Benghazi Revelations Have Hillary Bashers on Defensive
This is proving to be big. I've talked about the difficulty of breaking into the Beltway's media narrative once it's left the station.
For about three months Hillary has just gotten the worst imaginable coverage-with not much difference in supposedly liberal enclaves like MSNBC or liberal pundits at the NY Times, etc.
Once the pack mentality breaks out most pundits seem congenitally incapable of thinking or themselves even some of the better ones.
So even the better liberal pundits like Greg Sargent or Kevin Drum never quite were willing to just dismiss Emailgate out of hand.
They will still say that even if she did nothing wrong she should have known better than to give the appearance of doing something wrong.
There has been a lot of discussion about what Boehner's resignation as Speaker will mean. Based on Kevin McCarthy who is his presumed successor's first day on the job giving interviews as the presumed successor the real pessimists may be right.
I thought the GOP might regret their shortsighted glee at axing Boehner as well but I never dreamed it'd be this quick.
But Boehner would never had said anything as stupid as McCarthy did who basically was goaded into blurting this out to show his real conservative credentials in a chat with Sean Hannity.
And the Hillary bashing narrative really has been jolted now. This has given Democrats the runway to call for the end of the Benhgazi investigation and, indeed, the investigation of the investigation.
"House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy unleashes the perfect talking point for Democrats pushing for the panel to be dismantled and investigated."
What is very heartening to see is that the mainstream press is picking up this story. The NY Times, The Washington Post, Slate, the Bloomberg piece above, even Politico though it's much lower down on its page than the latest taunts about more Hillary emails to be released.
I notice that the story was picked up on MSNBC Live earlier as well. But if you want a good gauge for how serious a jolt this is to the official narrative-the narrative may finally be about to change at least some is by seeing what the real diehard Hillary bashers are saying.
Chuck Todd in his new MSNBC show at 5 pm had to acknowledge it-he didn't look happy to and he did talk earlier about rifling through the new emails for more gossip and rumour mongering. What can Trey Gowdy investigate next? That Huma Abedin got into the movies for half price and that Citizen's United has the smoking gun that Hillary 'signed off on it?'
Todd admitted this was a boon to liberals who he said Are claiming this somehow means the Benghazi Committee is politically motivated.
Yes, he really is trying to spin this as Ok but so what? Sure it's not political just because the next House Speaker said it is.
Meanwhile I don't know what has happened to The Atlantic but they actually have an author trying to claim that nothing has changed with McCarthy's huge gaffe.
"The expected next speaker of the House says the Benghazi committee helped drag Hillary Clinton down. Is anyone truly surprised or upset by this?"
"Color me unimpressed. The most surprising thing about this quotation is McCarthy’s coining of the word “untrustable.”
Deeming this a Kinsley gaffe requires that the truth that is revealed be new, and that there be someone surprised by it. So here’s the question: Are there people who didn’t think the Benghazi committee was designed from the start, at least in large part, to deflate Clinton? From the moment the attack happened, it was clear to Republicans that it could be used as a cudgel against her, and they’ve done so effectively. Most prominently, the committee hasn’t revealed any serious dereliction on her part, but it has circuitously led to the email scandal that has badly wounded her. Even Republicans who had serious questions about Benghazi can’t have had any misconceptions about the political edge to the process.
"Of course, the loudest voices in protest of McCarthy’s remarks are Clinton supporters. They are furious, they say. That seems unlikely. Democrats were convinced from the moment the committee was formed that it was a witch hunt. They’re not angry—they’re delighted that McCarthy has confirmed what they believed, and that now they can use it as a political weapon."
"At least in theory. A weapon to convince … whom? Are there conservatives who were single-mindedly focused on September 11, 2012, and who will be furious to learn that the committee hurt Clinton? Are there Democrats who didn’t realize this was about politics and will only now get upset? Both seem unlikely. Perhaps there are independent voters who were convinced the committee was pure and chaste and will now be furious and swing to Clinton’s support, but you should believe that when you see them."
"There’s a more charitable explanation for what McCarthy said, which short-circuits the Kinsley gaffe claim. As his spokesman lays it out, McCarthy simply means that House Republicans are going about their duties diligently; in the process they found damaging material; and that has hurt Clinton."
"Take that at face value or don’t, and it hardly matters to whether the outrage is real. Pretty much everyone on both sides already believed the committee was playing politics, and McCarthy’s comments aren’t likely to shift their convictions."
So nothing changes right? Nice try. He figures he can just say sure the committee is little more than a Super PAC to defeat Hillary Clinton but who didn't already know that?
Well, by the way the Beltway press has acted, they haven't been aware of that. If everyone really knew that Trey Gowdy isn't running a Congressional Committee so much as a Super PAC-he's kind of like a campaign manager for Jeb-then the press couldn't have treated the email scandal so credulously. It would have had to discount that the claims Gowdy's Committee is making has to be discounted as you would any political action committee.
What gave Emailgate respectability is that it was supposed to be part of a disinterested investigation that there was a legitimate public interest in.
You absolutely can't afford if your the GOP to admit that's a cover which is why Boehner would never have been so dumb.
While Trey Gowdy is basically Jeb-or possibly Rubio's-campaign manager, Kevin McCarthy should be watched. He may just prove an MVP for us Democrats.
Bottom line it's a nice try to argue nothing changes but this is clearly already wholly false. The mainstream press has picked this up widely which is going to change the narrative some at least and the House Dems will now have much more political capital that Benghazi shutdown now and may even itself deserve an ethics probe as David Brock argues.
No comments:
Post a Comment