OPINION:
The tragedy in Benghazi is a profound public issue. Four American lives were squandered. A sovereign but woefully unprotected American diplomatic station on foreign soil was attacked by terrorists. The American people were sold a false narrative (a lie, in plain English) for weeks about the true nature of the attack. Government officials — some who inexplicably still collect paychecks — failed miserably to protect Americans who were serving their country in hostile territory.
This newspaper assigned more than a dozen reporters to expose lies in that narrative over the last three years, bringing to light facts the Obama spin machine tried mightily to suppress. Congress subsequently allocated $5 million to empower a House Select Committee to find out what really happened in Benghazi. The Democrats have worked hard to portray the Benghazi inquiry as a political sham unworthy of official oversight. The Democrats are profoundly wrong.
But after observing hours of the committee grilling Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday in a long-awaited hearing, we reluctantly conclude that the committee has so far failed to do the job. The committee jumped from issue to issue, devolved into bickering that left Hillary Clinton cackling with laughter, and failed to provide a consistent and compelling assessment of what happened. The public is still in the dark.
There is much to care about the Benghazi tragedy, but Chairman Trey Gowdy did little to reinforce that idea on Thursday. He seemed unnecessarily defensive, intimidated by the Democrats and fearful of how the media would cover the hearing, shifting blame for the unanswered questions and inadequacy of the earlier inquiry. He lost control of the proceedings to Democratic clowning, often taking the bait rather than staying focused on the questions that would have told the public why it should care about the tragedy and the government’s shame in Benghazi.
The families of victims, sitting in the front row, left with their questions still unanswered. Rep. Jim Jordan divulged one of the more important findings of the day when he revealed what Mrs. Clinton told her family about what the government actually knew, that it was a terror attack tied to al Qaeda, not outrage over an obscure video. She was not pressed to explain why the American people got only the story the White House and the State Department knew was a lie. Neither did the public get an adequate measure of why the tragedy occurred, why the public was lied to, and whether anything has been done since to repel such attacks today.
Congress over the decades has provided epic and valuable oversight hearings, from Watergate to Whitewater, from Ruby Ridge to Waco, from illegal foreign fundraising schemes to the failures that preceded Sept. 11. The Benghazi hearing Thursday did not hit that mark.
The House leadership, when it is installed and settled, should press for a new way to conduct oversight. There should be fewer speeches by members tailored for re-election campaign commercials and better questions from the members of the committee and their lawyers. Mr. Gowdy is a former federal prosecutor but his performance Thursday hardly demonstrated that. The hearing was undisciplined in time and narrative. Learning from this hearing, making oversight more effective, would be a way to honor the four Americans who gave their lives for their country at Benghazi. They deserved better than they got from Hillary Clinton the night they died, and they deserve better than they got Thursday from the Republicans on the Benghazi committee.
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