Hillary escapes again

A special House committee investigating the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012 that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans may have helped Hillary Clinton become president of the United States.

The former secretary of state refused an invitation to testify in private, as other witnesses had done, probably because she thought her appearance would benefit her presidential prospects in at least three ways: She could make the Republican committee members look inept; the major media would protect her, and average people would not pay attention; and if they did, they would believe what the media told them. She was right on all three counts.

Clinton refused to be lured into a fight with Republican committee members. Unlike a previous appearance during which she shouted, “What difference does it make?” when asked if the Benghazi attack stemmed, as the administration asserted, from a spontaneous protest gone too far, this latest appearance was designed to feature Clinton as strong, cool, and in control, all qualities necessary in a president.

Republican members were unable to rattle her or get her to admit she lied when she initially blamed the attack on terrorists in emails to her daughter and in a call to Egypt’s prime minister but said in public that the attacks were inspired by a crude internet video satirizing Muhammad.

The major media are openly and shamelessly boosting Clinton and her presidential campaign and will continue to clear a path for her all the way to the Democratic presidential nomination and to Election Day. Every major newspaper declared Clinton the winner in the 11-hour marathon hearing. So, too, the TV networks.

A USA Today Weekend headline said: “Plenty of Fireworks, No Smoking Gun.”

The conservative Media Research Center listed more: Thursday’s NBC Nightly News concluded that she “stood her ground” as the committee “dissolved into bickering” while she “stayed above the fray” and removed “Benghazi from being an issue in the 2016 campaign.”

ABC’s World News Tonight, which usually doesn’t worry about government spending, featured anchor David Muir complaining three times about the cost of the Benghazi investigation. Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl observed that Republicans “really didn’t succeed” in “draw[ing] blood” from Clinton.

Appearing on the CBS Evening News, political director John Dickerson said that Clinton “avoid[ed]” falling into any “pitfalls” as those questioning her fought “like cats and dogs.”

On CNN, Anderson Cooper interviewed political commentator Carl Bernstein, who gushed over Clinton’s performance while comparing Republicans to Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee for conducting an “abusive” hearing. In the next hour, on CNN Tonight, Bernstein resurfaced, trotting out the same comparison against “a group of demagogues,” adding that Clinton “did great” in using “the facts at her command.”

There were several references to the stupid comment by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who said, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable.”

Though McCarthy has no involvement with the committee, Democrats repeatedly cited his remark as proof that the entire probe is a politically motivated sham.

The big question for Republicans is who is strong and credible enough to take Hillary Clinton on in a debate after first securing the party’s nomination? Ask me that question in March.

© 2015 Tribune Content Agency LLC.

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