They're not going to lay off ... They're obsessed, absolutely convinced they're on to the greatest "political scandal" since Watergate. Their hatred and resentment of Barack Obama, their anger and disgust with having failed to defeat Obama, their inability to accept that a majority of the American people rejected them in favor of President Obama will drive this "search for the truth" until one of two things happen: Either a "smoking gun" is uncovered - which allows them to say "See! We told you so! We knew it all along!" - or voters in 2014 are so fed up with this witch hunt that they reject Republicans in droves at the polls - similar to the way voters rejected Republicans after the unsuccessful attempt to remove Bill Clinton from office back in 1998. The Republicans are like a dog on a bone on this one - they're literally foaming at the mouth.

There's so much bitterness, suspicion, and partisanship over this that it's not likely to end quietly. Republicans see that shimmering chimera out in the desert ... they're convinced that if they can just "uncover the truth" they'll (finally!) be rid of Obama. It's not really an exagerration to say that Barack Obama is literally driving these folks crazy. (The actual truth is they are driving themselves crazy.)

I suppose the Republican Party needs to get underway with that "proctology examination" Haley Barbour recommended yesterday - they need to "look at everything" - including themselves.

If they have a close examination at their ******* won't anywhere else to look at afterwards.

The president either ****ed up during immediate crisis or he failed to prepare for the crisis.

Either way, he failed. The administration has admitted as much with Hillary admitting fault and Obama increasing security for all assets in the region after crisis.

That's still a reallllllllllly long cry from a criminal Watergate scandal. That's where Fox News, GOP and McCain come across as cranky old men screaming at the sky.

It's fair to say Obama is driving (a lot of) the GOP crazy. Obama has taken GOP's answer to healthcare and made it his own (Romneycare), leaving Republican with no answer in the process. Obama has taken the best GOP's aggressive approach (disregard for international laws WRT use of drones and assassination of OBL) and Clinton's liberalism (humanitarian intervention in Libya, with air and European support) and pushed Libya toward democracy. Obama even offered up his sacred cows during budget negotiations (cuts to SS among other things) in an effort to get a Grand Bargain through. The Hobbits wanted no part of it and managed to drive themselves into a political dead end, dragging the entire GOP with them. In most time periods, Boehner's time period equivalent would have been able to strike the bargain and call it a political victory.

In short, Obama is a centrist president that's actually doing a pretty good job. And that is driving the more extreme elements of GOP insane.

PS: commanders-in-chief have claimed responsibility for the deaths of their soldiers since way before US even became a country.

Or this was a risky covert operation that went bad as risky covert operations occasionally do (shrug.) The lack of beefed up security around the consulate was undoubtedly a feature of the CIA operation, not a bug.

this is the most ******ed "scandal" ever and it's interfering with the good stuff (i.e. JILL KELLY)

Just because something bad happened does not make it a mistake if no one saw it coming.

You just cant prepare every consulate and related building even just in the middle east to defend against a sustained mortar and machine gun attack short of a near infinite budget. Without going so far as to say nothing can be learned the reality is these people take these jobs knowing there is a high likelihood they will be killed. Libya is a really foreign country for intelligence operations, in other words it was completely shut down for asset and informant networks to be built (which was most of the point of that CIA operation) and Al Qaeda and related terror groups were increasing their attacks in north africa.

Trying to condemn people for not having the foresight without information about whether they could have foreseen it or did do so but underestimated the type of attack etc is a terrible approach. Why do you have such a hard on to jump ahead of the investigation Grizy? This will be examined and the details will be released.

In the months leading up to the attack, the consulate got bombed twice, NATO command bailed, and Brits withdrew its consulate.

You have to be a total moron to not prep for an attack.

A better argument to make is GOP actively sabotaged the administration's ability to secure assets in the Middle East by cutting funding.

You still don't get it. The reason the consulate was there was as a cover for the CIA station and the security arrangements for the consulate were optimized for the benefit of the operation not for the safety of the token State department personnel. I expect the GOP lawmakers' focus on this aspect of the "scandal" to last only until the next closed door briefing asking them to back the **** off lest we paint a target on every similar diplomatic operation in the region.

