For John, BLUF: Benghazi isn't going away. Nothing to see here; just move along.
Writing in Vox, Mr Zack Beauchamp (pronounced BEE-chum) gives us "Benghazi is a prisoner's dilemma, and the Republicans are the prisoners".
Or not.
Regards — Cliff
Writing in Vox, Mr Zack Beauchamp (pronounced BEE-chum) gives us "Benghazi is a prisoner's dilemma, and the Republicans are the prisoners".
Or not.
Regards — Cliff
3 comments:
Two things occur: First of all, it's safe to say that both the proverbial prisoners as well as all your allegorical Republicans ought to be cognizant of all the other crimes for which they have been complicit that will also bring penalty in a "confession" scenario. In our "real life" situation, this could include, among many other things, say, the 60 embassy and consulate deaths endured under the Geo W Bush presidency currently receiving no current media attention whatsoever. (Ask me if you want the list in order to satisfy curiosity for the number, and I'll gladly list chapter and verse). However, second of all, it's clear that these "prisoners" confessing to someone else's crime have no real sense of right and wrong, let alone the real and likely consequences to their political reputations for jumping on the Ken Starr memorial bandwagon
These politicians are clearly and purely obsessed with gaining any potential conviction at all of their rival, no matter how trvial, and completely oblivious of the consequences to themselves, their reputations, and their country, no matter how dire.
Perhaps the greatest damage Tricky Dick Nixon ever inflicted on this once great nation is the legacy of our ongoing, overwhelming and prurient fascination with "cover-ups" as opposed to the actual crimes involved. We've clearly lost our ability as a nation to distinguish between dangerous destabilization of our political process, (a la abuse of Presidential power to further abuse rivals), and illegal machinations to pursue illegal wars at the cost of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives, (insert your favorite imbroglio here), from simple blow jobs (poor Monica) and outright incompetence in managing our "intelligence" infrastructure. (Benghazi, the 10 different embassy and consulate attacks under Dubya, "yellow cake" uranium, etc.)
The sad truth is that our soldiers and state department employees deployed overseas (and here at home at places like Fort Hood) daily bear the mortal consequences of the moral failings of all our mendacious politicians and their bungling trampling of both our rights and all reason in their single-minded pursuit of political gain. None of this gets better unless and until we all refuse to play along with their party politics.
To that end, my constructive suggestion is that we all insist on the rejection of the blindly oligarchical and partisan "Commission on Presidential Debates" unless and until they amend their rules to allow fair participation by all candidates who earn the signatures to do so. The longer we run under the single and ostensibly monolithic "R vs D" regime, the shorter our national future will likely be.
Craig and I disagree on the issue of parties, my expectation being that parties, or factions, will always emerge. If the Republican Party in our Commonwealth were to disappear, it would fracture the Mass Democrat Party.
Where we may well agree is on the "Commission on Presidential Debates". They need to be more open. And, the Moderators need to be less political hacks.
Regards — Cliff
It's the not formation of parties, per se, to which I object--it's any obsessed pursuit of political gain ahead of the interest of the constituency. In this way, a Republican or a Democrat arguing about Benghazi in any way that distracts from examining the intelligence failure is working directly against the national interest, and, most importantly, against the loyal service of State Department employees and Armed Services soldiers who bear the brunt of any incompetence or misdirected efforts.
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