No easy road to the White House
by Jesse J. Lewis, Sr.
I have been involved in politics since the ’60s. I have never known any candidate or political organization to start campaigning for an office 3-4 years before election day.
The Republican Party began running for the office of President the same day Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term. My guess would be that the Republican Party will spend over $500 million to make sure they get a Republican for President in 2016. Leading up to 2016, they will spend $300 million to attempt to destroy the leading Democrat in the race. There’s a strong possibility that the Democratic nominee will be Hilliary Clinton.
They have already started. They have started over again on Benghazi; they’ve made the statement that Hillary is brain dead. Someone even made the statement that she is responsible for Bill Clinton having sex in the White House.
However, as the House was preparing for its new investigation into the Benghazi attacks, House intelligence chairman Mike Rogers, warned them that they should not let this investigation get into conspiracy theories. There is deep unease within the Republican leadership that the select committee, which has yet to announce a schedule of hearings, could backfire, and badly.
According to Eli Lake, investigate and find nothing new and the committee looks like a bunch of tin-hatted obsessives. Investigate and uncover previously-hidden secrets, and its makes all of the other Republican led panels that dug into Benghazi seem like Keystone Kops.
House Intelligence (Rep. Rogers), Armed Services (Buck McKeon) and The Government Reform (Darryl Issa ) committees all opposed the formation of a new select committee on Benghazi. All three men have led their own investigations into the matter.
Since the investigation into Benghazi began in earnest in 2012, the GOP has been divided on what these probes would ultimately uncover. While some claim there was a massive White House operation to cover up the attacks, Rogers and McKeon saw a different story. Rogers has been highly critical of the administration’s failure to call the assault a terrorist attack; but he has not accused the administration of in any way abandoning the CIA officers protecting the agency’s base that evening.
When Rogers’s committee finally heard in a closed session last year from the CIA contractors who responded on the evening of the attacks, Rogers downplayed their testimony in interviews. On Fox News he said he didn’t believe the CIA was stonewalling his committee, as others had alleged.
Independent-minded individuals know that Hillary is not to blame for what happened at Benghazi. A full investigation has already taken place and the outcome has been made public. It’s time to move on. The Middle East is a dangerous place and attacks on U.S. Citizens serving overseas are to be expected. Hillary Clinton did not intentionally withhold the truth about Benghazi for any partisan reasons. Additionally, President Obama was not slow to report the attack. Based on the Republicans budget cuts for the state department, President Obama and his security team have demonstrated their ability to keep Americans safe overseas.
According to Walt Hill of Petersburg Va., this new Benghazi panel is a full-fledged GOP hoax that will do little to put the story to bed. All the GOP wants to do is to make wordy speeches and harass Hillary Clinton regarding 2016. This GOP smell-test, scandal-mongering clown show is appalling as noted across the country. However, the Democrats must be on the panel to ensure that the Republicans hang themselves.
Bill Clinton defended his wife against Karl Rove’s accusation that Hillary ‘had brain damage’ saying she is “strong.” But the former president might have made the situation worse for his wife by saying she had a “terrible” concussion that took six months to get over. This is the first time anyone from her team has said it was a six-month recovery.
“Karl Rove is struggling to be relevant,” said Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri on NBC’s Meet the Press calling the former Bush adviser’s super PAC trying to elect Republican Mitt Romney an ‘abject failure.’
Republicans did not jump to defend Rove. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on “Face The Nation” that Rove’s remarks were “outrageous and beyond the pale.”
Reince Priebus, head of the Republican National Committee, said Clinton’s health isn’t an issue for him, but she is “trying to sweep Benghazi under the rug.”
email:jjlewis@birminghamtimes.com
