Benghazi Continues: Hillary de Medici

The Benghazi scandal is not over.  You will be told that by a lot of people. There is no smoking gun, etc. (Actually, there are many.)

Some folks on the right, because they have been so accustomed to failure in the face of a monolithic media, will be ready to throw in the towel.

That group is particularly disturbing because they are the very people who should be pushing this forward. Without realizing it, their proclamations of pessimism are a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I urge them to overcome it for the sake of our country, because — trust me — Benghazi is not over. It has only just begun.

Anyone paying attention to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearings Wednesday would have plenty of reasons for optimism.  To begin with, the testimony underscored (and how!) what we already knew — that the events of September 11, 2012, were a terrorist attack and not a demonstration over a YouTube video.

Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, told the committee that Ambassador Stevens said precisely that — that he was “under attack” — when he made his very first emergency phone call from Benghazi to Hicks on that fateful night.

But don’t take Hicks’ word for it.  Take the word of one of his superiors — Beth Jones, the State Department’s own acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs.

In the closest thing to a coup de théâtre at the hearing, Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) revealed a September 12 email from Jones to Hicks, State Department officials Victoria Nuland and Patrick Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton’s personal counsel Cheryl Mills, stating that she (Jones) had informed Libyan leadership that the attack at Benghazi was the work of Ansar al Sharia – one of the world’s most well-known Islamic terror groups.

This was four days before Ambassador Rice appeared on five Sunday shows and lied to the American people by blaming the events on the YouTube video and long before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton repeated that lie, he in front of the United Nations, and she in front of the very Chris Stevens’ coffin with family and friends in attendance.

Hillary de Medici, indeed.

Of course, a number of media will do their best to spin this email. People will come out to say they reconsidered the conclusion afterwards, it was the fog of war, etc.

But they will be lying and they will know it. They will allow themselves to lie, however, because it is for them to protect what they consider to be greater goods — at that time the reelection of Barack Obama and, later, the ascendancy of Hillary.

It’s all “the ends justify the (lying) means”  or, in Islamic terms, it’s taqiyya. (The odd similarity of the communist “the ends justify the means” and the Islamic concept of taqiyya — lying to the Infidel for the benefit of Islam is permissible — would be an interesting comparison study.)

So we are back in a Watergate-type situation and, as with those times, we are going to have to work our way up the food chain. Testimony at the hearing attested to the obvious — that the Accountability Review Board report (already itself under investigation) only held mid-level people responsible. How convenient and how predictable.

Fortunately, several Haldeman and Ehrlichman stand-ins suggest themselves, among them Jones and the recipients of her email.

Most prominent among those names is attorney Cheryl Mills, sometimes called Hillary’s “fixer.” People, we were told, pick up the phone when she calls.

Her name popped up several times during the hearings. She apparently turned cold on poor Gregory Hicks when he wandered off the reservation. Hicks was also warned that he and others were not to give one-on-one interviews to Jason Chaffetz when the Utah congressman went to Libya to investigate. (Hicks has apparently been demoted and has no real job. So much for the vaunted support for “whistle blowers.”)

Welcome to the Soviet Union, Mr. and Mrs. America.

So allow me to turn back to my second paragraph about those who would be cynical about what is transpiring. Sorry, but it’s too late for that. Playing Malvolio is a luxury we can no longer afford.

This is a time that private citizens can do a lot. They can inform themselves about the facts and issues of Benghazi as they come up and explain them to friends, family, and co-workers.  You might even change a mind or two. Teachable moments this dramatic come along extremely rarely.  The last one I can think of was September 11, 2001.  That changed the lives of a lot of us, some even permanently.