Okay, I probably have a jaundiced view of American politics, but I just don’t understand this sentiment:
My guess is that McCarthy's epic blunder last night will further strengthen "next gen" dynamic in GOP leadership races.
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) September 30, 2015
Now, Simon Rosenberg is referring to the fact that Speaker of the House-in-waiting Kevin McCarthy went on Sean Hannity’s show last night and openly admitted that a primary motivation for creating the congressional Benghazi! committee was to damage Hillary Clinton’s reputation for trustworthiness.
To say that this was the worst-kept secret in Washington DC would be to imply that it was a secret at all. Everyone, and I mean everyone knows that the right’s obsession with Benghazi has been from the very beginning a way they hoped to damage Hillary Clinton. Sure, there was a brief period of time when they thought that the issue might help Mitt Romney win the election, but that basically ended with the “Please proceed, governor” moment in the Candy Crowley debate. And, back then, the issue was mainly about whether the president had been willing to call the attack an act of terrorism or not, and whether the government had actually apologized to the perpetrators.
Once the thing became a conspiracy theory, the idea was that the State Department was at fault.
Now, I know that in certain Beltway circles telling the truth is considered one of the worst possible gaffes, but McCarthy bragged about the effectiveness of this smear campaign precisely because he wanted to remind people that the Republicans deserve credit for finding ways to effectively fight back against the Democrats. In other words, he was reminding the Republican base voter that there actually are examples where the Republican leadership did something extraordinarily partisan and obnoxious and that it worked. The reaction will probably be exactly what he hoped for. He gets a pat on the head and a couple of “Atta Boys.”
The idea that Republican members of Congress will clutch their pearls in horror that McCarthy defended their performance is a big reach, in my opinion.
These folks are so beyond the norms of behavior that you’d expect of your children that it’s absurd to hold them to those kind of standards. When one of them gets caught in a lie, that’s a badge of honor, and it’s not even remotely problematic to get caught telling the truth if the truth is that you’ve been lying.
If you think I am engaging in hyperbole here, just remember back when Mitt Romney set the land-speed record by telling 533 lies in a mere 30 weeks– (and that tally ended in August). Republicans did not blink. They had no problem with Romney’s pathological relationship with the truth. If anything, they wanted him to be a more convincing liar.
Look at Carly Fiorina right now. She’s doing well, recently, and how many of the people running against her have questioned her truthfulness? It’s not an issue for them. It’s not something they can score political points with, because the base does not want their heroes to tell the truth.
I can’t remember the last time a Republican officeholder got in trouble with the base for lying. Sure, the base thinks that promises were made to them that were made in bad faith, but that’s a different kind of lie. Lying for the cause is expected and rewarded.
If McCarthy is auditioning for the role of the most powerful Republican in Washington DC, he’s off to a good start. Why should Republicans support him? Because he won’t let the truth get in the way of brawling.
That’s all the base really wants.
Donald Trump is the continuing beneficiary in the speaking style over substance race.
The extraordinary thing is that, for the media, Hillary’s big problem is that she is dishonest and untrustworthy. The double standard is quite breathtaking.
Not a big fan of HRC, but the double-standards held on high by the R-Team and their base is quite something. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, the rightwing doubles down & then triples down on the hypocrisy.
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Of course, the waste of money on this nonsense is what is also galling, but the rightwing base – who endlessly complain about how the poor are ripping them off – have no problem witnessing money wasted in these bs D-Team witch hunts.
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Circuses but no bread…
In addition you have trey gowdy declining to run for a leadership position so he can chair the benghazi!! committee. He’s a man with a mission.
All politicians lie. The end.
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However, the GOP appears to me to be engaging in some sort of bizarre performance art. Of course, Carly Fiorina is a former CEO (fired for trashing HP, which has never recovered) who clearly is used to toadying Yes-People who are schooled never ever to question any “pearls” emanating from her pie-hole.
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Fiorina attempts to out-Trump Trump in being the biggest liar with the worst debauched story on earth that has not a scintilla of truth to it. Yet the base lurvs it.
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When can we get BACK through the Looking Glass, please?
not seeing that Fiorina is loved by the base, she is loved by the media, esp Faux
Steve Benen is a national treasure for doing that weekly list on Willard’s lies.
And, everything email related is an unforced error on Hillary’s part, and I could care less.
I think it really does make a difference that McCarthy admitted what people who are paying attention already know. It changes the narrative and at least gives the Clinton campaign some ammo to fight back against the charge of her “deceitfulness.”
In drama, two types of characters are the Villain and the Victim. The admission makes Clinton look more the latter and less the former. Being seen as victim gets her more sympathy.
The remarkable thing to me is that she has released years of emails, and what have they got on her? Really very little. Gefilte fish? Could you imagine any of the GOP candidates (or just about anybody) disclosing so much and looking so squeaky clean?
It won’t help Hillary in the slightest, except when she actually appears before that shamfest.
More importantly, though, it doesn’t hurt McCarthy. He doesn’t give a fuck about Hillary. He wants the gavel.
It won’t help Hillary and it won’t hurt McCarthy, true.
It might stop the investigation, however.
