STOPPPING CLINTON IN 2016 STARTS AT BENGHAZI

As Blogged last week, (BLOG: GOP – A MAD HATTERS’TEA PARTY), a key uniting vision of the Republicans is to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming President in 2016. A 16 year tenure of a Democrat in the White House will hand the country over to the "Takers” and turn us into a European style Socialist Country. (So please don’t take away our guns!)  Also, heavens knows what will happen to the Supreme Court that will be filled with gays with PH. D. law degrees from the Karl Marx University in Moscow! This fear is firmly planted into the minds of the faithful and the smear campaign is well on its way. The path to Hillary’s destruction begins in Benghazi and the unseemly process has already started. 

So next week the focus will be taken away from guns and debts and immigration and the like onto more comfortable ground as the GOP wrestle with what Colin Powell calls their "identity" crises. (BLOGS: GOP's ONGOING DENIAL OF REALITY and OBAMA'S SECOND TERM AND THE GOP).

HILLARY’S RESUME  - ABRIDGED

Hillary Clinton is one of the most remarkable personalities of the twentieth century. She has a 50-year involvement in American and world politics that stamps her as one of the key figures in change in both these arenas. Also her marriage and political relationship to Bill Clinton has catapulted her into the international limelight for decades.

It all started way back when she was a relatively junior prosecutor in the Nixon impeachment proceedings to right now to her tenure as probably the most successful Secretary of State since Kissinger. She has the highest approval ratings of any active political figure in the USA and has been the most admired women in America for the past 11 years. 

In between there has been so much. She has been the very active wife of an Arkansas Governor and President of the United States of America. In these positions she spearheaded all manner of reform and social change. The most famous venture being her attempt to reform health care in the early 90’s. She also “stood by her man”, in the words of Tammy Wynette, and did not seem to lose the Feminist vote as a result. David Gergen, a counselor to four Presidents, wrote that the relationship of the Clinton’s was very tight and the political approval Bill sought most, was his wife’s.

She was a highly respected Senator of New York for a term and a half until she ran for the Democratic nomination for President. Every political pundit believed she was a shoo in for the job and would become the first American woman President. What everyone had overlooked was that Barack Obama, who became the first African American President, would outmaneuver her in this endeavor. While Hillary was clearly the favorite among most of the Democratic constituencies that normally mattered she was defeated. In addition to Obama racking up delegates in non Democratic States that are normally ignored in a Primary, she was handicapped by the fact that the Florida and Michigan Primaries were, as a result of “technical problems”, not given their normal weight.

She then embarked on a spectacular career as, the highest-ranking member in Obama's cabinet as Secretary of State,

SECRETARY OF STATE.

Kissinger was credited, as a result of his international workshops at Harvard, as the Secretary of State with a largest number of international connections. He had nothing on Hillary. All she did was dust off her Rolodex and call everyone, literally, to let them know that the Clintons were back in business.

Clinton was a workhorse. She revamped the State Department and, like her President, skillfully used the Internet to advance American Foreign Relations objectives. Clinton logged up more travel days then anyone before her, four hundred, visited a hundred and twelve countries and logged nearly 900,000 miles.

She also was influential within the cabinet weighing in on for more troops for Afghanistan and favoring military intervention in Libya. She worked behind the scenes tirelessly when America's foreign relations were extremely tricky. Unlike her predecessors her area of action was not Europe but Asia and the Middle East thereby heralding a new era in American foreign policy. This would be where the action of the twenty first century would be centered.  

She maintained the delicate balance needed to let crucial allies of America such as Pakistan and China know where she stood while not offending them. Turkey became a key ally under her aegis. She oversaw the Arab spring and was in the forefront of keeping America ahead of the curve so that it would not be seen as clinging to the old despots that faithfully carried out their policy but at the same time not abandoning them to early. 

In addition she organized her daughter's wedding. She maintained her interest in Women Rights and unveiled the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative at an annual meeting of her husband's Global Initiative. She also was a key supporter of Gay rights at the United Nations. 

Nothing but nothing seemed too much for her to undertake. Bill Clinton quipped, when asked where did he find the time to put together such a telling keynote address at the Democratic Convention, that he was home alone quite a lot these days. She seemed indestructible. Even the embarrassing Wikileaks disclosures, that the exposure of confidential behind the scenes discussions inevitably evoke, and there were several of hers, were brushed aside without missing a beat. 

Clinton made it quite clear, way back, that she would not have a second term as Secretary of State and immediately speculation started as to a Presidential run in 2016. This was obviously the last thing on her mind. But her husband Bill was only too happy to talk about it - saying Hillary had not made up her mind yet but she would make an excellent President.

BENGHAZI

On September 11, 2012 the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya was attacked. The attack came in the wake of riots in Muslim Countries against the Tube video, "The Innocence of Muslims". All Embassies fall under the purview of the Secretary of State. However, the first victim of the first Republican onslaught was Susan Rice, America's Ambassador to UNO, who also reports to Hillary Clinton. Rice was mercilessly hammered for her first explanation as to what had happened at Benghazi. Rice has nothing to do with Benghazi. All she was doing was issuing a communique, preumably in her capacity as the Ambassador to UNO - but she does report to Hillary Clinton. 

