Thus, when Madame Secretary finally had enough of the penny-ante cheap shots of Ron Johnson, the Tea Party fave-rave for whom Wisconsin exchanged Russ Feingold -- and thank you again, cheeseheads, for that -- last seen begging the president to leave him just the rags of his freedom, she wasn't just defending herself. She was demanding that somebody take the deaths of four Americans seriously as something more than a partisan cudgel, a pet conspiracy theory, or means through which to litigate the last election.

[snip]

Not content with putting Johnson on a committee where he is less qualified to appear than he would be pitching long relief for the Brewers, the Republicans also gave a seat to Senator Aqua Buddha, who demonstrated the essential gravitas that has marked his entire career. Young Rand said that he would have fired the Secretary had he been president because this was the "worst tragedy since 9/11." Senators whose committee chairs no longer have training-wheels pointed out that the meretricious case for war in Iraq was pretty damned tragic, too. Paul, of course, is a second-generation charlatan whose stated purpose in life is to defund large portions of the national government, most definitely including the State Department. Perhaps the Secretary should have told him that, henceforward, we will rely on the power of the Free Market to guard our embassies. Or, conversely, she could have called him a pipsqueak and told him to run for president on his own time.

[snip]

Let us be honest. Rand Paul is on that committee because he wants to run for president, This is also true of Marco Rubio. Ron Johnson is on that committee because somebody forgot to lock the cracker box. This is what Republican foreign policy is today -- a place to posture, to raise money, and to flog your political future with the honored dead.

No one is saying we shouldn't find out what happened - something clearly went wrong.  I don't presume to know who thought it would be a good idea to send Susan Rice out to the Sunday shows instead, of, I don't know, addressing it in a way that limited the participation of media and political figures all gaming the situation for maximum effect, and guaranteeing that it would become a political football, but it was a terrible idea.

Was there a way not to make this a political issue?  Maybe not completely, but to my mind, if they didn't know what happened, the last thing they should have been doing is handing a bunch of dimwit talking heads and their equally dim "guests" an opportunity to speculate about the speculation that someone sent Susan Rice out to offer them.

Our government had to know at the time that it happened that they were looking at a sh!tshow; as well as Clinton is handling herself in these hearings, it has to be said that overall, the decisions made in the aftermath did nothing to keep that sh!tshow at some kind of manageable level.  Is that on her, on the president, on the intelligence personnel, all of the above?  Well, yeah - it happened on their watch.  To their credit, they haven't shied away from taking responsibility or being accountable, but let's not be too proud of how well we're now closing the barn door, considering how far the horses have galloped away from it.

But there are committees in congress, and members of the executive branch, who have the time.

Then not so much.

I maintain that the Administration and State pushed the story long after they realized it was false because they didn't want to admit they screwed up.

We now all know they did .   The people onsite wanted better security.   The State Department turned them down.

Terrorists then killed the ambassador.

Who screwed up?

It is painfully obvious that the majority of Americans don't care enough or don't want to admit who screwed up to do anything about it.

If liberals choose not to care to protect their team then we can all move along.

I just find it fascinating that not only will liberals ignore reality they will cheer along when Hillary screams and yells to deflect her obvious failures.

While specific details and a full accounting cannot be provided until the government has completed its investigation, the fact that a terrorist attack occurred must be communicated with clarity.

Although the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi was recognized as a terrorist attack by the Intelligence Community and personnel at the Department of State from the beginning, Administration officials were inconsistent in stating publicly that the deaths in Benghazi were the result of a terrorist attack.