5 Things About Benghazi - So Far....

{pic from The Patriot Post, story from Greg Campbell at TeaPartyNewsNetwork}

I was going to try to summarize the Benghazi hearings yesterday, but I found these five bullet points from Greg Campbell at TPNN.com, so I figured I'd just save the time and repost them, since I'm not sure I could do any better.

There ARE things I would add, but I'll send those along another day.

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1) The consulate in Benghazi was under attack and not only were rescue teams not mobilized, they were actually ordered to stand down. When asked what the Special Forces members’ reaction was to being told to not intervene, witness Greg Hicks noted, ““They were furious. I will quote Lt. Col. Gibson, he said, ‘this is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.’”

2) The YouTube story was a lie- not a mistake. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Deputy Chief of Mission Greg Hicks around 2 AM the night of the attack and she was informed as to the nature of the attack. Still, it was more politically convenient to blame a YouTube video and its maker than to accept responsibility. Andrew McCarthy of the National Review summarized the betrayal by writing, “Recall that, when the bodies of the Americans slain in the Benghazi terrorist attack were returned home, Secretary Clinton told Charles Woods, the father of the heroic former Navy SEAL Ty Woods, that the government would ‘make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.’”

3) Witnesses were intimidated by the State Department and told not to cooperate with congressional investigators. Hicks claimed he was followed by a State Department lawyer to every meeting and was closely monitored. He also flatly stated, ““I was instructed not to allow the RSO, the active Deputy Chief of Mission and myself to be interviewed by Congressman Chaffetz.” Hicks was also demoted and treated with suspicion and criticism after he discussed the attack with Rep. Chaffetz.

4) The Democrats in the room were thoroughly uninterested in getting to the truth; they were interested in covering for the State Department and Obama Administration. Democratic Rep. Cummings was nauseatingly partisan as he fought to mitigate the damage this scandal has had on national security, trust in government and, most importantly, the families and friends of those murdered in Benghazi.
Attempting to minimize the severity of the situation, Cummings said bluntly that he once gave a eulogy and noted, “Death is a part of life.” He also reminded the witnesses that they need to “protect” their fellow employees at the State Department.
Framing the attack as a learning experience and the hearing as a function of politics, Democratic Rep. Peter Welch stated, “If it’s a fair-minded question of what we could do better [on security], that would benefit us all. But if it’s intended to embarrass the president or perhaps Hillary Clinton, then it will be damaging no matter who the next secretary of state is or who the next president is.”

5) The most important thing to take away from Wednesday’s hearing is this: The best witnesses to what happened that day couldn’t make it to the hearing because they were murdered at the hands of Islamic terrorists. On the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, security remained as lax as ever and even as the attack commenced, those who could help were ordered not to. Before the smoke had cleared, the State Department teamed up with the Obama Administration to push a united, falsified message that mitigated their culpability. They have postured as victims of a witch-hunt while offering no answers of substance to the public or the families of the victims. The administration that promised to be the “most transparent” in history has disgraced the memory of those who served their nation and have disrespected the citizens of America by lying continually, doing everything they can to coerce witnesses to keep their mouths shut and all the while offering an attitude that says, “Benghazi? Are we still on this?!”

It is an absolute outrage.