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The boneheads and Benghazi: When will it ever end?
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The boneheads and Benghazi: When will it ever end?


May 15, 2014, 7:54 PM

By Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger

I ran into one of my fellow pundits in the Statehouse garage the other day. We got to talking and the subject of Benghazi came up. He reported having the same experience that I’ve been having.

It is impossible to write about New Jersey politics, he told me, without hearing from some bonehead asking him why he’s not writing about Benghazi.

I’ve noticed the same thing whenever I write anything about our governor, particularly as regards the Bridgegate scandal. The thinking among the boneheads, near as I can deduce it, is that any commentary that reflects poorly on Chris Christie represents an attempt to boost the prospects of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

In fact, one has nothing to do with the other. If it’s my opinion that Christie bungled Bridgegate, then I will express that opinion — just as I have expressed many negative opinions of Clinton over the years. A quick check reveals 73 columns in which I have mentioned her, virtually all in the negative.

My favorite was one in which I ran a photo of her next to a photo of actress Louise Fletcher as the evil Nurse Ratched in the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest." After noting the resemblance, I observed that Fletcher "had to work hard to achieve the look and mannerisms of a power-crazed control freak. With Hillary, it comes naturally."

So I’m certainly no Hillary fan. But when it comes to Benghazi, her critics need to take a good look at themselves.

The central theme of the Benghazi Nazis, if I may coin a phrase, is that as secretary of state, Clinton and her people tried to soft-pedal the attack on the American compound by portraying it as a riot by a mob enraged by a movie — instead of an attack by terrorists.
Benghazi Senate Hillary Clinton.JPGHillary Clinton testifies about the attack in Benghazi before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year. AFP/Getty Images

There are several things wrong with that argument. The first is that only ##### use a term like "terrorist" as a catch-all. The miscreants in this case were not "terrorists" but members of one of the many militias that took over Libya after we provided the air cover that helped them oust Moammar Gadhafi.

They were dangerous characters, but that part of the world is full of dangerous characters. Yet the same people pushing for these endless inquiries into Benghazi are also pushing for the United States to engage in even more wars to liberate people who are likely to turn on us.

That’s what happened in Iraq, and on a much larger scale. That exercise in liberating foreigners cost more than 4,000 American lives, not a mere four.

That brings me to another flaw in that argument: Many of those obsessed with what happened when we helped liberate Libya by force are the same people calling for us to arm the rebels in Syria. Yet they often profess shock at reports that the CIA station in Benghazi may have been involved in running arms to … are you ready? ... the Syrian rebels. Or in other words, they’re angry at the Obama administration for arming the rebels they want it to arm.

And then there’s the final flaw in that argument, the accusation that Clinton sought some sort of political gain by trying to pass the attack off as the action of a mob angry about a movie critical of Islam.

That makes no sense whatsoever. There’s no doubt that the State Department was lax in providing security at the ambassador’s compound. But it took a bunch of men armed with Kalashnikovs to overrun the place, not an easy threat to beat back. If the compound had been overrun by a bunch of film critics, however, that would have been a real scandal.

All of this babbling about Benghazi might make some sense if those behind it were opposed to U.S. involvement in the Mideast all along. If guys like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul were leading the charge on Benghazi, they could at least argue "I told you so." As adherents of the traditional conservative policy of non-interventionism, they did indeed tell you so.

But those braying the loudest over Benghazi are the same "neo"-conservatives who have also been calling for the United States to get involved in even more such exercises. If these guys had their way, we’d be gearing up for intervention in Iran and Ukraine.

The good news is that after more than decade of their bungling, the American people are tuning them out — which is what I strongly advise you to do when those hearings get underway.

ADD: One of my most prized possessions is a handwritten note from Pat Buchanan thanking me for my support in his battle against those thinly disguised Trotskyites known as "neo" conservatives.

Here's Pat's latest on an effort by the neocons to oust a key right-winger, Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina. Pat notes that Jones was originally such an ardent supporter of the Iraq War that he had the French fries in the House cafeteria renamed "freedom fries." But then:


Walter Jones came to believe that voting to send Americans to fight and die in Iraq was the worst mistake of his career.

