Pax on both houses: GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy's Select Committee Report On Benghazi: As With Justice Kavanaugh, Shouldn't We "Presume Hillary's Innocence Until Proven Guilty?"

Saturday, October 27, 2018

GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy's Select Committee Report On Benghazi: As With Justice Kavanaugh, Shouldn't We "Presume Hillary's Innocence Until Proven Guilty?"

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Consider the following 9 minute video clip in which GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy summarizes his Select Committee's Benghazi findings.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/28/gowdy_democrats_will_be_shocked_when_they_read_benghazi_report_if_they_do_bother_to_read_it.html

In the above clip, Gowdy stresses - as he has done with the very same words elsehwere - that "not a single wheel of the United States military moved toward Benghazi," even though he forthrightly acknowledges that Leon Panetta issued a timely command for U.S. military intervention.

Gowdy also describes a 2 hour White House meeting which may have taken place after the 4 Americans had already been killed at the Benghazi "diplomatic compound."

Detailing this White House meeting, Gowdy says Hillary Clinton was responsible for "slowing" Uncle Sam's military intervention.

Then Gowdy refers a second time to Leon Panetta who, in Gowdy's own words, DID issue a timely order for military intervention, an order that came down while the Benghazi crisis was still unfolding and no American had yet died.

Remarkably, it was United States military officers who refused to enact that order.

Clearly Gowdy's findings -- at least insofar as they relate to Hillary Clinton alleged culpability -- are "much ado" about "not much."

As often happens, we only arrive at the central, substantive truth by examining what Gowdy did not say.

Note well:

If Gowdy had "the goods" on Hillary, he would have been "on her" like white on rice.

But nowhere does Gowdy STATE that Hillary was guilty of jeopardizing American lives by inaction (or delayed action), although he does say -- twice in five minutes -- that Leon Panetta ordered military intervention which the United States military refused/failed to implement.

Just as notably, Gowdy did not even recommend Hillary's censure, much less her indictment.

In his assessment of the Select Committee's findings, Gowdy has "got nothing" on Hillary but supposition, speculation, innuendo and guesswork - plus a burning political need to craft a plausible rhetorical statement so he doesn't look like an idiot.

Do the math.

Republicans HATE Hillary.

If Gowdy had "actionable evidence" of her culpability, he would have laid into her like Simon Legree whipping a slave.

Sure, Gowdy makes it "sound" like there were many guilty politicians (and military officers) in-and-around The White House.

But if he had hard evidence that actually demonstrated "probable cause" of wrong-doing, not only would he have delighted in presenting that evidence, he would have had a moral (and perhaps legal) obligation to bring all "probably guilty" parties to court.

Instead, where the rubber meets the road, his lips were sealed with tombstone silence.

To summarize the substantive truth of Gowdy's two year, $8 million dollar investigation: Trey did not have "probable cause," much less an "actionable case" against Hillary.

The evidence was NOT there.

Using the same rubric of "presuming innocence until PROVEN guilty" -- the very rubric American conservatives insisted was Brett Kavanaugh's sacrosanct right -- Hillary was not proven guilty of anything.

In fact, as far as proof goes, her alaleged guilt was demonstrably less likely than Kavanaugh's - and doubly so if we take into account our new Supreme Court Justice "lying under oath."

Not that any of this will convince you.

Like Bill Maher said about birtherism... "these people would not be convinced even if you handed them Obama's original birth certificate -- with the placenta -- and a videotape of baby Barack emerging from the birth canal with Don Ho playing ukulele in the background."

There is precious little "intellectual rigor" on the "right side of the aisle," and a super-abundance of "fake news," "alternative facts" and "in your face falsehood" - all of it endorsed by a "president" who lies more easily than he metabolizes.

It is said that "fish rot from the head down."

If you want to locate the epicenter of America's moral and political rot, don't look at Hillary, look to America's whoremonger Cheater-in-Chief - and Christian hero! - a man who clearly incites violence, and then, when an enthusiastic supporter jeopardizes the life and limb of 14 people at the top of Trump's enemies list, Dishonest Donald continues to blame "the media" for suggesting his responsibility.

Trump is a devious, mendacious, irresponsible, solipsistic, puerile person whose motto should read: "The buck stops anywhere but here."

Alan: Thomas Aquinas observed that "sin" is always accompanied by loss of perspective and proportion.

GOP Representative Trey Gowdy's House Select Committee On Benghazi was the most egregious example in American political history of lost perspective and proportion.

At bottom, Benghazi was "much ado about precious little."

Trump talks about witch hunts: Gowdy delivers "the goods."

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