So What is the Benghazi Committee About?

After 11 hours, this is less clear than ever. Adam Schiff at one point flat out asked what it was about.

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/10/rep-schiff-asks-gowdy-what-47-million-buys

In the middle of an 11 hour marathon in an investigation that has gone on for 20 months and $4.7 million dollars it kind of says it all that this is still the glaring question.

But at the end Trey Gowdy himself couldn't tell us what we had learned. He said that her testimony was basically the same as what she said back in 2013. Right-so what was today about again?

"Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) couldn't say Thursday night if his all-day Benghazi hearing with Hillary Clinton revealed any new information."

"Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, was asked by reporters what new details came from his panel's 11 hours of grilling the former secretary of state over her response to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi."

"Uh," Gowdy said, pausing for several seconds.

"I think some of Jimmy Jordan's questioning -- well, when you say new today, we knew some of that already. We knew about the emails," he said. "In terms of her testimony? I don't know that she testified that much differently today than she has the previous time she testified."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trey-gowdy-hillary-clinton-benghazi_56299236e4b0aac0b8fc6a7d

The fact that she said nothing she didn't say in 2013 begs the question: why did she testify at all yesterday? 

It's hard not to conclude that the purpose of yesterday's hearings was: to attempt to bring down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers. 

While early in the hearings I thought the GOPers were at least trying to make this look like something other than another McCarthyite witch hunt, by the second hour they gave up any semblance of objectivity and started making wild accusations and insinuations. 

You really didn't have to watch the hearings to know what was talked about as I'll tell you right now. Sidney Blumenthal. 

So yesterday couldn't have been a more clear partisan, political exercise. It served absolutely no legitimate, government oversight function. 

"Jonathan Bernstein comes up with an ingenious description of the Benghazi hearing: “it’s a way of using government funding to furnish content for conservative media. That’s all.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/10/22/happy-hour-roundup-718/

For all that, it seems that most in the media agree, that Hillary cleaned their collective clocks.

Yesterday morning, I had suggested that this will actually be a home run for her politically. That this will probably end up in her own ads.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/hillary-takes-hot-seat-today-or-is-it.html

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/hillary-is-looking-forward-to-benghazi.html

Last night Jamelle Bouie confirmed that she had not just neutralized the damage but actually scored a hit yesterday. 

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/hillary_clinton_won_the_benghazi_hearing.html

She also gained just because she is so knowledgeable about how the world works. The GOPers mostly showed themselves clueless about how the State Department even works like when they kept haranguing her about Blumenthal having her email but Christ Stevens did. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics-live/liveblog/live-updates-hillary-clinton-testifies-before-benghazi-committee/#273b521f-77ed-4834-9b59-5090c86d5010