So now Rep. Jones spends hours each weekend writing personal letters to every family that lost a son or daughter in a war he wrongly supported. And he has resolved to oppose every idiotic war into which his country is being stampeded.

Walter Jones is a pro-peace conservative, a principled patriot who votes his convictions, puts his country first, and refuses to take dictation from the War Party.

And that is why the War Party front, the “Emergency Committee for Israel,” chaired by Bill Kristol, leading tub-thumper for a war that cost 4,500 American lives, funneled hundreds of thousands into attack ads in one Congressional District in North Carolina to kill the career of one congressman.

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/05/the_boneheads_and_benghazi_when_will_it_ever_end_mulshine.html

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Best comment under that article:


May 15, 2014, 8:21 PM

The 5 stages of Affordable Care Act grief:

Repeal,

Replace,

Defund,

Benghazi,

and finally, Acceptance.


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It will end when the coverup is exposed.***


May 15, 2014, 8:54 PM



2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-10yr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

So, never.


May 15, 2014, 9:12 PM

I tend to agree with henry, though.

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its tough to see through all the transparency...


May 16, 2014, 8:42 AM

and sharpie redactions...however, it was like 2 years ago, dude.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-10yr.jpgbadge-ringofhonor-franc1968.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


Re: its tough to see through all the transparency...


May 16, 2014, 11:08 AM

Rush and Hannity love the "dude" thing. No one else knows what it refers to.

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The "coverup" has been exposed about 167 times now.***


May 15, 2014, 10:44 PM [ in reply to It will end when the coverup is exposed.*** ]



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168 makes it an even number. Can't end on an odd one.***


May 16, 2014, 10:28 AM



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We're friends. You laugh, I laugh. You cry, I cry. You jump off a bridge, I get in my boat and save your retarded a$$.


that and at least with #168 we have some new information...


May 16, 2014, 10:37 AM

provided by FOIA that incredibly was unavailable in the first 167 "unvovering." And who says the government is inefficient?

The hope here is that the voters get tired of hearing about Benghazi before anything is truly revealed about what Hillary did or where Obama was campaigning while it took place. Dodge and delay has worked for a long time because many people just don't care. It seems to be working with a lot of people. Ad long as Harry Reid is in charge of the Senate, we'll never get the DOJ off of social justice issues and actually pressure the department to do its real job.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-10yr.jpgbadge-ringofhonor-franc1968.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


Speaking of Harry, he just loves the


May 16, 2014, 10:52 AM

Koch brothers to death.

badge-donor-10yr.jpg2006_nit_champ.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

We're friends. You laugh, I laugh. You cry, I cry. You jump off a bridge, I get in my boat and save your retarded a$$.


when bridgegate ends


May 15, 2014, 9:09 PM

right now i'd say 2016

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They'll move on to something else to attack, like...


May 15, 2014, 10:07 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/karl-rove-says-hillary-cl_n_5313354.html

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Re: They'll move on to something else to attack, like...


May 15, 2014, 10:27 PM

I think Karl Rove is a Pedophile. I have no proof of this, but his glasses look a lot like pedophile glasses.

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Re: They'll move on to something else to attack, like...


May 15, 2014, 10:33 PM



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Long time no see. Where you been


May 16, 2014, 9:01 AM

ghazi?

badge-donor-10yr.jpgbadge-ringofhonor-snuffys.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

...I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.


Seriously? I figured we'd all agree that this is an awful


May 16, 2014, 12:22 PM

article.

"Hey, every time I want to beat the dead Bridgegate horse, people tell me that they're not satisfied with the answers they've received on Benghazi...why are they all so dumb?"

Seriously?

"Hey, let me tell you...some of you people wanted the U.S. to be active militarily overseas, so don't go complaining when the administration doesn't want to be forthcoming about the handling of an attack on our embassy in Libya that killed four Americans."

What!?!

From the article: "The central theme of the Benghazi Nazi, if I may coin a phrase..."

No, you may not. In the illustrious 80-year career of the mis-application of the term "Nazi" to demonize someone's adversaries, this would have to be the worst one. It makes "Soup Nazi" look accurate.

I can't believe anyone thought this was an opinion piece worthy of print.

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