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/09/30/democrats-call-benghazi-investigation-mccarthy-admits-fraud.h
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Would be great if the story gained traction. Will the NY Times or the Washington Post give it more than a brief mention?
The bumbling Inspector Clouseaus of the political reporting class should now be on notice that “partisan rigging of congressional investigations” is something that both sides (!) agree on as touching the endless Benghazi! investigations.
No, it won’t end the charade, but Democrats should bring it up every so often, just to remind the somnambulent bulldogs of the Fourth Estate that what they are witnessing is not an investigation, but a slow-motion political hit job.
The Republican Party is in freefall. The party that put Boehner in as Speaker of the House no longer exists. The fact that some members of the existing Republican Party cheered wildly when Boehner resigned is a pretty clear sign of the disarray.
They brought this on themselves. They invited and encouraged the nutball Teaparty to come in, gave them seats at the grownups table, and now they realize that the unruly kids are shitty little monsters who never understood the word “no”. And baby, that ship has sailed. There is no turning back.
So now they have engaged with the likes of Trump and Carson. There is not one candidate with a bit of sense. They are running on rage and corporate funding; they could not care less about the American public.
Let them fight it out amongst themselves. I hope it gets good and bloody.
Interesting comments.
Why is it, since Trump is so insane, that he has put himself in his current position? What specific thing has he said which has found a voice.
Immigration. The American people do not support this open-borders crap that the Dems are spewing.
Trump’s followers != the American people
We do not have open borders, and no candidate is campaigning on creating open borders. Way to internalize right-wing talking points, though.
Re. your claim that the general electorate is agitated beyond retrieval on the issue of immigration policy, how do you explain President Obama’s electoral stompings of McCain and Romney?
I am continually amazed that people believe:
A well-executed poll is predictive of future electoral outcomes. The further out the poll is, the less predictive it is. A series of well-run polls are much more predictive, particularly when a good analyst can help by bringing in historical precedents to supplement the poll info.
It is amusing, though, to see you upthread supporting your extremely restrictive immigration policy preferences by trumpeting Trump’s leading poll numbers, and warning our movement and the Democratic Party of dire electoral prospects unless we/they sign onto your program.
You might want to pick a side there.
Additionally, you claim voters do not make decisions based on their views on issues, yet you claim that they do/will vote in response to your/their views on immigration policy.
I think that’s an issue, isn’t it?
Yes, there is a bit of an inconsistency. I’m thinking about that.
Suffice it to say, for the moment, that Trump has not run on an issue so much as found an issue that a lot of people already believe in, and articulated it clearly. Thus, he is leading in the polls not by principle but by following the crowd. The issue existed – he just identified it.
It’s not the same as principled leadership, to be sure. It’s politics, however.
To draw the point most accurately, Trump’s leading poll position has him drawing support from approximately a quarter of the Republican party base in a 15-candidate race. We don’t even have evidence that Trump can gain a majority of the Republican vote.
And then, if we speculate that Trump will gain that majority and make it to the general election, his clear articulation of the issue you care about most has earned him very poor poll numbers among the general electorate. Some progressives fret about Hillary’s relatively high negative poll numbers with the general electorate, and discount that Trump’s negative poll numbers with the general electorate are much higher than Hillary and every other 2016 POTUS candidate.
Correct. However, the trend lines over the summer were increasingly unfavorable for Clinton and decreasingly unfavorable for Trump. Most recent polls suggest that her slide and his ascent may have hit the her trough and his peak and either could reverse. The November polls will supply answers.
You’re heading in the right direction here. Trump peaked wayyy too early. He may have enough fumes in his gas tank filled with xenophobia, celebrity and loony entertainment value to create some intrigue during the primaries, but his campaign has no plan to win that I can identify, from GOTV organization on down.
Re. Hillary, she’s always been an extremely polarizing politician. We knew that her approval/disapproval numbers would plummet from approvals in the 60’s and 70’s. She’s far from a universally beloved figure.
I feel that the Republicans have done her a favor by putting all their eggs in the Benghazi/email basket. McCarthy just threw a big bucket of water on that rhetorical fire the GOP and mass media has kept burning hot all summer.
Besides, that was a fire that was always going to burn out well before November 2016. What, realistically, could be in Hillary’s emails re. Benghazi that would hurt her POTUS candidacy? By talking incessantly about emails, it’s taken Republicans and the media far, far away from the deaths of four Americans, and anything else Americans care about, other than rank gossip. At some point the Republicans will be made to defend the repellent policy goals of their nominee.
The Benghazi investigation is one of the longest Congressional investigations in American history. And they’ve got nothing.
I do believe that if we include a Special Prosecutors as part of a congressional investigation that “Whitewater” went on for far longer (1992-2000).
The Benghazi “investigations” are political junk food for RWNJs. Like junk food, it’s calories with little to no nutritional, but once the feeling of satiety wears off, the eater requires more of the same. Republicans, or at least the leaders and elites, understand that their monster must be continuously fed or the hordes could wake up and realize that they are the marks.
