Elaborating a little further on "Benghazigategate", which is to Fux News what the missing Malaysian jet is to CNN, a steaming fnord in the punch bowl, meant explicitly to distract folks from anything of actual import. Again, Congressman Car Alarm and his merry band of idiots know full well that there is no there there, that compared to US Embassy deaths in the past, the most damning thing about Benghazi is that it was a PR fuck-up.
I shouldn't have to say this, but I do anyway -- that is not to minimize the tragic, violent death of foreign service personnel, but simply to point out that dozens of people were killed in multiple incidents around the world during Fredo's tenure, and no one said jack shit. In Beirut in the early '80s, between the US Embassy and Marine barracks attacks, over 300 people were lost, and there were glaring security issues in the latter attack that should have gotten someone's ass whipped.
And that's not even to mention the weird fact that some of the most strident criers of this particular "wolf!" are the same folks who voted to defund embassy security. So, you know, fuck you and the horse you rode in on, fellas.
Now, all that said, I think it's a splendid thing for these folks to continue with their obsession, and I think the Democrats should (and probably do, but won't say so) embrace it as well. For one, it is only going to get the base to vote in the midterms, it will not sway or convince a single person truly on the proverbial fence. It is of no strategic use.
Second, and maybe this is just my personal preference, the only possible long-term outcome of obsessing over this nothingburger is that it sticks to Hillary Clinton's "my turn" presidential campaign, and that would be just fine. It is a sad state of affairs when, in a fairly sophisticated nation of 320 million people, and a hyperactive electoral industry with dollars flowing through it like water through Niagara Falls, the best our "two" parties can come up with are Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.
Let me be even more clear: if the "choice" in 2016 comes down to Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, then we might as well just dispense with the endless campaign, the tedious analysis, the useless debates, and just have a fucking coin toss at the Super Bowl, and not bother to look at the result. It would be as explicit an indicator of the truth about the political system as one could imagine, the open acknowledgement that your vote is worthless, outcomes are inevitable, and the best you can hope for is for some rich tool to toss you a better piece of flotsam on which to weather an endless storm.
Don't get me wrong. If it comes down to Clinton versus whatever clown-shoes psychopath the Republicans roll out, you hold your nose and vote for her, and hope next time there'll be a better choice, just like you've done since day one. This is based on the presumption that at least the Democratic candidate has at least a slight chance of being marginally less catastrophic to the interests of what remains of the American working class.
It's just that it is always going to be this way, and it is not an accident but by design, and the only way to make it stop is to, well, make it stop.
I shouldn't have to say this, but I do anyway -- that is not to minimize the tragic, violent death of foreign service personnel, but simply to point out that dozens of people were killed in multiple incidents around the world during Fredo's tenure, and no one said jack shit. In Beirut in the early '80s, between the US Embassy and Marine barracks attacks, over 300 people were lost, and there were glaring security issues in the latter attack that should have gotten someone's ass whipped.
And that's not even to mention the weird fact that some of the most strident criers of this particular "wolf!" are the same folks who voted to defund embassy security. So, you know, fuck you and the horse you rode in on, fellas.
Now, all that said, I think it's a splendid thing for these folks to continue with their obsession, and I think the Democrats should (and probably do, but won't say so) embrace it as well. For one, it is only going to get the base to vote in the midterms, it will not sway or convince a single person truly on the proverbial fence. It is of no strategic use.
Second, and maybe this is just my personal preference, the only possible long-term outcome of obsessing over this nothingburger is that it sticks to Hillary Clinton's "my turn" presidential campaign, and that would be just fine. It is a sad state of affairs when, in a fairly sophisticated nation of 320 million people, and a hyperactive electoral industry with dollars flowing through it like water through Niagara Falls, the best our "two" parties can come up with are Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.
Let me be even more clear: if the "choice" in 2016 comes down to Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, then we might as well just dispense with the endless campaign, the tedious analysis, the useless debates, and just have a fucking coin toss at the Super Bowl, and not bother to look at the result. It would be as explicit an indicator of the truth about the political system as one could imagine, the open acknowledgement that your vote is worthless, outcomes are inevitable, and the best you can hope for is for some rich tool to toss you a better piece of flotsam on which to weather an endless storm.
Don't get me wrong. If it comes down to Clinton versus whatever clown-shoes psychopath the Republicans roll out, you hold your nose and vote for her, and hope next time there'll be a better choice, just like you've done since day one. This is based on the presumption that at least the Democratic candidate has at least a slight chance of being marginally less catastrophic to the interests of what remains of the American working class.
It's just that it is always going to be this way, and it is not an accident but by design, and the only way to make it stop is to, well, make it stop.
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