing out of trouble. Remember when Billy got lewinskied in the Oval Office?

Man oh man, Hillary was furious....not b/c her hubby got a lube job, but b/c a bimbo under her husband's desk meant HER political ambitions were in deep doo-doo.

So Hilly went on TV---all decked out in virginal pearls---
and blamed Billy's B/J on the "VRWC."

For sure CBS will give Hill ample airtime so that she emerges pure and virginal for 2016. CBS will suckup and give her 2-3 segments to explain away whatever damaging info comes out of the Benghazi committee.....

Mmmmmm...the word "Republicans" is already forming on those ambitious lips.

===========================================================

Who can forget Obama and Hillary's love fest on CBS' 60 Minutes?

Obomba hustled Hillary on 60 Minutes to gaze in adoration,
after Hill's arrogant dismissal of the Benghazi massacre before
Congress. I thought sure Obama was gonna give 'er a B/J on
broadcast tv....he was THAT grateful.

============================================

Yoo hoo, Hillary--time for you, Bill, and Chelsea to join hands and sing "Kumbaya."

======================================================

LAUGH BREAK Hillary's been advised her mega-wealth is a problem when she campaigns on "equality crap," .......running as a phony populist. Campaign strategists warned Hillary her "tone" is important.....(so she can better dupe the voters).

A news clip of her on Megyn has Hilly mentioning "the cancer of inequality" in a sap-happy, chirpy voice, wearing a h-u-g-e phony grin.

Reminded me of the classic Willam Castle horror movie, "Mr Sardonicus," (whose face becomes frozen in a horrifying grin while robbing the coffin of his father's grave).

Hillary's perpetual 2016 game face.

32 posted on 06/01/2014 11:44:17 AM PDT by Liz
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To: Liz
You and I are on the same page Liz.  There's so much stuff on this woman...

It boggles the mind that she is viable to run for anything and have an assumption that she might have a chance.


Ramirez's latest political cartoon LARGE VERSION
05/30/2014: LINK  LINK to regular sized version of Ramirez's latest, and an archive of his political cartoons.

In this political cartoon, Ramirez presents, "Obama: Foreign Policy"



FOLKS, THOSE OF YOU WHO CAN, PLEASE CLICK HERE AND PENCIL IN YOUR DONATION TO HELP END THIS FREEPATHONTHANK YOU!  We're over 97% now. Cool!
...this is a general all purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

33 posted on 06/01/2014 6:33:32 PM PDT by DoughtyOne
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To: annieokie; penelopesire; maggief; Protect the Bill of Rights; thouworm; SE Mom; Nachum; onyx; ...

Benghazi ping.

Let Republicanprofessor know if you want on or off this ping list.


34 posted on 06/02/2014 7:19:46 AM PDT by Republicanprofessor
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To: Republicanprofessor

One who is being investigated does have the option to set the terms of the investigation.


35 posted on 06/02/2014 7:44:15 AM PDT by Graewoulf (Democrats' Obamacare Socialist Health Insur. Tax violates U.S. Constitution AND Anti-Trust Law.)
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