Why Hillary is more like Dutch than Dukakis
SOURCE: US STATE DEPARTMENT
Correction: Thanks to the reader who astutely noted that I had confused John Wayne’s nickname with Ronald Reagan’s nickname.
I’m sure that somewhere inside the complex psychological machinery of the Republican-Conservative movement, the idea of fixating on the White House’s handling of the Benghazi attacks makes perfect sense.
In general terms, great scandals work because they fit a larger narrative, connecting dots in ways that can seriously damage a politician’s image.
Michael Dukakis in that goofy What Me Worry tank helmet served as a kind of focal point for people’s anxieties about his strength, his capacities as a potential commander in chief.
On the other hand, Ronald Reagan’s poorly-conceived decision to station Marines in Lebanon in 1983 — which led to the deaths of 220 American service members in a terror attack — had little impact on his reputation.
Within the conservative movement, there is an abiding conviction that Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are more like Dukakis than Reagan.
In their view, the obvious errors that left Americans vulnerable in Libya, and the muddled communication from the White House that followed the deadly attacks, are a peg upon which a great basket of assumptions hang.
For large swaths of the Republican base, Benghazi has become just that kind of rallying cry. Put bluntly, it worked — at least on a limited basis.
In that world, proof now exists that Democratic weakness on issues of terrorism and radical Islam led directly to death for Americans.
But things have changed in Washington.
For one thing, the old Swift Boat mechanisms that used to send these kind of attacks viraling through the broader culture have grown creaky. The mainstream media is more leery of the Drudge Report and Fox News spin.
Rush Limbaugh is more of a kazoo than an amplifier.
A lot of conservative sources have thrown out so many crazy ideas — about birth certificates, Manchurian plots, secret Islamic loyalties, post-colonial vendettas, etc. — that their credibility on an issue like Benghazi is thin.
Meanwhile, polls show that Americans are generally pretty happy with Mr. Obama’s foreign policy agenda. He led on that issue through much of the presidential campaign last year.
Republicans are also struggling with the fact that they have no solid foreign policy agenda to provide a foundation for their attacks against Clinton.
So maybe the State Department screwed up? Fair enough.
But what would you be doing differently in the Middle East? And are you really claiming that in a region that chaotic, you would never make mistakes, never drop a ball, never lose a life?
As the gang that preached WMDs and the imminent democratization of the Arab world, can you really claim that kind of infallibility?
In the end, it boils down to this: For the moment at least, Hillary Rodham Clinton remains the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, if she chooses to seek the White House.
She is one of the most powerful and popular political brands in the country.
To plant Dukakis’s helmet on her head will be no easy task, particularly for a bunch of guys from Congress (approval rating 9%) who most Americans don’t recognize.
My favorite moment in yesterday’s hearings was Rand Paul’s, “If I were president, I’d have asked for your resignation.” As if!
It reminded me of the Cowardly Lion’s “If I were King of the Forest… I’d command each thing, be it fish or fowl/ With a woof and a woof and a royal growl / woof.”
But also reminds me that Paul will probably run for his party’s nomination in 2016. Can’t wait. Just like Santorum drew Romney into a tea-party dance that haunted him once he got the nomination, Paul will do the same–perhaps with Santorum on accompaniment–to Jeb Bush or Chris Christie.
I only hope the Republicans leading this witch hunt will at some point address the real issue that should be front and center in these hearings. That is what went wrong in Libya and how can we prevent it from happening again? Instead we have the usual whiny, still bent at losing the election in in’08 McCain, playing politics as usual and the other couple of nit wit Tea Party types falling in line lock step. It appears to me anyway that they’re simply using the tragedy to wound Hilary any way they can. It’s this type of “got you” behavior that I think the public is sick and tired of observing from the members of Congress.
“Meanwhile, polls show that Americans are generally pretty happy with Mr. Obama’s foreign policy agenda.”
It is what the media allows it to be. Nothing more. Nothing less.
JDM –
First, no. That’s just lazy. Conservatives have the highest rated TV cable network, the highest rated radio network, the most successful national newspaper (WSJ), the most popular news web site (Drudge) and highly-funded conservative think tanks and non-profits that spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year on advertising and influence campaigns.
These head fakes matter, not because they hurt liberals or Democrats or media folks like myself. They matter because they’re preventing conservatives (like yourself) from thinking through your political situation. Why are Americans increasingly comfortable with Democrats as national security and foreign policy leaders?
It’s an important question.
But if every time things like this come up you say either a) people who disagree with you are stupid and uninformed or b) the majority of Americans are so gullible that they’re being misled by a sinister media cabal, it short circuits more interesting discussion.
