Hillary Clinton just concluded a thirty-minute interview on Fox News with Bret Baier and Greta van Susteren. Some thoughts:
In the first segment, unless Clinton made some answers that could be shown to be false, I thought there was little of note except that Clinton went home on the evening of September 11, 2012. It was in the second segment that I thought Baier especially brought out some points that were uncomfortable for Clinton.
1 On September 12, Clinton's assistant, Beth Jones, was in contact with Libyan officials. Reportedly, when the Libyans pointed the initial finger of blame at followers of ousted president Moammar Qaddafi, Jones told them that it was Ansar al Sharia. Yet, Clinton and others were blaming it on the infamous video for several days after that. Clinton danced around that saying that there were several possible scenarios out there in the days following the attack. (I am paraphrasing.)
2 Baier then asked her as to what degree of responsibility she took for Benghazi. Clinton was uncomfortable and said that she took responsibility because she was secretary of state, adding that she didn't make all the decisions. Again, it was a long rambling answer.
3 The third question asked where was the accountability? There were only a few transfers and nobody got fired. Here Clinton started blaming others though not by name. She said that (State) gave unfettered access (to whom? She wasn't even interviewed by the Accountability Review Board.) She referred to people who made inadequate decisions, but that you can't fire someone for making a mistake.
I was disappointed that more pointed questions were not asked by van Susteren given her lawyerly background. She did draw out a couple of noteworthy points, however. As to the IRS scandal, she quoted President Obama, who said that it was "a phony scandal". Is it a phony scandal? In her answer, Clinton said, "There's not a lot of evidence that it was deliberate."
Really?
Van Susteren also mentioned something from Clinton's new book to the effect that certain people in the White House were denigrating former ambassador Ricahrd Holbrooke, which she (van Susteren) thought was deplorable given Holbrooke's long service as a high-ranking diplomat.
Point? That there are some very arrogant people in the White House.
But we already knew that.
This is written prior to listening to or reading any any other analysis.
I was very disappointed in the Fox News Hillary interview. The questions were soft and not pointed. They should have skewered Hillary on a spit, which is what the lier needed. But, it was not to happen. "Clinton danced around that saying that there were several possible scenarios " regarding Benghazi. There was only one scenario and that was Benghazi was a terror attack. What the interviewers should have said is: It is fact that the attack was terror from Ansar al Sharia and the other excuses you mention were from the White House talking points. What part of the recent fact that the terrorists were using the U.S. staffer's walkie-talkies to communicate during the attack. The State Department and the DoD knew, as the attack was taking place, that this was a terror attack. I just saw a horrible picture of Ambassador Stevens being tortured by a electric cattle prod, placed on the testicles and his face bore the frightful agony of the pain. And all the Broom-Rider could say in front of Congress is "What difference does it make at this time".
ReplyDeleteShame is not the word to describe Hillary.
Squid
Squide,
ReplyDeleteYou're not going to get much out of a 30-minute interview. She knows how to drag out the answers and run out the clock. Van Susteren did little better than her OJ interview.
Anybody who gets to the White House is going to have a good deal of arrogance.
ReplyDeleteHillary recently said on some interview (campaign speech??) or other that the "Taliban Five" were a threat to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not to the U.S.
ReplyDeleteThat at least equally idiotic Hagel, I believe while testifying under oath to one of the Congressional committees, said that the "intelligence community" had made a prior determination that these fools were "not a threat to the homeland".
Hmmmmm. Seems to me like that the same essentially quite similar, if not for all practical purposes virtually identical, intelligence committee determined for Bush that Iraq had WMD. This included, of course, the assurance to Bush on several occasions by none other than the holdover Clinton/Democrat CIA Director George Tenet (did he have ulterior motives??) that it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq had such WMD. We all now know, with 20/20 hindsight and Monday morning quarterbacking, how that came out, don't we??
And I know that Siarlys et al will probably say "Bush lied, people died". Not true. A couple of grunts way down in the bowels of a couple of the (I believe 13-14 or so) agencies did say, accurately as it turned out, that such was not the case. However, the overwhelming intelligence estimate, both domestic and foreign, was to the contrary. Based on the same information Bush had, but did not himself generate, both then-Senators Clinton and Kerry, along with a number of other lefties, also believed Iraq had WMD and actually voted to authorize military action.
How about Obama lies, the country dies.
ReplyDeleteGary--a much more accurate description.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't seem to have happened Gary.
ReplyDelete