Back To The Past: Dems Still Blame A Video For Benghazi

Back To The Past: Dems Still Blame A Video For Benghazi

RedState - Friday October 23, 2015

It is fitting in this week of “Back to the Future” nostalgia that we should all get together for a little time traveling, a trip all the way back to 2012.

Movies about time travel, like the concept itself, are simply fiction. But what better place for fiction than the hallowed halls of Congress, where some of the lamest stories ever told are crafted almost daily for consumption by the American public? And so it is that yesterday we completed a long, arduous, circular stroll all the way back to the very first theory floated by Hillary Clinton’s State Department following the devastating attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi: the infamous YouTube video.

Many times we have been over the ground about the video. We know it did not cause the attack. I say know, because it is not a speculation, but rather a fact that we are aware of as fact. And I say we, because we all know this, and that includes Hillary Clinton. We know that attack was not a spontaneous protest. We know that it was a planned terror attack. Hillary knows this. Just take a look at what RedState’s Jay Caruso had to say last night.

Under questioning from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)97%, Hillary was confronted with evidence showing she knew immediately the attacks were not spontaneous and were instead part of a planned attack carried out by groups affiliated with Al Qaeda:

Indeed she was. That evidence was not murky. She very clearly told the Egyptian prime minister that “We know” that it was a planned attack. Jay lays it all out, and two things are clear. It was a planned terror attack, and Hillary knew that it was that.

But this is a small thing if you are a Democrat. If Hillary were to say “Well I lied to Egypt,” she would suffer no ill consequences. She would not be treated poorly in the press. She would not suffer in the primary. Hillary is Hillary. Hillary is a Clinton. Hillary is a Democrat.

In fact, if you want to know who she did lie to, you can listen to the mother of one of the victims of the attack. Sean Smith’s mother was told by Hillary that the video was to blame, even though Hillary told a different story to foreign diplomats and her own family. That’s who Hillary lied to.

Hillary gets her Nae Nae on at Benghazi hearing.

But she did not say either of those things. Instead she she hedged, repeatedly lawyering her answer, stating that she felt that the video definitely contributed to the general attack-readiness of the people, that people were definitely enraged by it, and that she had saved lives by “speaking out” about it. She also, amazingly, lamented how “unfortunate” it is the Republicans had “dismissed the importance” of the video. But again. Hillary. Clinton. Democrat.

What is worse, in the sense of “even more frustrating” is the other Democrats. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) 14% and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) 15% were all over the video as a cause for the attacks. Cummings gave a monologue about how very fully investigated everything already was, how super settled all the debates were, how all the truth that could come out had come out already and this hearing was a farce. Then to disprove himself, he played some video clips from the time of the attack, from before the new intelligence, before the hearings, before the investigations or question. 

Cummings played clips of protests in the mideast with a reporter explaining how much unrest and violence was going on, and how it was spreading, and how it was all the result of this amazingly powerful and terrible amateur video trailer that was uploaded to YouTube. If you aren’t clear on the purpose of showing the media reports, allow me to explain: it was his way of saying “See? Blame the YouTube!” Like any good time traveler, he was clinging to the reality he knows. The one Susan Rice trotted out. The one Hillary absolutely knew was false.

Schiff, too, got in on the video blame. Only he wasn’t blaming the video for the attack – at least not at first – but instead blamed the video for Hillary blaming the video, if you can follow that. He said intelligence came in within 24 hours indicating there was a protest that went badly. His argument was that the video was so evil, and the people so upset about it, that it muddied the intel. So it was “understandable” that they blamed it. “We were wrong,” he said. But then moments later he, too, hedged. He explained, as Cummings had, that there was a great deal of unrest across the middle east and especially in nearby Egypt, and added with a scolding tone directed at his fellow representatives that “there are still a great many people in the intelligence community that believe the video was part of the motivation of some that attacked us that night.”

Hillary nodded. Sagely.

It’s a wonderfully Democrat trait: say you were wrong, then show video or reference experts who will say on your behalf that you were not, in fact, wrong. It’s a way of taking responsibility while still claiming to be totally vindicated. Sure it wasn’t the video, but hey, here’s this British guy saying the video was to blame.

Sure, we were wrong about the video. But a lot of intelligence experts do still say we were totally right.

And all the while Hillary trying unsuccessfully to stifle a pompous grin. Or perhaps sneer.

People say to Republicans, why all the hearings? Why so many dollars and minutes spent investigating this. And one answer, and a good one, is that people deserve to know why Americans died and if something could have been done to stop it.

But another good answer is … look at what they are saying. Here today, now, in 2015. After all of what’s gone before, we’re still Susan Rice on September 12, 2012, blaming a video. Blaming racism. Blaming America.

It is no innovation, though. This is what Democrats do. It’s what Clintons do. It’s what Hillary does.

When Marty McFly went back in time, he changed the present. Today, Democrats traveled back to change the future: the election. Let’s hope it worked, but not the way they wanted. Let’s hope that somewhere in 2016, the word “elected’ just disappeared from a newspaper headline and was replaced with the word ‘indicted.”

The post Back To The Past: Dems Still Blame A Video For Benghazi appeared first on RedState.

Read More Here