— Brian, n CPR
It is not an issue that will stick very long. I think if that is the best they can come up with for a policy critique they are in trouble. This is a technical issue, a screw up at the worst, things did not happen as they were supposed to happen on this particular night.
However the broader narrative is positive in Libya. Libya used to be one of our main enemies, it was a country that we have come close to going to war with over the years, led by a man who many thought was literally mentally ill.
That regime is now gone, it also is now gone without major US troops being used or killed. So the broad narrative there is very positive, this was an event problem not one of policy.
Brian, you have to stop thinking of North Africa as the Middle East. There is certainly political, cultural, and economic spill-over but we have to start thinking of the whole continent of Africa in a more nuanced way.
Africa, Saharan, sub-Saharan, east, west and middle, is a powderkeg that has been on fire for a long time now. Americans need to start learning more about the complex economics and politics of the region so we can try to head off a lot of explosions.
Al Qaeda and the like have once again gotten the jump on us in seeing opportunity for causing trouble because we dont pay attention. Hillary’s strength is that she has really worked hard and has been paying attention to the whole world. Republicans should stop trying to score points and start pulling together with the team.
I was very surprised at all the press that Hillary Clinton’s “outburst” got yesterday. There seemed to be lots of media that covered it as some kind of moment of strength for her. Personally I like to see her or any other woman stand up and not take any crap from anybody but this particular statement seemed nonsensical:
“With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans! Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.” – Clinton shouting over Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson.
What difference does it make what happened? Then it is our job to figure out what happened?
Say what???? Most of the media didn’t seem to care that this was nonsense. They just thought it was cool to see her yell at the Senator.
“Why are Americans increasingly comfortable with Democrats as national security and foreign policy leaders? ” Because since 9/11 we have not been attacked. Simple as that. Any of these smouldering powder kegs goes off and really affects America they will go down the tubes. That is why we have Gitmo, that is why we have drones, that is why we have secret detention centers…….. If the crazy North Koreans even shoot an empty one of these rockets that can go 6200 miles into California (anywhere even if into the water off the coast) the approval rating will slip about 50 points overnight.
Well on the other side I think if she were a man that would have been considered no big deal. When ever women jn power even raise their voice it is this big media event. I listened to it, I didn’t consider it that big of an “outburst” at all.
Even though, of course she does not want to talk about it! It’s a classic defensive move and it would have been fine for the guy to push back to get at the details a little.
Paul-
The Senator deserved to be yelled at.
There used to be this thing called “shame.” And when adults acted like 5-year-olds or said or did something so transparently uninformed and petulant, they had the decency to slither off.
Now, they just go on Fox News and thump their collective chest.
She didn’t put it very eloquently, but what she was saying was that the initial confusion about who did this does not change anything. We still have to figure it out, whether they were protesters, hoodlums, or terrorists.
She is right of course. The confusion over what exactly happened in the aftermath of the attack is inconsequential to how we proceed “at this point” – the part of her quote conservative media keeps leaving out.
But people are trying to drum up political controversy, and trying to have an “Ah ha! Caught ya!” moment – so I guess they will play their games.
4 people are dead, we need to find those responsible, and we need to better protect our assets abroad. None of that changes based on what some people thought happened in the hours immediately following the attack.
Dave, conservative media? I think I heard the quote on NPR? Not positive, certainly not any outlet that was really spinning it. I just found the contents to be nonsense. She wasn’t talking about the aftermath she was talking about who did it and how did it happen. I think that does probably matter. Like I said she said so much herself in the second half of that quote.
“part of a protest” or some “guys out for a walk”. As I understand it maybe it wasn’t either but a planned attack?
If you don’t understand what happened how can you prevent it from happening again? She says that is the goal.
Johnathan, why? What did he ask that was so unreasonable?
“I listened to it, I didn’t consider it that big of an “outburst” at all.”
I didn’t either. The media certainly did.
Passion is a good thing. I am just sorry that what she said seemed like nonsense. She doesn’t deserve a pass on it just for being a woman nor do I think that she would want one.
She seems like a tough bird and is usually very articulate. I voted for her when she ran for the senate here in NY.
What I wonder is how much of that outrage from the republican senators is real and how much is posturing for 2016 . I’d like to credit some of them with motives that aren’t purely cynical but they haven’t really made a case for what her failure was. The state department relied on the militias for security which it turns out was a bad idea. Is that a scandal?
Part of the reason you have to push a little on it as it does go to prevention the next time around. The motives for the attack and how it happened and why we didn’t seem to understand any of the attack when it happened as evidenced by how we officially spoke about it, I think are legitimate areas of investigation.
I don’t think it was some huge cover up though or some secret, which is what it seems some of the Republicans are acting like.