Essentially, Rice stated that she was making a preliminary statement. The initial intelligence believed that the deaths were as a result of protests to "that hateful video". She added  "But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent."

She further stated that this statement was subject to change as more facts are gathered and analyzed by intelligence committees. It must be pointed out that she was just the spokesperson and had no responsibility for its content.

Initially, Senator McCain agreed with her assessment, but as more intelligence information was released Rice was attacked mercilessly for "misleading" the electorate. Protestations amd support from Obama and Clinton were rejected. Rice was the prospective Secretary of State. The Republicans made it quite clear that they would block her nomination. Any but any "evidence" was dragged up, such as in 1998 she was the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa when the Kenya bombings took place, to denigrate her. She visited Republicans and they made it quite clear that each and every one would block her nomination.

A major issue had been made out of nothing and the messenger, who reports to Clinton, had been sacrificed and next in line to take the flack would be Hillary Clinton herself.

HYPOCRITICAL SENATORS.

It was hard to believe that this was the same crowd took all that baloney from Bush, Cheney and Weinberger et al as to the phony intelligence reports they spewed out to justify the Iraq war. They even did nothing to Colin Powell and those who produced the drivel that he spouted to the world, at the UNO, to justify America's was against Iraq. There was high-class ongoing deception with no ifs, buts or maybes. The messengers including the President and the crowd that delivered it were never even held to account in that devastating war. Not one Weapon of Mass Destruction has been found to this day.

Yet all of these Senators lynched Rice, also ruining her career, for presenting a preliminary report, that she had no control over in an area that was not remotely connected to her job definition that did not result in trillions spent and conservatively a 100,000 deaths including 4886 American soldiers.

If Rice was perceived as buffer to Clinton and or that she could be linked to Clinton she had now been exposed and smeared out of existence.

All this took a tremendous of the Republicans time and occupied their medias attentions as well. It is thus understandable that not much energy could be given to resolving fiscal crises, debt ceilings, gun control and immigration. 

CLINTON - TEXTBOOK RESPONSE

Clinton from as early as September took responsibility for what happened at Benghazi.

As more and more information became public, it became obvious that there had been security lapses and this had been an Al Quada attack on the Embassy not a riot.  An exhaustive official investigation was immediately ordered.

 In December Clinton accepted the official report and its recommendations. Four staffers were identified, one resigning and the other three being placed on Administrative leave. Two of the officials had refused a request for extra security at Benghazi. The report maintained that there had been, "Systemic failures and leadership and management issues".

     

 Clinton resolved that all the Official Report recommendations would be in place by the time she spoke to the Foreign Relations Committees in Congress but then illness intervened.

CLINTON ILLNESSES AND REPUBLICAN REACTION.

Clinton was first hospitalized for concussion. The latter sustained when she had syncope from dehydration from a viral stomach complaint. She then informed the Congress that on her Doctor's advice she could not attend the hearings,

That was the signal for all hell to break loose. The attacks on Clinton were unbridled and vicious. Led by John Burton, Bush's Ambassador to the UN, he called her illness a diplomatic illness and she was protecting her 2016 run. He wanted to see her medical records, as he believed that she was faking her concussion. Benghazi flu was another name given to her situation by Charles Krauthammer. Fox and its crew went to town. The New York Post called it the Head Fake. The blogosphere talked of a cover up greater than Watergate and the cover up of the "murder: that the Clintons perpetrated when a colleague, Vince Foster supposedly committed suicide.

Clinton who obviously was not getting better was reevaluated and found to have an intracranial brain clot - Pretty serious stuff by any standard. .

Clinton returned to work in early January and is scheduled to give evidence and be questioned on Benghazi on January 23, 2012

 RESPONSE TO IT ALL

This was followed by silence by most of the rabble of detractors other than Bolton who blamed Clinton for not giving enough information on her illness. Krauthammer the Conservative Pulitzer prizewinner refused to apologize to Clinton.  It is interesting to note that no Republican politician of note condemned this sequence of events.

Kathleen Parker, the Conservative columnist, stated that character assassination of Clinton was disgusting, disheartening and vicious.  She and Rice had been attacked unfairly and disproportionately. John Huntsman, a Republican presidential contender and former Ambassador to China, commented that the attacks were political - " It is nearly impossible to obtain accurate intelligence in the fog of war". Ambassador Steven's family pleaded that his death be not turned into a political football.

UPSHOT

Benghazi has not much traction with the electorate. The Republicans pushed on it in the last election to no avail. Clinton has largely been seen as a bit player. In a poll in December close on 60% said Obama did not deliberately mislead the public. The poll was conducted at the time of the releasing of the Official Benghazi Report.

There is no doubt that Clinton has some tough questions to answer but there is also no doubt that it is highly unlikely to affect her Presidential chances if she chooses to run.

What is absolutely certain is that the Republicans are terrified of Hillary Clinton.

They do not seem to have learned that it is not a winning policy just to smear an individual. It would be in their interests and the Country's if they actually started a meaningful discussion on fiscal policy with tax reform and spending cuts, looked at climate and guns in a dispassionate fashion and considered the possibility of improving infrastructure thereby decreasing unemployment, just for starters.