HILLARY CLINTON’S TESTIMONY: BRAVURA BLAME AVOIDANCE
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323539804578259891423926414.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
Hillary Pitches a Benghazi Shutout
‘What difference, at this point, does it make?’
In five hours of Congressional testimony Wednesday, Hillary Clinton took “responsibility” for the mishandling of the terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi without ever saying she was responsible for much of anything. If nothing else, it was bravura blame-avoidance.
Though hailed as a tireless Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton blamed the “failure” to ensure security at the diplomatic mission on “the assistant secretary level or below.” She said she wasn’t aware of the cables from the late Ambassador Chris Stevens about deteriorating security. Nor about her department’s refusal for security reinforcements: “It was not brought to my attention.”
Mrs. Clinton did stay at State that evening to oversee the response to the anti-American protests in Cairo and later in Benghazi and stayed in phone contact with other officials. But she phoned President Obama only “later in the evening,” she said. The attack in Libya began after 3 p.m. Washington time and the standoff there and at a nearby CIA annex lasted another seven hours. No military help came. Mr. Stevens and three other Americans were murdered.
Editorial board member Matt Kaminski on Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony. Photos: Pool
Mrs. Clinton also said she wasn’t responsible for the “talking points” about Benghazi given to White House briefers. She didn’t walk point for the Administration on the TV shows that September Sunday because it is not her “favorite thing to do.” The hearing’s dramatic high point came when Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson wouldn’t take this know-nothing line for an answer and pressed why it took the Administration so long to say it was a terrorist strike. “What difference, at this point, does it make?” she shot back.
Sorry, Ma’am. At this point, or at any point, it matters when Administrations mislead Americans.
Back on message, Mrs. Clinton said she wasn’t responsible for the security vacuum in Libya after Gadhafi’s fall that was filled by Islamists. She blamed Congress for not providing enough aid.
Mrs. Clinton is a short-timer at State, so her main goal is to escape the Benghazi debacle without permanent wounds. Her adoring press will make sure of that. But she does have a political future to think about, so it was fascinating to see her sound like Dick Cheney as she called on Congress and the Administration to get “our act together” and face up to the “spreading jihadist threat” from “an expanding safe haven” in Mali to Algeria to Libya.
“We cannot afford to retreat now,” she averred. “When America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takes root; our interests suffer; our security at home is threatened.”
That’s nice to hear, and even true, but too bad it bears no resemblance to the actual North African policy this Administration was and still is pursuing. The Obama policy was to be “absent” from Libya after the fall of Gadhafi, which led to the inattention to Benghazi security, which led to “extremism” taking root, which led to the attack that killed four Americans. For that, she is responsible.
A version of this article appeared January 23, 2013, on page A16 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Hillary Pitches a Benghazi Shutout.
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