Hillary Clinton? "Baffling" says Camille Paglia

For forty years there has been no Liberal I appreciate more than Camille Paglia.  Readers of this blog have seen me quote or cite her more than once. In fact, she epitomizes everything this blog stands for, she's a free and independent thinker who is never swayed by political party or cults of personality.  She calls it like she sees it.

Certainly we often disagree.  In fact I disagree with her more often than not, but my respect for her is boundless.

She has recently been interviewed by Salon Magazine and that interview is causing a great deal of controversy because of her views of Hillary Clinton.  And on this topic she and I agree completely.  In fact her words concerning Hillary Clinton are so accurate, so profound, so spot on correct, I cannot improve on them by one sentence.

Reprinted below is just a small portion of her interview.  Be sure to read the entire article here: Camille Paglia: “It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton is our party’s best chance”

As a registered Democrat, I am praying for a credible presidential candidate to emerge from the younger tier of politicians in their late 40s. A governor with executive experience would be ideal. It’s time to put my baby-boom generation out to pasture! We’ve had our day and managed to muck up a hell of a lot. It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts.

I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi. In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was.

Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders. It’s even a key motif in “King Lear.” As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?” Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood. The escalating instability not just in Egypt but throughout the Mideast is very ominous. There is a clash of cultures brewing in the world that may take a century or more to resolve — and there is no guarantee that the secular West will win.

Waiting for the Benghazi Shoe to Drop

While my fellow Liberals are either in full denial or full cover-up mode, the truth about the disaster in Benghazi continues to leak out, exactly as I said it would last November, before the election.  It's a painful, slow dripping process that now, obviously, involves a huge CIA cover-up.

Thankfully Jake Tapper, now a headline star at CNN is leading the charge and doing the heavy investigative lifting.  Formerly with ABC News, Tapper is a journalist without a blemish on his record. And he has been both honest and objective about Benghazi since the very beginning.

Until this point the leadership in uncovering this scandal has fallen on Fox News and they've also done a superb job.  But my fellow Liberals always doubt the veracity of Fox and don't trust the network.  Having CNN at the lead adds much needed credibility for the left.

Whatever happened on the ground in Libya the night of September 11, 2012, it was either extremely illegal or would embarrass the USA in the middle east or world community.  The CIA is attempting to cover this up using extreme measures.  Eventually this will emerge as a scandal of monumental proportions.

President Obama could have avoided this entire mess if he had been both candid and honest in the first few days after the murder of our Ambassador and three other Americans.  Certainly he did not have to release any confidential or restricted information. But instead he told a number stupid, bold faced lies and tried to misdirect the public and the press.  He nearly destroyed Susan Rice's career in the process and Hillary Clinton is damaged, too.  In fact, in my opinion, Clinton deserves even more blame the Obama for her part in the bizarre "video" lie and cover-up.

Readers of this blog know I have been a many year Hillary Clinton supporter, but I assure you I will never support or vote for her again.  Her betrayal is unforgivable.

We can only guess at the truth right now and I'm not going to speculate.  But the truth is coming.  And Liberals and Progressives who have all claimed Benghazi is a "phony scandal" deserve the egg that is now all over their faces.

It's Not Rocket Science

I'm not a psychic.  I don't have a sixth sense.  But when I said on October 24th last year  that after "President Obama wins re-election the Main Stream Media will then investigate" the White House cover-up of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, it was simply a logical conclusion.  And this week that prediction came true with a vengeance.

On October 24, 2012 I wrote a blog entry titled "Why Did Obama Lie?"  In that essay I predicted the ultimate outcome of the Benghazi cover-up that was then in its infancy:

We will never know why the President ordered Susan Rice, the United Nations Secretary to outright lie on four Sunday Morning News Interviews, destroying her credibility forever.

We will never know why in the world Vice President Biden told such an involved fictional account of the information known to the administration, even recounting totally false dates, during the Vice Presidential Debate.  Biden knew from day one.  Why did he destroy any chance he might have had of becoming President? 

