U.S. Politics

[Badger]

Considering they couldn't make anyone care that liberals lied about Benghazi, I don't think anyone will care that conservatives lied about it.

Count me among those who didn't care.

[Fenwyr]

Considering they couldn't make anyone care that liberals lied about Benghazi, I don't think anyone will care that conservatives lied about it.

Count me among those who didn't care.

Conservatives lie about stuff?  No f'ing way!

[Badger]

Conservatives lie about stuff?  No f'ing way!

Right, because politics are a fairy tale with good guys and bad guys.

[Fenwyr]

Right, because politics are a fairy tale with good guys and bad guys.

There are good and bad guys on both sides.  I'll be the first to admit that.

[Johnny English]

Considering they couldn't make anyone care that liberals lied about Benghazi, I don't think anyone will care that conservatives lied about it.

Count me among those who didn't care.

What lies did the liberals tell about Benghazi? (Genuine question, it wasn't an especially big story up here as I recall and I didn't follow the US coverage of it very closely.)

[Badger]

What lies did the liberals tell about Benghazi? (Genuine question, it wasn't an especially big story up here as I recall and I didn't follow the US coverage of it very closely.)

There's been a crusade from the Republicans for the last couple years in which they accused the Obama administration of mishandling the situation and trying to cover it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack#Criticism_of_U.S._government_response

I just wanted to point out that the average American, heck, even the average college-educated American didn't give a excrement about Benghazi then, and they certainly don't now. It just never garnered that much attention.

[Johnny English]

There's been a crusade from the Republicans for the last couple years in which they accused the Obama administration of mishandling the situation and trying to cover it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack#Criticism_of_U.S._government_response

I just wanted to point out that the average American, heck, even the average college-educated American didn't give a excrement about Benghazi then, and they certainly don't now. It just never garnered that much attention.

Right, I knew that and that's the point of this report - for all the Republican posturing, their own committee is now saying that actually it wasn't mishandled by the administration at all.

You said that "they couldn't make anyone care that liberals lied about Benghazi" and I'm not sure what lies you meant.

[Badger]

This is awkward because I feel like I'm being asked to defend a position I don't hold.

They were accused of lying about the circumstances of the attack. The cause of it, the handling of it, and even the semantics of what Obama called the attack.

[Johnny English]

This is awkward because I feel like I'm being asked to defend a position I don't hold.

They were accused of lying about the circumstances of the attack. The cause of it, the handling of it, and even the semantics of what Obama called the attack.

I'm not attacking you or asking you to defend anything, as I said I didn't follow the story very closely at the time. I was just asking you to clarify what you meant.

If on deeper inspection it turns out that the Republicans accused the administration of lying about their response to the Benghazi situation as it was developing but in fact this report demonstrates that they weren't, your initial post would rather suggest that the Republicans and their media mouthpieces were actually quite successful if they've left someone who by his own admission is ambivalent with the impression that the administration did in fact lie. Which, in turn, would suggest that it's rather important that the Democrats go on the attack with this report, and demand that the GOP face up to the lies and smears that a committee governed by their own party has now proven to be such.

[Miamipuck]

Much like Badger I really don't care about it in the sense of that it was mishandled. The US Embassy was attacked and that is significant but how it was handled and reported wasn't. It's a typical Republican witch hunt. Obama and others can be criticized ad nauseum but here, meh. They really should bark up a different tree.

JE: The Republicans were successful in the sense that they fired up their own political bases but in reality most of the country with working brain cells thinks Republicans, the tea party component in particular, are a bunch of right wing tools.

[Badger]

I'm not attacking you or asking you to defend anything, as I said I didn't follow the story very closely at the time. I was just asking you to clarify what you meant.

If on deeper inspection it turns out that the Republicans accused the administration of lying about their response to the Benghazi situation as it was developing but in fact this report demonstrates that they weren't, your initial post would rather suggest that the Republicans and their media mouthpieces were actually quite successful if they've left someone who by his own admission is ambivalent with the impression that the administration did in fact lie. Which, in turn, would suggest that it's rather important that the Democrats go on the attack with this report, and demand that the GOP face up to the lies and smears that a committee governed by their own party has now proven to be such.

Of course anyone who lies in the political arena should have to answer for it, and people should know the truth, whatever it is.

My initial reaction of "no one cared then, no one cares now" was based on the notion that being incredibly indignant about Benghazi is a cliche of the average GOP crackpot, to the point where nobody takes it seriously (except for the people who have already cemented themselves in alignment with them).

JE: The Republicans were successful in the sense that they fired up their own political bases but in reality most of the country with working brain cells thinks Republicans, the tea party component in particular, are a bunch of right wing tools.

You got what I meant.

Building on that, I don't know why they waste so much effort on things done to fire up their own political bases (see: VP Sarah Palin). If you're going to cater to the population that didn't think John McCain was Republican enough on his own, you deserve the results you get.

[Johnny English]

OK, maybe I read Badger's comment wrongly or read too much into it, but I took this

they couldn't make anyone care that liberals lied about Benghazi

to mean that it was now an accepted given that the liberals lied but no-one really cared, which would mean that the GOP would have done their job of convincing people who by their own admission don't care of a reality that wasn't the case.

[Badger]

I phrased that poorly. They couldn't make anyone (outside their own base) care about what they were saying.

[AlioTheFool]

I'll be honest, I never paid much attention to the Benghazi story. My take was that the GOP was using it solely for the purpose of having something to discredit Hillary Clinton with, in case she decided to run for President. It happened while she was Secretary of State, so from what I saw, it was a "See what she let happen then tried to cover up!" finger-pointing exercise.

Politics is a mess. It's nothing more than a fight over who gets to keep control over the do-as-little-as-possible DC machine.

On another note, from my Twitter stream, it appears a vote on the debt ceiling will come today/tonight in anticipation of the snowstorm. From what I'm seeing, the GOP has reversed course yet again and will now hold it hostage again.

Who needs good credit standing anyway?

[Johnny English]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/02/11/3277961/republicans-clean-debt-ceiling/