(Overheard in a coffee shop in a small nondescript town in Kansas.)
KIM
The GOP was cutting the security budget and had zero respect for embassies let alone career diplomats until this incident. The ambassador was moving about in ways most never did to be effective and the world changed in North Africa dramatically as we see more every day. GOP found an opportunity for false outrage and they just want to milk it. I no longer think think have any credibility on this issue.
ELEANOR (To Kim.)
The President commands the military and the Secretary of State recommends. Neither of these are in the GOP. The lack of leadership is staggering and shameful.
TERPSICHORE (To Eleanor.)
Just keep saying it and eventually, even though it won't be true, people will believe it. Mitt Romney!
JAMES To Eleanor.)
Do ever get tired of broad sweeping statements that mean nothing?
ELEANOR (to James.)
I thought "blaming the GOP" was a sweeping broad meaningless statement.
FERDINAND (To Eleanor.)
Right right, they are always free from responsibility of any kind, totally blameless.
ELEANOR (to Ferdinand.)
They are equally corrupt. That's why "blaming" and "denying" are co-partners in deceiving people for political gain.
ROBERT (To Eleanor.)
Not equally.
NICHOLAS (To Eleanor)
...which is funded by Congress. The military, contrary to popular GOP thought process, has a budget.
FERDINAND (To Eleanor.)
I believe! I believe! I do, I do, I do.
CHRISTOPHER
GOP lives in a reality of their own construction. When they are ready to deal with the real world and its real problems then they can expect to have adult conversations with adult people. Consign the whole party to the dustheap of crap.
LAWRENCE
That hearing was such a clear demonstration of our nation's partisanship. Rather than a truth-seeking endeavor, each side is just trying to confirm what they want to hear. The left wants to blame the right for insufficient funding and political witch hunts, the right wants to blame the left for lying and stealing the election. Anything to avoid admitting that America simply preferred Obama's agenda. It's sad that these are the parts of this hearing that are getting the most focus, instead of Mr. Obama's constructive, productive forward-looking parts.
MINDIE
Good toons. We have, what, two-hundred-seventy embassies all over the world, this is just one of them. Requests were made going back to Bush's term in '06 to increase security and they were made each year with some success. The GOP, the party of "No!", Hell No! Said NO! What else would they say? We all know what they say. The dangers were known, the solutions were ignored by Congress and specifically the GOP. Bobby Jindal is right "the Republicans must stop being the "stupid party".
WILLIAM (To Mindie.)
The Republicans who make comments like "legitimate rape" and how rape can't lead to pregnancy did seem to be going out of their way to back up John Stuart Mill's 1866 comment: "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."....so, given that.... what makes you believe that only the GOP is stupid?
MARIA
I watched the hearings and have been following the Benghazi "cover up" both in the real and "conservative' media and I still don't understand what the Republicans are asking for, what is wrong with the answers they are getting and what are the answers they so desperately want? Why do they expect the answers to be be simple?
TERPSICHORE (to Maria.)
I loved John McCain explaining that they needed more information about all of this to the press while skipping an intelligence briefing about it. You can't make that stuff up.
BIRDIE (to Maria.)
Maybe the GOP shouldn't pick fights with Hilary Clinton?
ELEANOR (To Birdie)
Maybe public employees should be a tad more respectful when asked questions about their job?
BIRDIE (To Eleanor.)
She was quite a bit more respectful to them than the were to her. She had every right to even scream profanities, not that she would except maybe in the cloakroom, at their banal and asinine assertions, very few of which actually sought information. Paul and Johnson were stumping and fundraising on national tv.
LUCILE (To Eleanor.)
What do you suppose a Senator is, other than a public employee?
ELEANOR (To Lucille.)
The Koch brothers bitches.
LUCILE (To Eleanor.)
I can't remember the last time the Senate represented the people.
BIRDIE (To Lucille.)
Corporations are people too.
TERPSICHORE (To Lucille.)
