Between Bluster and Brashness Over the Benghazi Bungle

 

 Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC 4th), the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, responded to the Hillary E-Mail controversy on CBS's Face The Nation.



 Some cynics wonder why Chairman Gowdy is now in the forefront about Hillary's sui generis e-mails while heading the State Department, as the Select Committee had knowledge of this practice going back to last summer.  Gowdy is a former federal prosecutor so he is patiently building a case and did not want Ms. Clinton to testify before he had all of the information vetted.

While a litigator in an Article III court wants all relevant information, such a broad request could be framed as a witch hunt or a fishing expedition in the political realm.  So now that there is sufficient public pressure, the former Secretary of State may feel compelled (for continued electoral viability) to "step up" and completely surrender the cyber records and not just feign compliance.

 Chairman Gowdy, who first came to office as part of the 2010 Tea Party wave elections, may distinguish himself between the bluster and the brashness of the District of Calamity by building a compelling case to discern what happened in the Benghazi bungle of September 11, 2012.

But if Gowdy fails to impressively interrogate the former chief of Foggy Bottom, conservative cynics may echo Hillary's last Congressional testimony--"What difference, at this point, does it make?"  Combined with Speaker Boehner's capitulation on DHS funding with a rider excluding Executive Amnesty (which lost 167 Republican votes on final passage), conservatives might wonder if having friends like that in high office whether they need enemies.

Former Secretary of State Clinton claimed that we should strive to figure out why the Benghazi bungle happened.  Could it be due to insecure communications from hdr22@clintonemail.com (or mau-suit@clintonemail.com)?  Or a pattern in the Obama Administration to use backdoor, off official communications, to convey inconvenient truths? It does not seem that it was just Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, as we should not forget the pseudonym Richard Windsor (a.k.a. EPA chief Lisa Jackson ).  So much for the Obama Administration being the most transparent regime ever, as they took their anti-secrecy award in 2011 in a closed door presentation. 

Bridge-gate Ballyhoo

Bridge-gate burst into the public eye last week as emails from high level staffer of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) were exposed indicating that four days worth of lane closures which snarled the George Washington Bridge were intentional.  Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly sent a snarky text message intimating:  "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee". It has been speculated that the four days of lane closures which snarled the world's busiest suspension bridge was intended as a as punishment to Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich (D-Fort Lee), a Democrat who did not make a cross party endorsement of Christie in is wildly successful 2013 re-election effort.  

For his part, Governor Christie conducted a grueling 102 minute press conference in which he insisted that he did not know about the intentional nature of the traffic jam.  Moreover he fired Kelly along with his longtime friend and political aide Bill Stepien because of their involvement. 

Despite Christie's unequivocal denial of prior knowledge and his swift action at disciplining wrongdoers, the Bridge-gate ballyhoo dominated the headlines for over a week, and inspired comedians to do funny satires such as Jimmy Fallons filique with Bruce Springsteen of  the unoffical New Jersey anthem "Born to Run".

While there is no doubt that the story was newsworthy, as credible accusations of the use of public office for personal revenge is a serious charge, it seems like Bridge-gate is overblown as well as overwrought.

Firstly, consider the coverage.   As Newsbusters reported, in less than 24 hours, the big three broadcast networks devoted 34 minutes 28 seconds to "Bridge-gate".  This is 17 times more coverage than the Lamestream Media broadcast about the Obama Administration's alleged use of the IRS targeting Tea Party groups for excessive scrutiny over eight months.   The coverage may also have been intensified because of its proximity to New York.  Journalists often become much more  interested when it is affecting their home turf rather than in  "flyover" country.

Secondly, consider the target.  Governor Christie has been generally considered an early front-running for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination.   Pre-Bridge-gate polls showed Christie leading presumed Democrat front-runner former First Lady/Senator (D-NY)/ and Obama Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.  A week after the Bridge-gate scandal broke, Chuck Todd gleefully reported on MSNBC that while polling indicated that Gov. Christie was just as popular in his home state  as ever, Christie was trailing Ms. Clinton by 17 points in a head to head match-up. The Bridge-gate ballyhoo certainly seems like agenda journalism to tarnish a charismatic "enemy" front-runner of the liberal press.

