I watched more of the testimony than I care to admit. They’re saying that Blumenthal, a non-government person with business interests in Libya, was Clinton’s main source of information on the area. That she highly valued his information while ignoring requests for more security at the embassy.
I’ll grant you, this whole thing is weak. I think the state dept. probably did not handle the situation to the best of their ability, but this investigation is, predictably, going nowhere.
Meh. What does a CR have to do with the attacks at Benghazi? As far as I can tell, we weren’t operating under one on September 11, 2012. Yet some Democrats on the panel are whining about that.
If we all dispense with the illusion that this is meant to do anything other than discredit Hillary Clinton then everything makes sense. And regardless of her “performance” or supposed adultness, she’s getting hurt up there. When Americans died, the right messaging was her top priority in the aftermath.
By the way – any supposed “free-fall” for Hillary (if there ever was one) appears to have ended a week or two ago, or even more.
Yes it has. She may have finally hit bottom. The problem for her is that Sanders may not have peaked and her Republican opponents haven’t either. She’s stuck around 47% in the primaries and 45% in the general election. Those numbers have to go up for her to become President.
So judging by the responses from both the liberal and conservative posters here, we can unanimously agree that mentions of Blumenthal are the 2015 equivalent of Swiftboating.
Glad we got that settled.
Swift Boating is a different type of thing. This is more like what Reid did to Romney.
There are no more voters for Sanders to get – he can only go up at Hillary’s expense. So if she’s “hit bottom”, then she wins the primary. As far as the general election, polling this early (for the general) is pretty meaningless, according to Nate Silver.
Actually, no she won’t. Her national share of the Democratic vote is less than a majority. If Sanders wins IA and NH, he’ll get a bump for sure, which could put him over Clinton.
Right now, 55% of Democratic voters are not voting for Clinton. Granted, Sanders needs to win like 90% of them to beat Clinton, but it’s not impossible if polls keep on showing him as stronger against Republicans(a bunch out of Wisconsin today once again showed him outperforming Clinton), and if he wins the first two contests.
At least the Reid/Romney thing was comprehensible. “Presidential candidate didn’t pay taxes!” is at least a matter that should be of public concern. “Presidential candidate got emails from an associate!” is baffling as to why that is bad.
“Presidential candidate was more concerned about making sure she didn’t look bad than finding out the truth about how Americans died.” is pretty easy to understand, and quite relevant.
The fact that the Republicans are out to get her doesn’t mean there isn’t something to get her for.
Not sure if this is so. Got a cite (polls without Biden)?
Possible, but seems less and less likely, based on the polling.
I’m not being partisan here, I just have no clue what your quote has anything to do with Blumenthal. At all. It’s a total non sequitur.
Only for IA and Wisconsin at this point, and those do show Clinton still under a majority of the vote, but nationally, no post-Biden polls yet.
Not when you consider that Clinton had plenty of time for someone that Obama had barred from working at the State Department, but no time for Amb. Stevens.
There’s no reason to believe she had “no time” for Stevens.
That’s exactly what they are grilling her over: she was in close contact with a guy Obama didn’t want in the State Dept, but leaving Stevens to underlings.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/22/high-stakes-for-clinton-in-benghazi-committee-appearance/
Her uniquely Clintonian approach to answering questions about Blumenthal isn’t helping her image:
That’s what they want to be grilling her over, but it’s not true – she had many discussions with Stevens, just not by email. Most of her work wasn’t done by email – there were discussions by phone, or when more security was needed, by the special State department secure couriers. She happened to communicate with her buddy Sid by email, for the most part, and communicated by other means with most of her ambassadors.
Do these two ideas have anything to do with each other?
At least from following the live-blog, this panel seems to be going incredibly badly for the Republicans. They really have absolutely nothing, it seems to me.