Polonius wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

And that's where the whole "its like watergate, except people died!" narrative flames out. It's like watergate, in that the White House tried to cover up a scandal, but nobody died because of the scandal. They died because of attack, which the State deparment and/or white house may have had some intel on. And making an executive call, even a bad one, is not a crime. It's so painfully difficult to seperate out legitimate discretion from abuse of power in a situation like that, and the courts have always deferrerd to the exectutive.

You do have a point... don't get me wrong. But, I think many of us is using the Watergate comparison to convey how serious this is... rather than trying to compare the minute details between the two scandals. Know what I mean?

Except, by your own admission, they aren't the same level of seriousness. Watergate fundamentally changed the way the US viewed it's leaders, it lead to a resignation, and had a trick down effect of increased professional responsibilty (or ethics) training for attornies. these aren't minute details. By your line of thinking, the difference between ebola and a cold are minute details. Except one will kill you, and the other won't.

What you're trying to say is that both are Big Deals, much like White Water or the Valerie Plume incidents. And that's why it's been a story. It's not a bigger story mostly because it's not a bigger story (at least not yet).

 Frazzled wrote:
I'll be frank. I proffer the recent revelation that 10% of Tea Party donaters have been audited is a much bigger deal. Its using the organs of government to punish opponents which was the hallmark of the allegations against Nixon.

Benghazi is a big deal in that we need to exterminate the terrorists and their supporters in violent visual fashion as a warning to others. But we have to remember, the US didn't do it. Terrorists did that. Not Obama. Not Clinton. Terrorists.

 Frazzled wrote:
COngratulations, you've been Gazied!

 Frazzled wrote:
Benghazi is a big deal in that we need to exterminate the terrorists and their supporters in violent visual fashion as a warning to others. But we have to remember, the US didn't do it. Terrorists did that. Not Obama. Not Clinton. Terrorists.

Relapse wrote:
Then we have this lawmaker offering a well thought statement:

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/05/07/dem-cracks-a-flip-joke-about-benghazi-james-woods-dana-loesch-others-step-up-to-shred-her-117461

 Goliath wrote:
I thought that Dakka had showed me some ridiculous conservative positions and opinions, but then I read the comments on that page.

I was wrong. So so wrong.

 Breotan wrote:
But seriously, stay away from any political site's discussion/comments section.

 Ouze wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
But seriously, stay away from any political site's discussion/comments section.

Every time I do this, and I sometimes do, I always regret it within - tops - 5 posts. I kind of involuntarily sit back in my chair, and think, "what am I doing" before closing the tab.

I mean, we talk about how bad some of the arguments in the OT are but there is just no comparison.

 Ouze wrote:
I think Democrats aren't participating because the panel is unbalanced number-wise in favor of Republicans, so politically it looks better to not participate because doing so will lend an air of legitimacy to it.

Yes, I know Democrats have done the unbalanced panel thing in the past, no I'm not defending it for either side so lets not run down that tangent.

 Ouze wrote:
Yes, I do believe that I covered that exact example in my post

I was explaining the strategy, not endorsing it. Much like the ACA, they want to say that it was ram-rodded through without any meaningful participation while leaving out the fact that they could have, and chose not to, participate because they couldn't have won what they wanted. It's the least-bad play out of no good choices.

 Ouze wrote:
They don't want to counter any message the committee might send because doing so would allow them to beg the question, as I believe the phrase goes.

The stock answer is going to be "it's a partisan witch hunt" regardless of what they find.

Gowdy begins his powerful statement by immediately quoting, word-for-word, Obama’s promise to the nation following the attacks:

“We will not waiver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act in Benghazi. And make no mistake, justice will be done.” That was the President of the United States over a year ago. “We’re investigating exactly what happened, but my biggest priority now is bringing those folks to justice.” That was the President of the United States over a year ago.

Gowdy points out that that both of Obama’s promises are broken as no one has been brought to justice, explaining that the Obama administration has prohibited witnesses from testifying about Benghazi. “No one has been brought to justice. We don’t even have access to witnesses,” Gowdy said.

Gowdy then went into his classic questioning mode, telling them that while he’s not trying to tell the media how to do their job, if they don’t know the answers to these questions, in regards to Benghazi, then he would leave them to draw their own conclusions:

I’m not telling you how to do your job, but I’m going to ask you some questions, and if you can’t answer these questions, then I’ll leave you to draw whatever conclusions you want to draw about whether the media has provided sufficient oversight:
--Can you tell me why [Ambassador] Chris Stevens was in Benghazi that he was killed? Do you know? Does it bother you whether or not you know why Chris Stevens was in Benghazi?

--Do you know why we were the last flag flying in Benghazi, after the British had left and the Red Cross had been bombed?

--Do you know why requests for additional security were denied? Do you know why an ambassador asking for more security, days and weeks before he was murdered and those requests went unheeded? Do you know the answer to why those requests went unheeded?

--Do you know why no assets were deployed during the siege? And I’ve heard the explanation, which defies logic, frankly, that we could not have gotten there in time. But you know they didn’t know when it was going to end, so how can you possibly cite that as an excuse?

--Do you know whether the president called any of our allies and said, can you help, we have men under attack? Can you answer that?

--Do any of you know why Susan Rice was picked [to go on five Sunday talk shows after the attacks]? The Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton] did not go. She says she doesn’t like Sunday talk shows. That’s the only media venue she does not like, if that’s true. Why was Susan Rice on the five Sunday talk shows?

--Do you know the origin of this mythology, that it was spawned as a spontaneous reaction to a video? Do you know where that started?

--Do you know where we got from no evidence on that, to that being the official position of the administration?

Gowdy then concludes his brief statement by blasting the press for not doing their job, while getting a last jab in at Obama, Hillary Clinton and Jay Carney:

In conclusion, Congress is supposed to provide oversight, the voters are supposed to provide oversight, and you were supposed to provide oversight. That’s why you have special liberties and that’s why you have special protections.

I’m not surprised that the President of the United States called this a phony scandal. I’m not surprised that Secretary Clinton would ask what difference does it make. I’m not even surprised that Jay Carney said it happened a long time ago. I’m just surprised at how many people bought it.