Certainly the administration will never explain these lies and the bizarre and unnecessary cover-up of the facts.  It's a mini-Watergate with no logical explanation. 

We can only guess that the President was trying to place the blame elsewhere, on an obscure video maker, to avoid any direct blame that would harm his re-election chances.  It just all seems so odd.

President Obama wins re-election the Main Stream Media will then investigate and ask these same questions.  If he loses it will fall upon a disgruntled staffer to reveal the truth.  But either way, Mr. President, the truth will come out.

But this week the dominoes all began to fall.  As I predicted the Main Stream Media has turned on Obama for the very lies they helped his cover-up before the election.  First CBS News. Then ABC News. Now everyone.

Mark Mardell, the North American Editor for BBC News probably summed it up best in his article: After Benghazi revelations, heads will roll

There's new evidence, obtained by ABC, that the Obama administration did deliberately purge references to "terrorism" from accounts of the attack on the Benghazi diplomatic mission, which killed four people including the US ambassador to Libya.

Conservatives have long maintained that the administration deliberately suppressed the truth about the attacks.

This is the first hard evidence that the state department did ask for changes to the CIA's original assessment.

Specifically, they wanted references to previous warnings deleted and this sentence removed: "We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

There's little doubt in my mind that this will haunt Hillary Clinton if she decides to run for president, unless she executes some pretty fancy footwork.State department spokesperson Victoria Nuland is directly implicated, and the fingerprints of senior White House aides Ben Rhodes and Jay Carney are there as well.

In the interests of full disclosure I have to say I have not in the past been persuaded that allegations of a cover-up were a big deal. It seemed to me a partisan attack based on very little

But the evidence is there in black and white, unless we doubt the documents obtained by ABC, which I don't..

This is now very serious, and I suspect heads will roll. The White House will be on the defensive for a while.

I Blame Mitt Romney

Most of the sane and reasonably informed people, press, politicians and pundits have seen the unraveling of President Obama's lies and deception about the attack and murder of our Ambassador in Libya coming for a long time.  Now even the major media is finally investigating and reporting on a scandal worthy of censure, if not outright Impeachment.

Not only did Hilary Clinton and the Obama Administration refuse to send readily available aid to the Ambassador, they then engaged in the most bizarre series of lies and cover-ups in modern history.

Here are just a few of today's stories unfolding:

Benghazi whistleblowers allegations: US forces in Tripoli told to stand down on night of attack; Hillary cut department’s counterterrorism bureau out of the loop

Clinton sought end-run around counterterrorism bureau on night of Benghazi attack, witness will say

CBS NEWS: Diplomat: U.S. Special Forces told "you can't go" to Benghazi during attacks

NBC NEWS: Official: US Special Forces team wasn't allowed to fly to Benghazi during attack by Lisa Meyers  Here's a small snippet from Lisa Meyers report:

A small team of Special Forces operatives was ready to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi last year after Libyan insurgents attacked the U.S. mission there, but was told it was not authorized to board the flight by regional military commanders, according to a career State Department official scheduled to testify before Congress on Wednesday.

Gregory Hicks, then deputy chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, told investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that U.S. officials had persuaded the Libyan government to allow the Special Forces operatives to board the rescue flight from Tripoli to Benghazi. But an officer received a phone call telling them to stand down before they left for the airport, according to excerpts of his account made available to NBC News on Monday. That conversation occurred after the U.S. ambassador to Libya and another American had been killed in the initial attack, but hours before a second attack that killed two other Americans

What has bothered me since the attack in Libya is why candidate Mitt Romney failed to use this major issue in his campaign.  I wrote this in my blog on November 1, 2012:

Curiously Mitt Romney had a chance. Even more curiously, he decided to forgo almost certain election and pursue a genuinely bizarre last minute campaign strategy, ignoring the huge issue of the Obama Administration's cover-up of Libyan Ambassador Steven's torture and murder in Benghazi and opting instead to double down on a deceptive ad about Jeep moving production to China. 