These investigations are also a dumb person’s idea of how the Nixon dirty tricks conspiracies were uncovered. As if it had been Democrats perceiving a pile of shit and immediately began digging for a pony that must be under it. The reality was that Congress only started to look after Watergate burglars were convicted and then squealed enough that Congress was duty bound to follow up on the thread. And even then after explosive revelations and the resignations of most of Nixon’s inner circle were content to pass the ball to a special prosecutor that Nixon retained some control over. Each step in the process exposed more nefarious doings that had to be looked at. While seemingly moving at a glacial pace in real time, it was only two years from the break-in to Nixon’s resignation, and it was almost a year after the break-in before Congress held a hearing.
They’ve been at the Benghazi thing for three years now. And like the Whiteewater investigations have managed to stumble on a kernel that they’re too stupid to know what to do with because that wouldn’t serve their objective to take down Clinton, Obama, etc. (Should amend that “too stupid” description because in both cases pulling on the thread of the kernel that was in the public’s interest would have exposed as much or more incompetence and corruption on the part of Republicans. There was surely some awareness of that wrt to Whitewater, but this crop of Republicans seem to be authentically stupid.)
IMHO, the GOP has gotten as much as they possibly can from their “investigations” and now will begin to lose points as they carry on with it.
I’m reading “The invisible bridge,” and am at this point just about where the investigations were taking off. Of course, I lived through it. I remember, at my summer job where I worked with my brother making political buttons (yep), we listened to the Nixon resignation speech. Pretty amazing stuff.
With Nixon, it only started to catch fire when Howard Baker, a genuine hero and an upright and honest Republican senator from Tennessee, got on the same page as Sam Ervin. You are never gonna see a single Democrat doing that. Pelosi should tell them all to stop attending.
That was in ’74. In May ’73 we had the Watergate hearings — networks live and replayed each evening on PBS. That was the definition of “much watch TV.” In between — Oct ’73 — was the Saturday Night Massacre.
Of course for those that detected the stench of Nixon in the burglary, we followed the print news through the trial of the burglars. When Sirica was assigned the case a friend of mine, a legal aid attorney manager, clued us in to his nickname in the legal community, Maximum John. Might be one of the rare occasions when defense attorneys gave out a little cheer at his selection.
Agree with you on the timing. I think the rust is showing through the tinny sheen at this point. He is dropping a bit, and needs to find a new outrage to comment on.
I think Carly is also not going to do well.
At this point, I am thinking that Kasich or Rubio are looking to make a bit of a move. The question is who can find the chink in the Donald’s armor, and who can find the right line to exploit it?
What I expect is that one (or more) of the “lessers” will sign on as a “Kamikazi pilot” — for a future reward, of course. An attempt was made using Jindal, but he was far too “lesser.” Bush, Rubio, and Kasich have to keep their powder dry; although Kasich could go a bit further than Bush or Rubio. As Fiorina scored points in the last one against Trump, they’ll let Trump go after her next time with the hope that both are bloodied.
The three week post debate polls will inform them as to where they go from there. If Trump is still standing, need another and better fighter.
Issues have more or less influence on voters depending on (a) the times (b) the issues (c) the voters.
We are well past the period of time when that supposedly timeless axiom came down from heaven, but it is still repeated over and over. In these times, certain basic issues (mainly related to economic and social inequality) are having a big influence on a large number of voters.
It’s an admission of government waste, fraud, and abuse by House Republicans.
The use of federal dollars for electioneering by House Republicans.
Only idiots ever accepted or were suspicious about Clinton’s actions/responses to the attack in Benghazi. A shame those idiots just love having their anger stoked and fed with no there there theater.
Right, and it’s harmful to the GOP only to the extent that anyone took seriously the allegations. Perhaps it makes it a bit harder for the grey lady to print stories on that issue, but it won’t stop them from making stuff up about e-mails or whatever else they decide to go after her for.
I am having a hard time remembering an administration that has been less scadal free than Obama’s. Unless I missed something, no indictments, forced resignations, tortured apologies, Etc.. Nada. Nothing.
Benghazi was as close as they came, and then it went the way of the other fabricated nonsense such as birth certificates and Rev Wright.
So two things; 1) the Right doesn’t care if there were any real scandals when they can make up their own (or have it forced on them as the fake PP video was) and 2) they just gave away the one scandal that might have had the teeny tiniest of merits when they revealed it was all about tarnishing HRC and it didn’t work.
And no I don’t think Benghazi had real merits. Maybe greater more capable people could have lessened the disaster (and following dust up) a little better, but not by much.
In real time, administration scandals before Nixon were relatively few and far between. In the personal private arena back then the bar was high — evidence of dead girl or live boy. The internet has made it easier to collect evidence and the bar has been lowered to extra-marital sexual activity of any sort — including dick pics.
OTOH, the bar on campaign and administrative corruption has been raised. In part because there’s a much wider zone of fuzziness between totally legal and quid pro quo.
That said, the Obama administration is uncommonly clean/non-corrupt. I’ll give Obama credit for this because it’s one of those cultural things that is set by the top guy. And I believe this played an unconscious perceptual role in his re-election. Americans do appreciate a no-scandal administration even if they can’t articulate this factor in their decision making process.