Replies to post #210150 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BOREALIS]

Darrell Issa’s pathetic, error-laden obsession continues

At his latest Benghazi hearing, the GOP oversight czar quickly had to retract a central “coverup” claim. Oops



By Joan Walsh
Thursday, Sep 19, 2013 12:49 PM CST

Elijah Cummings, Darrell Issa (Credit: Reuters/Jose Luis Magaua)

All you really need to know about Darrell Issa’s renewed crusade to get the “truth” about last year’s Benghazi attacks is that his report on the alleged Accountability Review Board “whitewash” mentions former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 33 times.

Oh, and it also got a key fact or two wrong. At least.

On Thursday the ARB chairs, Adm. Mike Mullen and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, testified at a House Oversight Committee hearing arranged to promote Issa’s newest “scandal”: his claim that the ARB protected Clinton from responsibility in the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the Benghazi compound last year. (Issa does not appear to realize that Clinton immediately and repeatedly took full and public responsibility for the deaths.)

Sadly for Issa, he immediately had to retract one of his report’s most inflammatory charges: that Mullen had “undermined” the review board’s credibility by giving State Department Chief of Staff (and longtime Clinton aide) Cheryl Mills an inappropriate “heads up” before her testimony to the ARB. In fact, Mullen testified to the Oversight Committee that he had notified Mills about the planned congressional testimony of another State Department official, Charlene Lamb (who was ultimately among four employees singled out for criticism in the ARB report).

Issa called the distortion of Mullen’s actual testimony an unintentional “typo” – even though he’s been hyping it as central to his “whitewash” charges.

Another day, another Darrell Issa embarrassment.

Far from being a “whitewash,” the ARB found fault with the security-related decision-making of four State Department officials, who have since been removed from their posts. But Mullen and Pickering have repeatedly said they found no evidence that any of those individuals passed concerns about Benghazi security to department higher-ups.

Because Pickering spent 42 years at the State Department, Issa accused him of “bias.” In fact such review boards always include principals with experience in the field – the five-member Benghazi ARB included two State Department insiders and three outsiders, including Mullen.

Pickering shot back:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/19/issa-accuses-benghazi-investigator-of-bias/#ixzz2fM7rLHFL

Mr. Chairman, with greatest respect, this was not, quote, a ‘gotcha’ investigative panel. The responsibilities were to provide recommendations to see that we do our best never to let this happen again. Would you choose, put it this way, someone with no experience to come in and investigate and carry forward the work? We used to years ago elect military officers. we stopped that a long time ago. I suspect that brain surgery was one of the most early professionalized occupations in the world. Why would you choose a panel of people who knew nothing about the responsibilities? Nothing about how and in what way they were carried out? The value of this panel was three were from outside and only two of us were from inside, hopefully to give precisely the cross current of controversy, discussion, questioning and examination that you just expressed the hope we had. We, sir, had that.

So far, the hearing seems to be answering one question I’ve had about Issa’s crusade: Why did he wait so long to interview Pickering and Mullen in public? Back in May, both men volunteered to give public testimony to the committee about the ARB process. But Issa declined; he insisted they testify privately. From their private testimony, the GOP majority produced the myth- and error-ridden report they leaked earlier this week. Now, so far in public testimony, Issa has been embarrassed twice – and it’s still early. No wonder he hoped to take his first crack at Pickering and Mullen out of camera range.

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Elijah Cummings, produced a counterreport that documented the distortion of Mullen’s testimony about Cheryl Mills and other such factual errors and leaps of illogic in Issa’s IRB review. (It’s here.)
http://democrats.oversight.house.gov/Status%20Update%20Report%2009-18-13.pdf
Among Cummings’ findings: There was no “stand down” order to the military; Clinton did not personally sign a cable authorizing security reductions to the temporary facility; in fact, officials have been removed from their posts for bad judgment on Benghazi security.

To Issa’s assertion that military help should have been ordered, Mullen replied: “There’s no one I’ve ever met in the military that wouldn’t want to get help there instantly,” [but] “the physics of it, the reality of it, it just wasn’t going to happen for 12 to 20 hours.” Cummings’ report also quotes Pickering explaining that he owed it to Chris Stevens to conduct a thorough review: “Chris gave me two wonderful years of his life in supporting me in very difficult circumstances,” Pickering told the committee in June. “I owed him, his family, and the families of the other people who died the best possible report we could put together.”

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey reveals the right-wing reasoning behind the renewed Benghazi obsession:
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/19/issas-new-effort-on-benghazi-probe-may-include-subpoena-for-hillary-clinton/

[It] will put a lot of public pressure on Hillary to make an appearance at the Oversight hearings, which takes the onus off of Republicans to issue a subpoena. At that point, Issa will issue a public invitation to Hillary to address the issues that have arisen from a multitude of sources about the incompetence and deceit at State during her tenure. If she refuses to appear, that’s not going to look good, regardless of whether she wants to run for office later or not. It won’t prevent Oversight from making a damning case about her leadership at State, either.