Thirdly, consider the timing.  While there had been some questions about the George Washington Bridge traffic jam for months, it is worth noting when Bridge-gate really broke.  The national media had been agog at excerpts from former Obama Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' memoirs which sensationally recounted that President Obama and then Secretary of State Clinton admitted in front of Gates that they both opposed the troop surge for the War in Afghanistan in 2007 for political reasons.  This made Ms. Clinton look bad as a calculating politician without principle who was willing to risk American security for personal political gain.  Then came Bridge-gate and nary a word about Ms. Clinton's conniving was mentioned.

A related issue to the convenient timing of Bridge-gate knocking Clinton's calculating campaign stance against the Afghanistan troop surge is how the e-mails came to light.  Although the The Record of Bergen County is in New Jersey, it is highly unlikely that a regional newspaper has an extensive investigative team to dig up this treasure trove text.  As a political junkie, it sounds more like opposition research resulting in a "dirty trick", but that's just speculation

Bridge-gate also seems overwrought.  It took nearly a year for the Department of Justice to investigate the IRS Tea Party targeting, only to have an Obama campaign contributor named who quickly determined that no crimes had been committed.  What about the Executive Branch investigations of "the Fast and Furious" government sanctioned gun-running to Mexico?  How has the Obama Administration been doing in investigating the bungle in Benghazi where four Americans, including the US Ambassador, were killed in Libya on September 11th, 2012? Yet within 24 hours of the Bridge-gate breaking in the national press, Attorney General Eric Holder's Department of Justice announced that it was investigating Bridge-gate for potential violations of federal law.  

As a former chief law enforcer, Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro is incensed by US Attorney Paul Fishman trumpeting this Bridge-gate probe as the federal modus operandi is neither to confirm nor deny investigations so as not to appear unobjective or partisan that tarnishes a potential indictment. But when partisan politics uses law-fare under the color of pursuing justice, seemingly anything goes.

While conservatives may not have favored Governor Christie to win the GOP Presidential nomination in 2016, his chances of success may well have been diminished by the politics of personal destruction with a complicit media acting as a progressive echo chamber.  The feeding frenzy of tenuous charges and threat of lawsuits seems to mirror tactics used against former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) who resigned from office in 2010 and did not run for president in 2012, and suddenly all of those scandals vanished.

Low information voters may be lured into believing where there is smoke there is fire, even if it is blue smoke and mirrors.   Governor Christie's emphatic denials about involvement leave no wiggle room-- if he knew, then the fat lady sings ending his hopes for higher office.  But those who take time to keep informed on current events should see the trend in law-fare, smearing front-runners and the actual use of public offices for partisan pursuits.

Impeach-Mint: A New Flavor for a Hot Summer in the District of Calamity

The summer of 1973 was a hot time in the District of Calamity when it seemed like every day news broke about scandals connected to the White House, which eventually lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

 In the span of one week, three emerging scandals have embroiled the Obama Administration. The long festering Benghazi Bungle became critical, with the straight-forward testimony of three career diplomat whistle blowers before Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa's  (R-CA 49th)  House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  The fact that Libyian Chief of Mission Gregory Hicks was a Hillary Clinton for President supporter and twice voted for President Obama  added fuel to the fire, as the Congressional probe could not be deftly dismissed as a partisan witch hunt.

Libyan Chief  of Mission Gregory Hicks testifying before Congress

On Friday at an American Bar Association meeting,  the head of the IRS Exempt Organization Division Lois Lerner apologized for targeting conservative groups for special tax-exempt scrutiny.  At first this was attributed to a couple of low level IRS agents in Cincinnati and was part of a Friday DC data dump.  But it became clear that such intimidation occurred all over the country for several years.  Then it came out that right wing groups teaching about the Constitution received the "special" treatment.  This was odd since the educational element was sine qua non for a 501(c)(4) organization.   The drip-drip continued when it was exposed that conservative Jewish groups were interrogated about their feelings about the State of Israel.

If that was not bad enough, the Associated Press reported that , Eric Holder's Department of Justice surreptitiously surveilled a score of journalist's phone records for two months supposedly to plug a leak about a planned terrorist attack.  The Obama Administration scrutinized reporters' home, cell and office phones for two months, without informing the Associated Press.   As the Associated Press was cooperative once it learned of the DOJ investigation which calls into question whether such a broad and secret warrant was necessar. .

With the daily drip of scandal, it seems like it will be a hot summer in the city.  It might be time for Ben and Jerry to craft a culinary creation to make this summer of scandal more palatable with Impeach-Mint.

It is dubious if this fanciful flavor would ever get off the drawing board, as progressives would waffle at profiting from the indiscretions of an ideology whom they idealized as a light worker of hope and change.

h/t:  Mad Magazine