New York Times Editorial Board Calls On Republicans To "Shut Down The Benghazi Committee"

[spanone]

The New York Times editorial board argued that it's time for House Republicans to shut down the Benghazi committee, noting that the crusade to paint Hillary Clinton as "personally responsible for the deaths" of four Americans in Benghazi "has lost any semblance of credibility."

On September 29, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is running to replace Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as the Speaker of the House, told Sean Hannity that one of the biggest accomplishments of the Republican House majority was creating the Benghazi Committee, which he credited with hurting Clinton's poll numbers. Hannity initially praised McCarthy and the committee for its "political" strategy, but has since walked back the complements amid backlash. Fox News largely ignored McCarthy's damning comments, falling in line with the network's years-long campaign to create and promote now-pervasive lies, smears, and conspiracy theories about Benghazi.

On October 7, in the aftermath of McCarthy's acknowledgement, The New York Times editorial board called for an end to the Benghazi committee. Deeming it a "charade" that "has accomplished nothing," the board wrote that the "laughable crusade" should be shut down or at the very least renamed "the Inquisition of Hillary Rodham Clinton." The board went on to claim that the committee and its efforts have lost "any semblance of credibility" and has "become an insult to the memory of four slain Americans":

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/10/07/new-york-times-editorial-board-calls-on-republi/206007

[leftofcool]

1. Really? Now you want to shut it down after your scathing hit pieces on Hillary?

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. It took that gaff from that asshole mccarthy to wake them up? That stupid committee should have been

shutdown years ago.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Really?

Same schmuck faces who were promoting were there is smoke must be fire. Somebody got a memo and knowingly they pushed a false equivalency issue and now it is coming around to bite them in their ass. Always reminded of,careful what you wish for,you got to love Karma.

[planetc]

4. This is actually an historic occasion. The Times admits their source is a bad guy.

The Times is blaming the Committee for being a source of bad information, meant to injure Clinton. I doubt that they mention that the Committee would have been helpless to use the email non-scandal against Clinton if the Times had not wanted so much to print any accusation against her at all. So the Committee must be blamed, because the Times itself cannot do any real wrong--they're just reporting the news as it comes to them. On page one. Above the fold. As though it meant something. Without checking for truth, or context, or wondering about the motives of their source. The Times is INNOCENT, I tell you! INNOCENT!

[karynnj]

8. Nothing in the NYT article does any of those things

It speaks of ending the investigation of Benghazi. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/opinion/shut-down-the-benghazi-committee.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Here are things it does NOT do:
1) It does not state that the committee was their source on the email.
2) It does not state that the issues over email are a non- scandal



As to 1), having read the first NYT article, my guess for who the NYT had as an initial source (when I first read it) was either someone on the Clinton team or someone who was working for the State Department. Why?

The fact was that the SD was soon to give the committee a large group of emails that were from her server and they were processing the huge paper dump of emails. They also knew that the committee had seen the hacked emails from Blumenthal - that did not, as the SD could have done - redact the actual email address. It is very likely that had the NYT NOT disclosed the server -- the committee itself was very likely to figure it out and make it an issue. Getting the information out WITH the additional info that the State Department already had everything was better for HRC then if the committee put it out - especially had they been able to do that before she gave up the email.

As to the State Department, it is possible that the they did not know immediately that HRC had not made any provisions (as Kerry was doing from day one) to insure that all work related emails from any address were saved. (Not using state.gov would not preclude having a process to in a timely way move the email to the government.) It seems like it took almost a year before they took actions to get the Clinton email.

One guess might be that some State Department people who "negotiated" to get the email did so because they did not want to be part of a cover up. They might have had their own interest in getting the story out that showed they did push to get the email from the former SoS.

2) Calling the email issue a non-scandal does not change that the fact that she never intended the State Department to have her emails - even though there were FOIA even when she was SoS that should have applied to them. Though she cites other SoS, no one had their own server and no one used email to the extent she did.

[olddots]

5. you can bet the turd maggots all read the NY Times

they can barely change channels .

[riderinthestorm]

6. K&R. Gotta give props due when they're earned. Kudos NYT

tepid applause for a once great paper getting it right on this at least...

[karynnj]

7. The Republicans would actually be smart to publicly end the Benghazi investigation

giving a very straight forward summary of everything that did happen. (There really is nothing there -- and even from the beginning, the closest thing they could have hoped to have found was something that indicated that the administration, while admitting that the ambassador and three others were killed tried to minimize the political impact. However, that is what you would expect ANY administration to do two months before an election. In fact, the entire issue for the Republicans was that they thought it should have led to a Romney win -- but Romney's initial reaction was very tone deaf.)

They could then - in a very "take the high road", say that they will let the FBI and Justice Department lead on the investigation on the Clinton email processes, but continue to monitor those investigations. (Here, the fact is the FBI and JD are really the ones leading this effort.)

Why would this be a good idea for the Republicans? -- because there really is nothing there on Benghazi itself and - as she did this week, HRC wins when she defends herself from charges that she either did not care or was negligent here. It then allows them to place their focus on the email issues.