When I was a kid, we raked the autumn leaves and burned them right in
the yard - carefully. You never wanted to do that on a windy day
because you didn't - you know - want them to fly around and start more
fires. You had a hose handy and stamped on stray embers. Got that pic
in your head? Good, because that is the situation the Republicans are
dealing with. Thought you might enjoy that little mental image.
Marina Fang
© ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hillary Rodham Clinton smiles during the CNN Democratic presidential
debate Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
ASSOCIATED PRESS A second congressman
admitted on Wednesday that the Republican House committee created to
investigate the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, is solely
"designed to go after" Hillary Clinton.“This may not be politically
correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation
that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary
Clinton,” Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) said on a morning radio show in upstate New York.
Republicans
say they formed the House Select Committee on Benghazi to investigate
the attack. Democrats have complained that the committee, which has cost
taxpayers about $4.5 million during its 17 months of existence, was primarily a political stunt.
Read more >>>>
Of course this committee came up in last night's debate. Here is the
segment. Emphasis here is mine.
COOPER:
And welcome back. We are live in Nevada, in Las Vegas, at the Wynn
Resort for the first Democratic presidential debate. The questions
continue. We begin with Secretary Clinton. Secretary Clinton, you are
going to be testifying before Congress next week about your e-mails. For
the last eight months, you haven’t been able to put this issue behind
you. You dismissed it; you joked about it; you called it a mistake. What
does that say about your ability to handle far more challenging crises
as president?
CLINTON:
Well, I’ve taken responsibility for it. I did say it was a mistake.
What I did was allowed by the State Department, but it wasn’t the best
choice. And I have been as transparent as I know to be, turning over
55,000 pages of my e-mails, asking that they be made public. And you’re
right. I am going to be testifying. I’ve been asking to testify for some
time and to do it in public, which was not originally agreed to. But
let’s just take a minute here and point out that this committee is
basically an arm of the Republican National Committee. (APPLAUSE) It is a
partisan vehicle, as admitted by the House Republican majority leader,
Mr. McCarthy, to drive down my poll numbers. Big surprise. And that’s
what they have attempted to do. I am still standing. I am happy
to be part of this debate. (APPLAUSE) And I intend to keep talking
about the issues that matter to the American people. You know, I believe
strongly that we need to be talking about what people talk to me about,
like how are we going to make college affordable? How are we going to
pay down student debt?
COOPER: Secretary...
CLINTON: How are we going to get health care for everybody...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER:
Secretary Clinton, Secretary Clinton, with all due respect, it’s a
little hard — I mean, isn’t it a little bit hard to call this just a
partisan issue? There’s an FBI investigation, and President Obama
himself just two days ago said this is a legitimate issue.
CLINTON:
Well, I never said it wasn’t legitimate. I said that I have answered
all the questions and I will certainly be doing so again before this
committee. But I think it would be really unfair not to look at
the entire picture. This committee has spent $4.5 million of taxpayer
money, and they said that they were trying to figure out what we could
do better to protect our diplomats so that something like Benghazi
wouldn’t happen again. There were already seven committee reports about
what to do. So I think it’s pretty clear what their obvious goal is.
Full transcript >>>>