I followed some link to Jill Kelly pictures (not like dirty, supposedly amusing) wondering what was up with a washed up porn star and was let down. (even though at this point new JK probably looks better than old).

And, again, even agreeing with all your premises, is the President in charge of security arrangements for every single foreign office? Like when a security guard calls in sick in Berlin, you think that call goes to the Oval Office?

They got the regular phone, the red nuclear phone, and a green phone so that people can doublecheck with the WH if it's OK to swap shifts on Thursday.

The green phone is the one used to call in MMJ raids LDO. The shift swap phone is also red just to keep things interjesting.

get 'em

Bengazi is regarded as a hotbed of al-queda/foreign fighter recruitment for a number of hot spots. Would explain strong CIA interest in the place. It was also, of course, the hotbed of hatred for Quaddafi, who killed lots of folks there (both Islamists and reformers). Again, in her Univ. of Denver speech Paula Broadwell mentioned that the CIA was holding prisoners there (a confidential intelligence leak), and I've read conflicting accounts of whether that's correct.

If people acted in the real world at all like McCain is acting here, they'd be fired and shunned. McCain's reputation is already, shall we say, frayed, and now he's getting raked over the coals by everyone who isn't employed by Fox or who didn't sign a succession petition. McCain, Palin, Romney, Ryan...well, there's your problem right there, sir.

Yep, it will be hilarious when Hugh Hefner (or Larry Flynt) offers Jill and her sister a million dollars each to pose for a "sisters" layout.

****ing idiots in GOP.

There are actual questions they could ask and leverage this to increase defense funding and/or just embarrass Obama ever so slightly.

Instead they accuse one of the most celebrated military generals of our generation of incompetence and call the President a liar.

The GOP doesn't have much of a future unless a GOP version of Clinton/Reagan emerges with a new party platform.

No, Marco Rubio and Jindal will not get the job done.

+1

We need a strong party leader, but we have nothing but dunces. I'm not hopeful for the next decade.

GOP needs someone with mixed descent, with a white father.

I am sorry too say, too much of the GOP's base is just not ready to follow a black/brown/yellow man.

A woman would be even better. But that may be asking for too much.

I've been thinking the same thing.

Trending on Reddit - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/wo...-hearings.html

the part that creates the most yuks is how McCain and his merry band of ******s think a presidential order is required to extract a team under fire It may require that order to instigate or invade a sovereign nation, but to run away is like Monty Python

mildly surprised to see the wall street journal go full conspiratard

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopStories

this isn't watergate, its whitewater. these tards are just gonna keep alienating everyone outside the echo chamber. you'd think they would learn from their mistakes.

If you don't click this, Petraeus is saying that the Administration DID lie about the nature of the attack and knew right away that it was a terrorist attack. He said the reason was to avoid compromising intelligence operations by alerting the terrorists we were on to them.

You can ask anyone, anyone at all, remotely involved with the military and he/she'll tell you in a situation like this the President is the one to give the order to execute.

You gotta be fairly naive to think that politics didn't come into play two months before an election. Doesn't make this autoworstthingever, but come on man.

"At the most fundamental level, the reason it is absurd to suspect the existence of a "cover-up" over the Benghazi attack is that such a cover-up could not have had any conceivable goal. Back to the beginning: the underlying accusation about Benghazi is that the Obama administration deliberately mischaracterised the terrorist attack there as having grown out of a spontaneous demonstration because that would be less politically damaging. Such a cover-up would have made no sense because the attack would not have been less politically damaging had it grown out of a spontaneous demonstration. The attack on the Benghazi compound would not have been any less politically difficult for the administration if it had grown out of a riot, nor would any normal voter have expected it to be less politically damaging, nor would any normal campaign strategist have expected any normal voter to have expected it to be less politically damaging."

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast....a-scandal.html