As the art of presidential cover-ups advances, Hillary Clinton keeps playing a starring role.
Barack Obama and his escort media are refining Bill Clinton’s political scandal PR revolution. Watergate’s lesson--it’s not the crime that gets you, but the cover up—is obsolete. Neither the crime nor the cover up need get you if the media doesn’t want you got. It just takes a politico with enough confidence in his media escorts, and disdain for public attention span, to stay cool and play out his hand.
When Matt Drudge exposed the Lewinsky scandal in 1996, the First Obfuscator and now touted 2016 front runner Hillary Clinton told Matt Lauer if allegations of a presidential tryst with an intern in the Oval Office were true, then “that would be a very serious offense.” Very serious. But, the charges were false, the product of a “vast, right wing conspiracy,” she reassured America.
The administration then fetal tucked into epic cover up mode, inventing new privileges and legal theories amounting to “we don’t want to tell you anything.” Only nine months later, when every allegation Drudge initially reported, plus gross, juicy details, plus documented perjury and obstruction of justice by the president and his closest associates were nailed beyond partisan doubt in the Starr report, the only people who took “serious offense” were the discredited administration, the outplayed media, and lots of average Americans who were sick of the affair and bored silly anyone had the tenacity and fortitude to break through the Clinton stonewall.
The cover up didn’t get him; it saved him. Clinton showed how politicians in the media’s good graces could say: “It’s not true. It’s not true. It’s old news. Move on.” Hillary helped it happen.
The history that debuted as farce is repeating today as tragedy. Hillary Clinton again has a starring role. That’s remarkable, since she also had a youthful cameo in America’s first great presidential cover up, before she was fired from the Watergate investigation for lying and incompetence.
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The debate over whether Benghazi matters is a depressing reflection of the dishonesty of administration’s defenders and the unsophistication of so many voters. Of course it matters. The 2012 election would have looked much different in the final months if candidate Obama had to admit the following:
Peace isn’t spreading in the Middle East; violent strife is. Several nations are on the brink. Al Qaeda and other Jihadist groups aren’t “on the ropes.” They’re resurgent, recruiting, and attacking Western interests. America has made more enemies than friends since Obama’s great “Apology Tour.”
Regarding Benghazi, England withdrew entirely because of accelerating terrorist activity. Escalating threats and attacks caused Ambassador Stevens to fear for his staff’s and his safety. He repeatedly cabled requests for additional security. The requests were denied or ignored, either through bureaucratic incompetence, or because adding security contradicted the administration’s policies and re-election story.
The US left an installation in the Muslim world, in one of earth’s hottest spots, defenseless on the 10 year anniversary of September 11, 2001. There weren’t even military assets within quick response range.
About the response to the attack, the president solemnly assured Americans he ordered the military to do what’s necessary to keep our people safe. The military says it was ordered to stand down. Someone is lying. The president’s whereabouts and actions for the rest of that bloody night are unknown and un-inquired about by the escort girl media.
It was known instantly there was no protest. The attack was monitored by drones and security cameras in real time. CIA advisories immediately confirmed it was a terror attack with suspected AQ connections.
For the president’s reelection speeches, it was an inconvenient massacre. Everything the administration has done and said from the moment the massacre first became public until now, has aimed to deflect attention from policy and management failures and protect the president's image.
There was no protest of a video in Benghazi. The administration knew that at once. It was a planned, sophisticated attack. The back and forth over the talking points centers on how the CIA’s original version that didn’t mention an "awful internet video" came to place significance on the nonexistent protest over that video.
The White House denies any role in manipulating the narrative. But recently released emails, thanks to litigation by Judicial Watch,particularly the email by aide Ben Rhodes, quite coincidentally brother of CBS News President David Rhodes, prove the White House drove the story away from the embarrassing truth towards a fiction that would give it cover. Rhode's memo stresses the importance of communicating "these protests are rooted in an anti-Muslim internet video, not broader policy failures."
All else followed the fabricated script: Susan Rice's performance on five Sunday shows. The President's speech to the UN. The President’s and Clinton’s ghastly commercial aired to the Arab world on taxpayers’ dime. Jay Carney's daily lies at the press briefings.
A particularly ghoulish moment in the drama was as the caskets arrived home. Hillary Clinton told Pat Smith, mother of deceased Sean Smith: "We're going to get the guy who did it, who made that awful internet video."
Then, the administration of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave leaned on Southern California officials to arrest the hapless schmuck who posted on YouTube a lame, anti-Muslim trailer for a movie that didn't exist. The administration put an innocent bystander in jail to protect the viability of the president’s campaign speeches.
As contradictions surfaced, it became clear there was no protest, and the CIA denied pointing at the video, Obama appeared to be on crumbling ground. Enter Hillary to stand by her man once again. “I take responsibility” for what happened in Benghazi.
What does it mean for a Secretary of State to take responsibility for the failures leading to the first dead US Ambassador in decades? She didn’t resign. She didn’t tell us what she’d done wrong. She essentially announced: “I’m here to look noble and take the heat off the president. Shut up and change the subject.” Obama’s escort girls eagerly obliged.
This is banana republic territory. Most the national media is still eagerly swallowing the banana. In answer to Hillary Clinton’s faux distressed question, “What difference, at this point does it make?!” It makes all the difference. It was important enough for you to lie about when it happened. It’s important enough for Americans to know the truth about it now.
The administration’s policies and management failed disastrously before the attack. The administration has lied non-stop since the attack. You were at the center of things, Mrs. Clinton. You are not fit to lead.
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