Morrissey is right about one thing: Nothing will prevent Issa from making a damning case about Clinton’s leadership, whether or not one exists.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/19/darrell_issas_pathetic_error_laden_obsession_continues/

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[F6]

Darrell Issa (Almost) Successfully Trolls Democrats for Not Caring About Benghazi Victims


With this thumb I thee tweet.
Photo by Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images

By David Weigel
Sept. 20 2013 9:29 AM

It went largely unnoticed, but the House of Representatives held three hearings [ http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/administrations-benghazi-review-board-discredit-themselves-congressional-hearing_756452.html ] on the Benghazi debacle this week. The most revelatory, as Stephen Hayes reports, was a Thursday morning grilling of the authors of the State Department's Accountability and Review Board report, who concluded (as Leon Panetta concluded) that the real-time response was adequate but in vain, given the shoddy organization leading up to Sept. 11, 2012. As Hayes reports, "the ARB did not speak with nine key military officials on the ground in Libya or Germany who were deeply involved in the US response to the attacks," not even Lt. Col. Steven Gibson, who is credited with getting a "stand-down" order that the administration disputes.

Good stuff, all sort of overwhelmed by the trick Darrell Issa pulled after that testimony. After the ARB testimony, which helped build the Republicans' case, the parents of two Benghazi martyrs were called in for their testimony. Pat Smith and Charles Woods, who've appeared in other media to shame Congress and the president for not working hard enough on Benghazi, called on the lower house to call more witnesses. If the House decides to create a special select committee—something leadership hasn't ruled out—we'll surely hear more from these parents. Faced with them, the five Republicans and two Democrats who stuck around the Oversight Committee basically one-upped each other on pathos, with South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy putting in a eulogy/apology worthy of Tennessee Williams [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE0mRbWK7Ws (next below, as embedded)].

At some point during these testimonies, an Issa staffer stood at the back of the room and took a photo, revealing how few Democrats were there. Issa tweeted this, twice [

PHOTO: @OversightDems excuse themselves from testimony of #Benghazi heroes' family members #PJNet pic.twitter.com/NP9u2I2noC

— Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) September 19, 2013

;

After ARB testifies, only 2 @OversightDems decide to stay & hear testimony from family members on 2nd panel PHOTO: pic.twitter.com/zfOjjppU0V

— Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) September 19, 2013

].

Darrell Issa
@DarrellIssa
PHOTO: @OversightDems excuse themselves from testimony of #Benghazi heroes' family members #PJNet pic.twitter.com/NP9u2I2noC
2:23 PM - 19 Sep 2013


Darrell Issa
@DarrellIssa
After ARB testifies, only 2 @OversightDems decide to stay & hear testimony from family members on 2nd panel PHOTO: pic.twitter.com/zfOjjppU0V
2:28 PM - 19 Sep 2013


Notice how Issa softened the accusation in the second tweet—from all "Oversight Dems" to all but two. Didn't matter—the story rocketed around conservative media that, as Fox News put it, Democrats [ http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/09/19/spitting-their-graves-democrats-leave-benghazi-hearing-testimony-families-victims ] were "spitting on the graves" of Benghazi victims by not sitting for the parents' testimonies.

Just how cheap is this story? Well: There are [ http://oversight.house.gov/committee-members/ ] 24 Republicans and 17 Democrats on the committee. Democrats sit on the left, from the witness's perspective; Republicans sit on the right. Here's a screenshot from the moment Gowdy started speaking to Woods and Smith.



There don't seem to be 24 Republicans sitting down for this; there seem to be six of 'em. So does Rep. Patrick McHenry not care about Benghazi victims? Does Rep. Thomas Massie not care about Benghazi victims? Does Rep. Doc Hastings not care about Benghazi victims? No, I'm sure they do, and they'll vote for more investigations if they can, and whether or not they're around for one hearing may not tell us much.

Congressional hearing outrage-manship is not new, but it's easier these days. Democrats turned Sandra Fluke into a star after she spoke in Congress and Rush Limbaugh attacked her; Democrats so successfully trolled Republicans on the bill that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks that the party chose a woman (Rep. Marsha Blackburn) to manage it on the floor, instead of one of the bill's male authors. Issa's goal here was to portray Democrats as callously uninterested in dead Americans, a ready-made outrage-builder, better for his cause than the actual investigative work the panel had done Thursday morning.

© 2013 The Slate Group, LLC

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/09/20/darrell_issa_almost_successfully_trolls_democrats_for_not_caring_about_benghazi.html

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