Paul, she was absolutely talking about the aftermath. Go look at the question she was responding to. It was a question about the information confusion in the aftermath. She wasn’t just thinking aloud, her words were in response to a question… And trying to interpret them outside of that context is meaningless
“Meanwhile, polls show that Americans are generally pretty happy with Mr. Obama’s foreign policy agenda.”
He has one?
People have very short memories. Hillary Clinton has plenty of experience dealing with scandals. For those who may have forgotten:
Whitewater
Cattle futures
Vincent Foster
disturbing- they grill hillary, and give the wall street bankers a pass….
which do i think affected me more personnally? benghazi or the bankers?
i would like to see the mortage men nailed to a wall.
deal with hillary when/if she runs.
That’s right I forgot she murdered Vince Foster.
I’m gonna go off in a different direction here. As a left-leaning Democrat, I don’t want Hillary to be my candidate for president …ever. You can call her (and Bill) centrist if you like but I call her a Republican War Hawk . She personifies America’s too aggressive, too offensive, and too expensive, world cop attitude, and I think we need to leave all that in the past. Tough negotiating is good…to a point, but always coming to the table armed just leads to a fight down the road. American militarism hasn’t accomplished ANYTHING since world war two. Endless sanctions against Iran has only starved an otherwise friendly population; our policy in Korea is going no where; and we support Israel,the second most belligerent state in the Mid-east next to Syria, no matter what they do.
A lot of this pre-dates Hillary I know, but she hasn’t changed the wrong headed directions that were followed under Bush.
Dave, I heard the full context. He was asking why her office wasn’t able to immediately discover whether the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya were executed by terrorists or spontaneous protesters. That seems like a legitimate question. That is the context. And I quoted the entire answer. She didn’t even answer the question. Look at what she said again. It was loud but out of character for her to say something that made almost no sense.
vince foster! amazing!
“And I quoted the entire answer”
Paul, when you type something like this… something that is entirely not true… is it because you yourself were mislead by another source, or because you are trying to mislead? That is an honest question, because you do it quite often. You say things as if they are statements of fact, when 2 minutes of free time and access to google.com would allow you to check your own statement.
You did NOT quote her entire answer. In fact, you left out roughly half of her answer… and she DID answer this question (which again was about the confusion of the aftermath)
Picking up where you cut it off mid-answer, the transcript reads:
“Clinton: . . . Now honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. The IC has a process I understand going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out. But you know, to be clear it is from my perspective less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on the meantime.
Johnson : Okay, thank you Madame Secretary.”
By the way, we also found out today, in Senator Kerry’s hearing, that Senator Johnson missed the classified briefing about the Benghazi attacks.
Maybe he’d have a better understanding about all of this if he was actually attending the briefings where the information is presented.
Who’s Duke?
Do you mean Dutch?
Out of what? 5 hours of testimony the big news is that Hillary had one moment of exasperation?
And that is the big topic on this blog. We are all idiots, the politicians, the bureaucracy, the media, the public, everyone.
That’s right, Vincent Foster, and all the other unanswered questions as well. Hillary Clinton has a sordid and unsavory past and the passage of 20 years doesn’t remove that.
I’m simply appalled. “But what would you be doing differently in the Middle East? And are you really claiming that in a region that chaotic, you would never make mistakes, never drop a ball, never lose a life?” Gee Brian, is that what the question is? If so, then what does anything matter? Does it matter if Bush was right about WMD in Iraq? Does it matter if BP was negligent in the spill? Does it matter if Obama was actually born in the US? Does anything matter? You can’t possibly be seriously saying that crap happens, let it go. To do so is to completely ignore questions like why was Stevens even in Benghazi int he first place, who gave the order to stand down the rescue attempts, was there real time video and why did the administration continue to claim it was the result of a video on You Tube no one had ever heard of before for weeks afterward? Why have none of the people named as being ball holders been fired? Why are top generals familiar with the area and operations talking about secret arms deals? I mean, really, stuff happens, let it go? You’re echoing the same thing said by people who still want Bush/Cheney on trial for war crimes for prosecuting the same wars Obama has and for using the same torture, for operating the same secret detention centers and Gitmo. Hypocrisy is the term that jumps to mind.
What is clear in all this is that Hillary will be given a pass for whatever she does or doesn’t do by the media and left.
hillary is a polarizing individual. ignore her till she starts the campaign for 2016, personally i think she’s not gonna run, to much money on the lecture circuit to be enticed b y the presidency, wich has got to be the crappiest job opening in the country. let cuomo and christie duke it out.
ps. senator johnson is a bigger tool than beohner as it turns out.
i want blood from wallstreet, with intrest.
knuck, you’re right we are all idiots if we let this obfuscate the bigger picture. the american public was calculatedly robbed. they all belong in a cell next to bernie.
instead we have a new watchdog appointed, way to keep government small.
