WhatFinger


This town of fools

The idiotic narrative over Kevin McCarthy's supposed Benghazi 'gaffe'



Some of you get mad at me because a lot of my columns conclude with serious doubts about whether this nation can survive. Often I'm quoting long-term debt figures and things of that nature. But the real reason I have these doubts is not so much the fiscal realities, which could be turned around by serious people making the right decisions. It's the fact that so much what goes on in Washington is as far from serious as a thing can be, and an excellent example is this brouhaha that's erupted over the last few days over Kevin McCarthy's statement concerning Hillary and the Benghazi committee. The point here is not really to stick up for McCarthy as a candidate for Speaker as opposed to Daniel Webster, Jason Chaffetz or anyone else. At the moment I'm largely agnostic on that question. Rather, I want to take a look at how easily Washington hyperventilates over something that in substance is no big deal at all, but because of the way it's expressed, becomes the celebrated "gaffe" of the week and threatens to throw everything into complete chaos. Here's what McCarthy said:
The reaction to this has been to portray it as an admission that the entire Benghazi investigation was undertaken for the purpose of damaging Hillary politically. McCarthy absolutely did not say that. What he did say is that, because the Benghazi investigation was undertaken, we now know about all kinds of Hillary lies that might otherwise have not been exposed - and she's paying a price for it in the polls. You need to recognize that it was the Benghazi committee's work in the House that brought to light the fact that Hillary used a homebrew e-mail server exclusively for all her work-related e-mails as Secretary of State. At no point did McCarthy say the investigation was undertaken for the purpose of damaging Hillary. But it doesn't matter. That's the narrative that the political media have chosen to run with. And one of the weirdest results has been that Chaffetz - who declared in the interview below that he supported McCarthy for Speaker - is now apparently thinking about changing that position and running himself. And in the process, Chaffetz castigates McCarthy for saying something he didn't say, while offering an explanation of his own that is really no different from what McCarthy actually said:

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I like Chaffetz. I do not like Wolf Blitzer. But someone needs to smack them both for that part at the end about how McCarthy needs to "apologize" for what he said. One measure of a Washington that returns to seriousness will be that the political class stops demanding apologies for things people say, almost all of which are insignificant compared to the firestorms they inspire. Now I understand the criticism you'll offer of McCarthy here: Sure, he didn't mean to say the Benghazi committee's work was political, but if he's going to be on the big stage he has to be careful of what he says because of how it will be portrayed and blah blah blah. You know what you get if you follow that advice? You get smooth, polished, practiced politicians who never say anything of substance because they're always terrified that someone in the media, or someone on Twitter, will take an isolated phrase or particular expression and turn it into the day's volcanic eruption of fake indignation. What we need are leaders who are willing to speak plain truth and then are capable of fighting back when people try to mischaracterize what they say. We also need political parties who don't run from the tall grass when one of their colleagues says something that is perfectly unobjectionable in substance but nevertheless is characterized as a "gaffe" by the morons who dominate political discourse. McCarthy was responding to a question from Hannity about how he, as Speaker, would be more of a fighter than Boehner. The work of the Benghazi committee was an example of how the House didn't just accept a bunch of nonsense the administration tried to feed it, but did its own investigative work and uncovered all kinds of things the public would otherwise of have never known. And he also mentioned the political price the other side is paying for it. There is nothing wrong with that at all. The only reason the committee's work is making an impact politically is that, because of their work, we know more about how dishonest and self-serving Hillary's conduct was as Secretary of State. That is the scandal, not the fact that investigation that uncovered the lies has had a political impact and that the investigators are happy about it. Even if you don't want McCarthy as Speaker because you don't think he's conservative enough or whatever, you should not jump on this so-called "gaffe" as a reason to oppose him. He's touting the good work of an important committee and pointing out a political impact that is just and right. If a member of the House leadership can't do that without it being a "gaffe," then you can see why I think America is screwed. We are simply not a serious country anymore.


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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