Tell me another one, guys.
Republicans, we're told, have put on their Very Serious Frowny Faces in response to House majority leader and probable next speaker Kevin McCarthy telling the truth: that the Benghazi Committee has been
a success for Republicans because it has hurt Hillary Clinton's standing in polls. This is not the sort of thing you're supposed to say publicly, even when everyone know it's true, so McCarthy's fellow Republicans sauntered out about a day after McCarthy's comments to deny it all.
Speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room," Chaffetz, R-Utah, said McCarthy should apologize, saying the California Republican made an "absolutely inappropriate statement."
"That was not the reason we started. We started because there were four dead Americans and we didn't have answers," Chaffetz said.
They didn't have answers, eh? A series of previous investigations,
including one from the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, was not enough to know what they were going to know, and the matter required a $4 million special committee? Pardon my skepticism.
The media, of course, will dutifully write down all the Republican claims to disapprove of what McCarthy said, not noting that the real disapproval is of the fact that he said it in public, not of the substance. Take this, from CNN:
Privately, Republicans were outraged by the remarks, saying the House majority leader had given Democrats unfounded ammunition to argue that the committee's investigation is squarely being driven by politics. Republicans on the committee had tried for months to keep the focus of the inquiry on the administration's handling of the attacks, avoiding getting into the ins and outs of the various aspects on the email stories.
"Privately, Republicans were outraged." Why not publicly? Why is this an issue where they get to be anonymous?
"The House majority leader had given Democrats unfounded ammunition." Unfounded, really? And "Republicans on the committee had tried for months to keep the focus of the inquiry on the administration's handling of the attacks ... " Um, yeah. Let's take a look back at something the Benghazi Committee's Democrats pointed out back in July:
At the beginning of this year, Select Committee Republicans provided Democrats with detailed information about their plans to hold 11 hearings between January and October on a wide range of topics relating to the Benghazi attacks. Since then, however, Republicans have completely abandoned this plan — holding no hearings at all since January and instead focusing on former Secretary Hillary Clinton. Amazingly, the last eight press releases on the Select Committee's webpage deal entirely with Secretary Clinton.
Tell me again how it's unfounded to suggest that this committee is focused on damaging Hillary Clinton and its Republican members have valiantly sought not to politicize it. What a total load of crap. And of course Republicans are saying it, but that's when a news organization needs to point out that, y'know, there's solid reason to believe that these anonymous Republicans are saying what's politically expedient, and that there's good reason to see McCarthy's comments, however tactless, as closer to reality. But of course that's not how most of our media works.