We have to accept certain facts about these jihadist. They are nuts who would rather kill people than work for a living. They are little boys who imagine they are men because they have a gun. You cannot deal rationally with them and your only option is to kill them.
Yes, they are dangerous but dangerous precisely because they are crazy.
I enjoyed watching these Republican couch potatoes get slapped around by Hillary. These cowards in suits should put on uniforms and prove how big and bad they think they are. How many of them have the courage to be a diplomat? Or would they in their imagined world say we should close all our embassies out of fear someone might get killed?
Maybe station a couple of thousand troops at our embassies to prove what cowards we are? And if that were a solution, would we object to having a couple of thousand foreign troops guarding foreign embassies in the USA?
Dave, the big news story and what was being shown in the media was the quote that I copied. It wasn’t me chopping that part out. It was all the news outlets where I heard the quote. NPR included. When you look at that quote that everyone was throwing around (again not me) it looked silly. Obviously you have a different opinion.
We can talk about the rest of the answer as well. Why does she think that – “from my perspective less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it”
Seems important to me. The best way to prevent a terrorist from doing something like this is to know why he did it. No?
In fact it was the administration that was focusing much of their attention after the incident on what had sparked the attack. As I understand it Hillary told the father of one of the dead seals when she met his sons casket at Andrews that we would find the people who made the anti-Islamist video and punish them?
Brian Mann: “a) people who disagree with you are stupid and uninformed”
Better that than people who do agree with me.
In response to your greater point, it seems that although “smart and informed people” do listen to the highly rated news media you mentioned, they are not in the majority, anymore.
The majority either gets its news from tainted sources, or have no interest in educating themselves with adult matters. Hence, the moniker, “low information voters”.
There are “tainted” news sources. There are reporters who have stopped searching for truth, where ever it may lie, and seek only for “convenient” truth, or even put forth falsehoods to be part of the “in” crowd.
And being “progressive” doesn’t allow anyone to claim the high ground.
Many Inbox’ers are plenty capable of name calling their opposition.
Another reason why being “progressive” isn’t the next best step in evolution.
do we really need her to state she knows “why they did it ” or do you think she’ll say she failed if you keep the heat on?
everyone knows why they did it. they hate us.
“know” this to prevent it from happening, and expect it to happen anytime it can.
nothing like a bunch of suits pretending to know anything about something, when its clear they don’t.
posers, all of them, and hillary too.
I don’t think someone like John McCain is just a “suit” who doesn’t know anything?
“The best way to prevent a terrorist from doing something like this is to know why he did it.”
How does that work, Paul? Let’s say they did it because they hate America. Then what? How do you prevent it, based on that?
So the only thing we should focus on is security? That is one way to do it.
Kind of like what the NRA wants to see us do in the schools.
Why would you be appalled, RC? The Clintons have never made a secret of their willingness to bend the truth or to sacrifice principles for personal ambition. The continuing liberal love affair with both of them shows their choices to be shrewd and self-serving, if not admirable.
john mccain’s whole claim to fame is he was a prisoner of war. is that the same as an ambassador?
remember when he sang “b-bomb bomb b-bomb iran?”
that was hillarious
he’s a dinosuar.
everyone likes colin powell no?
he was in the military.
he was a cabinet member.
anyone hear what he said about benghazi?
i’ll go along with his opinion, rather than mccain’s
“remember when he sang “b-bomb bomb b-bomb iran?”
that was hillarious”
That was funny. I also like Colin Powell.
In one interview that I saw Powell said that he thought that maybe we should not of even had these diplomats there. Not a bad idea. Much different than the state department and secretary Clinton.
McCain doesn’t really have an opinion on Bengazi, I think he was waiting to form one. It sounds like he just would prefer that we get answers instead of obfuscation.
Personally , I think JDM is kind of cute when (s)he gets all worked up.
but is McCain’s outrage real if he doesnt have an opinion? Im sure he has been given all the information that they have. (he missed a couple of briefings too).
Peter, that may be. Maybe he is outraged that he isn’t getting the information he wants. Like you said maybe he missed something. Don’t they get transcripts to read also? as I understand it some of the reports that the secretary got she didn’t read? There seems to be agreement that we did something wrong.
Larry, I was appalled at Brians assertion that it just doesn’t matter. I thought he was a military brat that would understand honor and duty.
Two Cents, that dinosaur conducted himself with honor and dignity as a POW and underwent torture that left him physically wrecked. I don’t have a lot of love for the man as a politician, but your dismissal of his actions is insulting, mean spirited, small and makes you look none too bright. In short, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Pete Klein, I forget, which war was it you served in where you won all those medals in combat that qualify you to judge other peoples courage from the comfort of your keyboard? In fact I forget what branch you served in altogether, which one was it?