Sid’s background as a brash partisan was forced upon him. He came, as a journalist, to the Clinton White House well after most of the bad stuff had occurred with a brief to try to set the record straight. So much BS had been leveled at Big Bill that it was hard to separate the truth from the smoke. He wasn’t entirely innocent [Monica], but he was far from unprincipled.
So what did Blumenthal do to piss off the GOP? He wrote the definitive book about the Clintons and their travails: The Clinton Wars (2003). [Available at any library or bookseller–even downloadable.] [Warning: It is big and very thorough.] Blumenthal tore the entire Republican machine a ‘new ass—e.’ He was extremely accurate and named names and adversaries, going all the way back to Arkansas. He proved the Vince Foster and Whitewater stories were lies. He even went into the impeachment as well as Monica’s story. He didn’t flinch from the negative. But the end result was proof that Hillary’s famous claim of a ‘Vast Right Wing Conspiracy’ was true.
Them GOPers don’t forget when the truth hits them in their lying rear ends.
And that’s why they went after Blumenthal. An attempt at payback.
James McDougal
Vince Foster
Susan McDougal
Webster Hubbell
Jim Guy Tucker
Whitewater
The vast majority of US citizens either don’t recognize these names, or are only vaguely familiar with them. Ask the guy next to you at work what Whitewater was. In all likelihood, he may recognize it, but not know what it is other than a Clinton scandal. The GOP plays on the ignorance of the public at large.
The whole ‘Clinton scandals continue thing’ is one of the reasons I was initially against HRC. I thought the GOP would just continue the pile-on. I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter who is in the Whitehouse. If they have a D next to their name, the GOP will just be more-of-the-same.
That, and HRC is not only completely competent, but will do better than anyone else. And this time, the GOP pile-on may be recognized by the public at large (can’t fool me twice! thing). All that, and the fact that HRC in the Whitehouse will REALLY PISS THEM OFF!
Bengazi is all fake smoke, designed to solidify the base, and make uninformed independents suspicious. Bleumenthal’s name is just a random name included to add an air of authenticity. Sort of the opposite of ‘plausible deniability’. Ask your GOP friend what Bengazi is all about, then ask him if it was worth millions of tax payer’s dollars to investigate. Then tell him that it was designed by GOP politicians to get tools to carry their flag.
What can happen to Democrats who just leak EVERYTHING? Is any of this classified? I can’t see how any of this nonsense has national security implications.
Don’t forget that he is Jewish. To large parts of the Tea-Bagger constituency “east coast liberal Jew” = Communist Subversive.
Don’t discount how strong the antisemitic streak is in fundamentalist conservatism.
The Republicans were in full, desperate throw-everything-you’ve-got-at-the-wall-and-pray-something-sticks mode. They were all over the map, no coherence to their approach, just name-checking right-wing talking points, and trying to poke holes and raise doubts…and not really getting traction anywhere.
I was prepared for Gowdy & Co. to fail pretty badly in this hearing, but it turns out that that I had still seriously underestimated the magnitude of their failure.
Why would an ultraconservative, back-bench, white, pomaded, tin-foil-hat winger named “Trey Gowdy” from South Carolina be obsessed with a successful, influential, well-educatedl guy named “Sidney Blumenthal?” Wow, I’m really scratching my head about that one. What could it be? What could it be?
He was one of the Jewish witnesses called by the Republicans in the Clinton impeachment trial.
There fixed it for you.
Kind of hard for the party to claim it will be better for Israel when they are spending their time in committee making dogwhistles to their anti-semitic supporters.
Wait, I see that Trey Gowdy is a Southern Baptist and went to the University of South Carolina Law School (which no longer offers the course, “Slaves: Personal Property or Corporate Assets; Tax Considerations for Owners”. Whereas … Sidney… Blumenthal… graduated from Brandeis.
So I’m guessing Trey’s obsession with Sidney Blumenthal is just collegiate rivalry, right? I mean, what else could it be?
Besides being Jewish, he’s a friend of the Clintons.
That’s enough to make him the target of GOP Chairman “Joe McCarthy” Gordy and the rest of the Republican Brownshirts, as well as grounds for blackballing Blumenthal from ever working with the government again.
The questioning today by the GOP suggests that they believe Hillary personally killed the diplomats…just like she did Vince Foster. That’s how stupid and consumed by conspiracy theories these nitwit Republicans have become. They can’t deal with the facts so they just go fishing for a gaffe or a scandal.
The situation in the GOP-controlled Congress is worse than anything Lewis Carroll illustrated in “Alice in Wonderland.” Nothing in British political history is as bizarre as today’s GOP.
Having a job to work at, and a life and whatnot, I didn’t catch the part where Trey Trey figured out how many Marines it would’ve taken to repel the two planned attacks. I also still don’t grasp what was to stop the terrorist planners from simply sending enough guys to overwhelm however many Marines had been there. Who’s to say there wouldn’t have been 54 dead instead of 4? How big a force would’ve been required to deter and repel any attack whatsoever? Do Republicans think the United States should’ve deployed a coalition of the willing to defend the facilities?
Instead, I learned that Secretary Clinton used her personal email to communicate with her personal friend, duh.
Because the GOP is obsessed with the idea that the Clintons have American Jewish friends. They mark that to cement it for the White Christian minority who are pro-Israel but often anti-semitic.
So, I’m not sure if the question in the headline is rhetorical or genuine? My Rosetta Stone for understanding so much up-is-down, black-is-white GOP ‘logic’ - for understanding why they go on about whatever they go on about - is psychological projection. Time and again they telegraph - in their accusations - what is in their hearts. They expect to find Sidney Bloomenthal pushing talking points to HIllary to keep the public distracted from what’s “really going on” in Libya, because what’s really going on is somehow Bloomenthal is secretly making a pile of money off of Libya and doesn’t want the public finding out.
Take a look at the Libertarian Lazziez-Faire “Free Market” fantasy land the GOP tried to set up in Iraq - an entire invasion and nation building reconstruction carried out by the “private sector” looting Trillions of borrowed (not taxed) Treasury dollars. This is exactly the kind of thing they believe government is for, and what they expect to find the “Friends of Bill” getting up to.
You don’t know something: this has totally derailed a major push by the 'Pubs. They were going to have a campaign claiming that HRC had no friends. Now, we know she has a friend? Now THAT is a major discovery!!
If the Gowdy gang bothered to look at how ambassadors communicate with the State Department they would find that ambassadors send stuff to the Secretary of State but it actually goes to the relevant head of department. It does not even go first to the Deputy Secretary or the Assistant Secretaries. There is a hierarchy within State, and all government departments. Ambassadors don’t send emails to SoS. They use an internal communication system which they do their best to keep secure (not successful at times : “WikiLeaks”) So, the notion that the Ambassador would talk directly to the Secretary as a matter of course is nonsense. These idiots were so busy playing “gotcha” and lining up emails on their desk for show that they exposed themselves as a vindictive bunch of losers.