Obviously had Mitt Romney been elected it wouldn't change the events that had already taken place.  But the cover-up, which continues to this day, would be over and the facts would be known.

In my opinion this event calls into question Barack Obama's fitness to be President.  There will be no Impeachment, nor should there be one.  But the facts, at least as known so far, certainly disqualify Hilary Clinton from becoming President.  That's a shame and a personal disappointment as I've been a long time Hilary Clinton supporter. 

As so often it is in the case of government scandals it's not the event but the cover-up that brings down the politician.  Sadly, this is beyond a doubt the stupidest and most unnecessary cover-up in history.

Why I'm Disappointed in the News Media

I listened to National Public Radio's Morning Edition this morning as I do every morning.  What a superb news organization!  The news stories presented are in depth, thoughtful and thorough.  I'm convinced there isn't a finer news organization working today.

However.......

Today and all this week there hasn't been a single story about the most important new event since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  I'm referring, of course, to the 9/11 Anniversary attack on the  Consulate in Benghazi, Libya including the rape, torture and murder of our Libyan Ambassador AND the subsequent bizarre cover-up of events by a White House in the middle of an Election Year Crisis. 

This is a news worthy story. In fact there isn't a single story that even approaches this in terms of importance.  Yet there is no coverage.  No one on NPR is asking the important questions. No one is asking any questions.

This isn't a news blackout.  The New York Post ran the story on their front page.  There have been stories on CBS and ABC News.  And FOX NEWS has it properly positioned as the single most important story of this decade.

FOX NEWS ratings are going through the roof.  The public recognizes the importance of this story.  When the story is completely ignored by MSNBC and only minimally covered by CNN, the audience goes where they must to learn the facts.

Of course FOX NEWS is presenting this story with a distinctly Republican spin.  That makes the FAILURE of NPR and other major news organizations even more disturbing.  The public needs an objective, dispassionate and in depth look at the facts and the White House Spin.  NPR could do that.  But someone, somewhere high up in their news organization is blockading the story.  WHY?

The cheerleader news groups (MSNBC and FOX) do their loyal viewers no good by eliminating news unfavorable to their candidates.  Better they should face the bad news head on and over it properly.  But the other news outlets who claim to be unbiased really betray us all by covering up a story that they will eventually be forced to cover.  All they do is lose credibility by being late to the scene.

Why Did Obama Lie? Why Did Others Lie?

Slowly buy surely the actual facts in the Islamic radical assault on our Consulate in Benghazi, Libya are coming to light. 

We now know that Ambassador Stevens asked for increased security many times before the attack.  We know the State Department turned him down in a dismissive and arrogant manner.  It appears no one at the State Department will pay the price for this gross error in judgment.

We now know that drones overhead witnessed the attack and that officials in the CIA, the State Department and even President Obama himself knew this was a terrorist attack.

We now know that there was no protest of demonstration preceding or during the assault on the Consulate.

And today we know that President Obama was fully aware that the radical group Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.  The White House had emails from this al Qaeda allied group within two hours of the attack.

What we will never know is why President Obama lied continuously and consistently for two solid weeks about the attack.  We will never know why he forced Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary to lie, when Carney knew the truth.

We will never know why the President ordered Susan Rice, the United Nations Secretary to outright lie on four Sunday Morning News Interviews, destroying her credibility forever.

We will never know why in the world Vice President Biden told such an involved fictional account of the information known to the administration, even recounting totally false dates, during the Vice Presidential Debate.  Biden knew from day one.  Why did he destroy any chance he might have had of becoming President? 

Certainly the administration will never explain these lies and the bizarre and unnecessary cover-up of the facts.  It's a mini-Watergate with no logical explanation. 

We can only guess that the President was trying to place the blame elsewhere, on an obscure video maker, to avoid any direct blame that would harm his re-election chances.  It just all seems so odd.

If President Obama wins re-election the Main Stream Media will then investigate and ask these same questions.  If he loses it will fall upon a disgruntled staffer to reveal the truth.  But either way, Mr. PResident, the truth will come out.