They represent some people.
ELEANOR (To Terpsichore.)
And the Secretary of State, Ms. Clinton, is our President's representative, who represents the people?
MICHAEL
She gave them all the respect they earned.
ELIZABETH
The Secretary of State, and all other Cabinet members, serve at the pleasure of the President. Therefore, that pontificating Rand Paul about how he would have relieved her of her duties and wind bag Ron Johnson spouting nonsense have the slightest authority over Clinton. The entire hearing was just a bunch of stuffed shirt blow-hards blowing as hard as they could. Not a word they said has the slightest impact on anything.
GORDON
As long as it's a Democrat, roll over and show your belly. Right? As Elizabeth said, these hearings are a fine display of what our system has become: a theater of the absurd. We should all be infuriated that we are now no more than playthings, resources to be exploited and manipulated through television and the internet. Democracy means nothing to these people.
ELEANOR
I agree. These clowns appear to be self satisfied that people died. What better example than this that the GOP has lost compassion and empathy unless it fits their agenda?
FERDINAND
Ask a respectful question, get a respectful answer. But it does indeed need to be an actual question instead of just spouting the right wing talking points trying to trick her into signing off on it all and hopefully validate the entire crazy conspiracy theory, which is all the GOP Senators were trying to do. It was more of confirmation hearing on the capabilities of our Secretary of State than it was a fact finding mission. They got to the bottom of it. They just don't like what they dug up: brown gold. It wasn't GOP gold.
BARBRA
Until Johnson and Paul got vindictive. Hillary was nice to them! Respectful. I, on the other hand, would still be in there ripping people like those two and McCain a new one, or locked up for contempt.
PAUL
Right, because the last thing a retiring senior official wants is to annoy someone she doesn't like.
ELEANOR
Clinton is for Clinton, party members are for the party. The last thing Clinton wants is bad press.
MICHAEL
I didn't get to see or hear the hearings. Did the Republican members of Congress try to justify their gutting of the security budget for embassies? Or did they just try to change the subject?
BARBRA
Dozens of our embassies have been attacked over the last two decades.
ROBERT
Paul nailed it. This whole exercise was about defeating Clinton as a presidential candidate.
NEAL
What I am so angry and frustrated about is how little of what was talked about and discussed was relevant. They spent a lot of time discussing issues other then the Benghazi. They discussed the dangerous changes in the region, they discussed the need for funding that the GOP refuses to give. They talked about our commitment to the region.
ROBERT
She did a wonderful job of putting a couple of the Senators on the spot by reminding them of what the panel is actually supposed to be doing. That it wasn't formed to be a political spin room. The panel is supposed to discuss important matters and work to improve our embassies' safety.
NEAL
I praise to the Democratic Senator who responded to the GOP Senator's comment that the Presidents incorrect early story was the biggest misconception and misrepresentation to the American people since 9/11. His response: four words."Weapons of Mass Destruction" One was made after the loss of 4 lives. One caused over 4000 American lives and 10's of thousands of Iraqi lives and changed the region forever. Where were the GOP concerns then?
TERPSICHORE
Man, I really hope she runs in 2016, but I've got a feeling that between her health and her quality of life, she won't. I think her current approval rating will only go up from here as our economy continues it's plodding progress. I hope her election staff taped the several glowing compliments Republicans Senator paid her.
FERDINAND
For all the crying about the left "not letting tragedies go to waste" the republicans sure seem to be getting a lot of mileage out of this one.
WILLIAM
Mileage? Not really. Wasting time asking the wrong questions while looking petty....pretty much.
AARONY
This is the classic Republican strategy: create the problem then blame someone else for political gain.
FERDINAND
I think the GOP thought this was a confirmation hearing, confirming the truths that the rest of America hold to be self evident: Hillary is well qualified to confront our foreign enemies as well as domestic enemies.
JAMES
What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our governments job to figure out what happened 9/11/11and to do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.
(END)
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