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The House Republican Benghazi! Kangaroo Court's spectacularly incompetent partisan prosecution of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has been judged by most observers as, well, a spectacularly incompetent partisan prosecution. It reached perhaps its most bizarre and revealing climax during the questioning involving Clinton friend and adviser Sidney Blumenthal, as pundits across the spectrum observed.
Dana Milbank
The House Select Committee on Blumenthal, as some are now calling it, came to order at 10 a.m. Lawmakers didn’t finish questioning Hillary Clinton until 11 hours later — just after the Democratic presidential candidate succumbed to a coughing fit.
Kathleen ParkerIn that period of time, the name of Sidney Blumenthal was invoked more than 75 times, and scores of questions were asked about the longtime Clinton friend. By lunchtime, Blumenthal had been invoked 49 times — exactly the number of mentions of J. Christopher Stevens, the ambassador to Libya whose death in Benghazi is the supposed subject of the congressional probe. The other three Americans slain in Benghazi — Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods — got seven or eight mentions apiece, then-CIA director David Petraeus and former defense secretary Robert Gates each got two, and then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had none.
Who the blast is Sidney Blumenthal?
Doubtless many watching Thursday’s House select committee hearing on Benghazi must have wondered the same. This obviously important person’s name was mentioned so many times, it was challenging to remember that Hillary Clinton, not he, was the one on trial, for lack of a more-accurate word. [snip]
None of this was remotely relevant to the alleged purpose of the hearing — to find out once and for all what happened before, during and after that terrible night in Benghazi when four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed. The real purpose was as obvious as the shine on Gowdy’s nose — to discredit Clinton both as secretary of state and as a leading presidential candidate — and, if possible, to make her head explode. All the questions about Blumenthal’s e-mails ultimately resulted in a rather wispy point: That he had Clinton’s personal e-mail address and Stevens, also a friend, did not.The focus on Blumenthal, of course, belied the unctuous vows by Chairdolt Trey "Deuce" Gowdy and his merry band of Republican knuckle-draggers that they were after "the facts" on Benghazi! The angrier the questioning and the more Clinton refused to rise to the bait, the more the true intent of the Kangaroo Court was made apparent to all but the most deluded in the right- wing echo chamber.
