Wanted, Dead Or Alive: A Scapegoat For African Terrorism

If someone touting their job competency can be simultaneously profound and cringe-worthy, then a line early on in Hillary Clinton’s Senate special committee on the Benghazi terrorist attack last September, worked that way.

“In my four years as Secretary of State I’m traveled nearly a million miles and visited one-hundred-twelve countries”.

She was *this close* to saying “and I’ve rocked them all” like her campaign friend Jon Bon Jovi in his cheese anthem, Wanted Dead Or Alive.

Today’s Senate hearing in Washington D.C. as to why four Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador too Libya, Chris Stevens, died on September 11, 2012, has become not only a spotlight on Hillary Clinton’s job performance but also her role as scapegoat for the growing violence in North Africa. She is the lone witness in a hearing that may stretch into a second day, tomorrow.

“I take responsibility for what happened in Benghazi in September.”

Not only has Madame Secretary said that line many times over the past three and a half months but she began her testimony in what many are called an unnecessary hearing. It wasn’t good enough for some Senators, including John McCain (R Ariz) and Rand Paul (R Ky). They came after Clinton hard and fast.

Clinton had few solid answers as to why security at the American embassy was inadequate. She couldn’t explain why emails asking for more security weren’t responded to in time. And she couldn’t say why the Obama Administration, based on her State Department’s intelligence, told Americans that the tragedy in Benghazi was as the result of a demonstration over an anti-muslim movie and not an insurgent terrorist attack. That clarification came two weeks later. Four Americans were dead. Secretary Clinton, who leaves her post soon amid speculation she will either retire or run for President in 2012, offered apologies for her lone black mark in her four years on the job. So far, the only person in the Obama Administration who has even acknowledged incompetency along with personal sorrow.

McCain, the man who gave the political world Sarah Palin and called the move “the best decision I’ve ever made”, pushed for this special hearing. Last Wednesday he held an impromptu press conference where he called the Benghazi incident “a cover up” and decried the lack of information being presented as to what happened and why last September. He the skipped the classified documents briefing, a two-hour meeting featuring the other participants in today’s hearing. He offered the excuse os “scheduling conflict”. Then went on a sports talk show to complain about the Arizona Cardinals bad football season and new coaching hire. The Senate is already investing through this through their oversight committee and their Intelligence committee. But McCain and Paul used their media contacts to grandstand for this special hearing that Secretary Clinton had to reschedule when she fell ill before Christmas with a concussion and blood clot. Some of her Republican colleagues accused her of faking being sick. Stay classy Elephant folks.

So far, what’s been made clear through Clinton’s testimony is security was indeed poor at Benghazi Embassy. There needs to be more security troops on the ground in Libya its next door neighbor Algeria, where 38 hostages were killed in an oil field raid by Islamic militants. Three of the top five nations in North Africa in terms of land area and populations – Egypt, Libya, and Algeria – look like the classic 1979 movie Warriors because the people running those country are about as qualified as the security guards at a Bon Jovi concert. Violence is out of control.

How this hearing, mostly a farce for McCain and Paul to become best buddies with Rush Limbaugh and his crowd because they’re being mean to a Clinton, will affect the outgoing Secretary of State is unclear. She’s dishing out the vast knowledge of foreign affairs that she possesses but there are a lot of Ronald Reagan I don’t knows and I don’t recalls. If being the scapegoat for the Obama Administration bad North African diplomacy is her final act in politics, she’s taking it in stride and with a lot of dignity, by herself. The blame posse may have gotten their bad guy, fake or not, but she’s going down with her boots on and her six-shooter warm.