What Difference Does It Make?

Our then Secretary of State: "Was it a protest or some guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans?"

"What difference does it make?" she shrieks, but then, very next moment: "It is our job to figure out what happened!"

Well--wait a minute, which is it, then? If it makes no difference who it was, it can only be a fool's errand to be figuring out what it was. Without knowing who it was, you can't figure out what it was. What it was is entirely explained by who it was, and it makes all the difference in the world. What difference does it make--who did it, she asks?

Is it really her job to be figuring out what happened? What has "figuring out" got to do with it? Why didn't she say, *finding out* what happened? If you're finding out what happened, you're coming up with facts. If you're figuring out what happened you're coming up with lame explanations, excuses and ruses; coming out with anything but what happened: you're coming out with Susan Rice's talking points to the press.

Truly, the last thing Hillary wants to do is *find out* what happened, because she already knows exactly what happened. And if she should come out with it, this would (or surely ought) bury any chance she may yet have for a presidential bid in 2016.

Charles Krauthammer, bless his brilliant soul, has it wrong: it's got nothing to do with a cover-up for Obama's boasts, his false claims that he's got al Qaeda on the run--lest this should have looked bad for him in the upcoming election. No. It's purely a cover-up of Hillary's incompetence and her neglect of duty; a lack of concern for the people under her watch. A cover-up for all those frequent flier miles she logged (more than any predecessor), partying at 30,000 feet while Benghazi and all the world burns. Nothing more complicated than that.

So long as they could get away with hiding behind the Susan Rice talking points (not long at all), here is the spin they could put on it:  As usual, it is the extremists on the Right who are to blame. The degree of security we had in place at Benghazi, relying on domestic Libyan personnel, was doing just fine and would have continued to be perfectly adequate but for a freak outbreak of Islamophobia from the Right--by which we were blindsided. Who can prepare for a thing like that? Stinky stuff happens.

That's the Obama Administration's party line, the unstated (but obvious) talking points on Benghazi. The issue that must be dealt with now, from this recent Intelligence Committee report is the claim that the Ambassador himself was turning down offers for increased security. Really? But doesn't this conflict with earlier reports that he and/or his staffers had put in requests for it? If there's truth to this recent revelation, then for his own good and that of his staff, Hillary, had she the modicum of good sense it takes to be the leader of an executive department of our government, should have removed him from his post before 'some bunch of guys out for a walk one night' on 9/11 should decide to tie him to it and light a match to him and the rest of his staff.