By David A. Franklin, Jr.
There is a quote from my grandmother’s book of wisdom “It’s not the person who sh*ts on the side of the road who remembers it, but the one who steps in it”. Republicans did the sh*tting and the rest of the country (and the world) stepped in it – the dead and wounded servicemen and women, their families, friends and well-wishers. So it seems that this adage is correct, Republican sh*tters do not remember the incidents of 9/11 and the lies that they perpetrated day after day, year after year fed to Americans and to the world.
And they have the unmitigated gaul, the effrontery to be making a stink about Benghazi which is all about the information given by UN Ambassador Susan Rice who was presenting information given to her by CIA intelligence. In the hearing with Hillary Clinton Wednesday, one of the ‘old’ GOPers wondered if Ms. Rice could not have used her intelligence and think that the information passed to her were incorrect.
1. Did Colin Powell at the United Nations who presented microscopic details of the existence of actual locations of
WMD in Iraq have the intelligence or did he like Ambassador Rice trust those whom it is expected can be trusted?
2. Have Senator John McCain, and those grilling on Benghazi, forget that Colin Powell was used by their party as the
‘voice of reason’ to feed the world with a mixture of lies and falsehoods that Saddam had Weapons of Mass
Destruction which we have long since come to know did not exist before the US-led invasion of Iraq? Four dead or
four thousand does not justify carelessness. Both numbers are serious but we who are intelligent and are truthful and
we who are not playing cheap politics know that the Republicans in the Benghazi hearing is nothing
but amateur theater.
3. Can Republicans recall their own actions or is their lying nature pathological and innate and hence they cannot help
themselves?
4. Have they forgotten that their lies signed the death warrant of well over a million innocent Iraqi men, women and
children?
5. Do they accept responsibility or do they have the conscience to accept the blame for a war based on falsehoods and
the greed for money that caused the deaths of nearly 4,500 American men and women, untold maiming and
disruption of American lives that too often lead to suicide?
6. Did George W. Bush and his Administration officials use intelligence when they claimed that there existed a highly
secretive relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda from 1992 to 2003 and that this relationship might
mean a possible launch of terrorist attacks on the United States?
7. Was it that they were not intelligent or did they outright lie about what they put forward as compelling reasons to go
into Iraq which the world has long realized that it was for no other reason than to build the ever profitable Military
Industrial Complex to the benefit of themselves, friends and cohorts?
8. Have these old GOPers in the persons of John McCain, et al and the attention-seeking back-benchers such as
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) not have the intelligence and/or the mental capacity to
understand that although up to this point in history there is nothing to debunk consensus of intelligence experts that
the contacts between Iraq and Al-Qaeda did not lead to operational relationship?
It is clear that the spectacle dubbed ‘the Benghazi hearing’ had less to do with policy and all to do with plain and downright cheap politics. It was so terrible that a Fox News military Analyst and right-wing pundit Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (ret.) could not but praise Hillary Clinton’s delivery of herself and the facts - “I came away with deeper respect for Hillary Clinton’s bureaucratic lawyerly brilliance,” Peters said. “I mean she was just tough and good and the Republicans looked like weenies”:
There were two targets in my opinion of this useless and senseless waste-of-time hearing which brought out nothing new or different from the talking points of the Republicans. Points that have been proven to be false and wrong:
- In the first instance to get Ambassador Rice out of the play for
Secretary of State nomination so that John Kerry could vacate
the seat Republicans think they can regain through Scott
Brown.
- Second, it was used to try to discredit Hillary Clinton and
weaken any chance she might have to run for the presidency in
2016. But the world sees that they succeed in exposing to the
world that Hillary is ready to be President Clinton! It backfired
and only made them look the weaklings they all are.
“With All Due Respect”
Indeed, these were the choice words that resonated from Secretary Clinton to Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) when he asked why did she not make “a simple phone call” to the evacuees to find out, what he termed ‘the facts’ whereupon Madam Secretary of State rejoined: “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans!” ,“What difference does it make?”
The Clinton schooling of the rookie Senator Johnson continued:
JOHNSON: "Madam Secretary, do you disagree that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determine what
happened would have ascertained immediately there was no protest? That was a piece of information that
could have been easily, easily obtained. within hours if not days."
CLINTON: "Senator, you know, when you’re in these positions, the last thing you want to do is interfere with any other
process."
JOHNSON: "I realize that. I realize it’s a good excuse."
CLINTON: "No it’s a fact. [...]"
JOHNSON: "Again, we were mis-lead there was supposedly protests and something spraying out of that, assault
spraying out of that. That was easily ascertained that was not the fact and the American people could
have known that within days and didn’t know that."
And…..Here comes the gem:
CLINTON: "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans! Was it because of a protest or was it
because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans?! What difference at
this point does it make?! It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it
from ever happening again."
I couldn’t say it any better that the sampling of headlines displayed below:
“In Benghazi hearings, Hillary Storms Capitol Hill” – Dana Milbank Washington Post
“The Benghazi Show: Republicans Wanted To Grill Hillary Clinton On The Death Of Four Americans In Libya. They Blew It.” - David Weigel The New York Times
“Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Hearing Proves Women Can Handle Combat” - SUSAN MILLIGAN US News
“Hillary Clinton Eats the Republican Party for Lunch at Benghazi Hearing” - Jason Easley PoliticusUSA.
Well done Madam Secretary, well done!
And see you in 2016!!!
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