Senator Bernie Sanders was expected to give Hillary Clinton a very hard time with one of the two major chinks in her armour, namely the email issue, and harm her aspiration of becoming the first woman president of the United States, in the Democratic debate on October 13.
Instead, when the issue came up in that debate, the Vermont Senator buried that issue by angrily pointing to the nation that the country has had better things to do than waste time and money in pursuing the former secretary of state on the email issue.
Hillary Clinton received another major reprieve on the second major chink in her armour: The issue of the Benghazi terrorist attack in which Ambassador Christopher Stephens was killed with three other US diplomats.
This time the reprieve was provided by the quarter that was least expected to provide it -- the Republicans in congress. The reprieve came from the seventh hearing of the House Select Committee on the Benghazi terrorist attack held on Thursday, October 22. For 11 hours, the Committee’s Chairman Trey Gowdy and his Republican colleagues harassed and harangued Hillary Clinton in a manner that left no one in doubt that they were after her blood, and determined to use the terrorist attack to end her presidential aspirations.
The manner in which the Republican members attacked and harangued her helped the candidate instead. It exposed the viciousness of the Republicans. It also exposed that there was really little in the Benghazi affair to justify the ways the chairman and the Republican members were pursuing her over it. Finally, as the nation watched the haranguing and harassing, they could not help noticing the composure ofthe candidate, as, for the 11 long hours during which she was attacked during the hearing, she did not for a moment appear ruffled, under pressure, confused, or embarrassed.
The media put Thursday’s hearings under the scanner -- the outcome was hugely in favour of Hillary Clinton. The assessment was almost unanimous, that by the manner in which the Select Committee conducted the hearing, it very well made the case for Hillary Clinton. The media chose the Chairman of the Committee Trey Gowdy for some special mention. One typical news headline was: “Trey Gowdy just elected Hillary Clinton President.” CNN, in its online edition article on the hearing, agreed, and its headline was “GOP’s helping hand for Hillary Clinton.”
The Benghazi terrorist attack that happened in 2012 has been a serious problem for Hillary Clinton.
It has had the potential to raise serious questions about her in the context of her performance as secretary of state, because, not only did four American diplomats die under her watch while on duty abroad, one of them was an ambassador.
Thus, in 2014, the House, by a vote of 225-7, established the Select Committee on Benghazi with Trey Gowdy as Chairman. Only seven Democrats voted for the establishment of the committee, but nevertheless went ahead and named five to the 12-member committee. The Benghazi Committee has now turned into an arm of the Republican National Committee, and working overtime to undermine the presidential aspirations of Hillary Clinton.
In fact, behind the scenes, going to Thursday’s hearings, the overtly political nature of the committee was more than evident.
The Benghazi affair was one major issue that led the Freedom Caucus -- the powerful extreme right caucus of the Republican Party -- to send Speaker John Boehner to retirement, because they considered him not conservative enough for their liking and he did not back the Benghazi Committee the way he could have to end Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations.
The Benghazi issue was also responsible for Kevin McCarthy, the House Majority leader, to withdraw his candidature to become the speaker after his comment that the six hearings of the Benghazi Committee prior to the one on Thursday had forced Hillary Clinton’s ratings down -- that exposed the overtly political nature of the committee.
Thus, by the time of Thursday’s hearings started, it was widely known nation-wide that the Benghazi Committee was not interested in getting to the truth about what happened in Benghazi, but was spending tax-payer money in millions of dollars to hound Hillary Clinton.
And they did such a bad case of it that one paper in its report on the hearings wrote: “With Thursday’s interminable, pointless haranguing, disorganised, utterly amateurish attempt at a smear job, the Republicans and their tenth-rate congressional attack schnauzer, South Carolina’s Trey Gowdy, got people feeling sorry for Hillary Clinton. Over the course of 11 long hours, they made the most eloquent argument for a Hillary Clinton presidency yet offered by anyone, including Clinton herself.”
In the end, the hearings achieved for Hillary Clinton what perhaps months of campaigning all across the country and millions of dollars worth of ads would not have. She was provided, by the Republicans, prime time opportunity on TV for 11 long hours, which appeared, what one leading Republican frustratingly admitted as “presidential.” This 11-hour marathon performance would go a long way in convincing many swing voters that she has in her what it takes to become president.
Thursday’s hearings will also go down in US political history as a great example where a politician aspiring to become president benefitted from a concerted political attacks to come out of a tight political corner because her opponents did not know where to stop with their case and were caught in public view with hatred and vindictiveness in the way they conducted themselves.
After Bernie Sanders’ unexpected support on the email chink in Hillary Clinton’s armour, the issue has been greatly blunted in a major way as a political weapon of the Republicans against the former secretary of state. Now, Thursday’s hearing has done a significant favour to her in the context of the Benghazi chink in her armour. Meanwhile, Donald Trump (whose latest unbelievable remark has been that he would consider closing down mosques in the US) and his fellow contestants in the party are behaving in such manners that, while their appeals to their narrow support base are keeping them in the race and in case of Donald Trump and Dr Ben Carson with good numbers, it is making them redundant to the national voters and pushing the Republican Party to a corner.
The party’s chances that one from the pack would make it to the White House are fast disappearing. The irresponsible stances and utterances of these candidates are bound to leave lasting impacts upon the party’s chances for elections to the White House, beyond the one in 2016.
In fact, the Republican Party will have to revamp itself in a major way. The unrealistic conservatism and right-wing politics that the party is now demonstrating is narrowing its support base, pushing it to a position from where winning a presidential election would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
The elections are still a year away, and between now and election time in November 2016, there may be many a slip between the cup and the lip. And doubts about Hillary Clinton on trust and dependability have not all dissipated.
She will be under the scanner on these issues, whatever absurd things her opponents in the Republican Party do notwithstanding.
Nevertheless, after Thursday’s Benghazi hearing in Congress, she appears firmly on the road to becoming the first woman president of the United States.
