One was the behavior of Republicans on the Benghazi Committee in the way they handled Hillary Clinton's "testimony". In actuality it was a partisan witch hunt; Republicans for eleven hours attacked, maligned and tried every trick they could to rattle the presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate.
Why did they do this? American politics have deterioriated into a Gotcha game. If the opposing party can find a gaffe, just one, it is lifted from the tape, and played over and over during the campaign. Elections can turn on just one gaffe. The former Secretary of State of the United States was fair game for eleven hours of searching for that one gaffe, that one statement from fatigue, that could win the election.
Never mind that all of us, in a pressure situation, can say almost anything. No, the rules are now inhumanely attack looking for the kill.
And try as they might, the Republicans whiffed. The only time the Secretary came close was when she laughed when asked if she was alone the night after the attack...the questioner lept to the attack and said, "It is not funny, four Americans died". Ms. Clinton was certainly not laughing about the deaths but about the ludicrous question and quickly said so. I will bet this shows up in a campaign ad!
But that is America's gotch politics. In the first hours long Benghazi Committee appearance of Mrs. Clinton, she in frustration said something to the effect, all of these questions don't matter, lives were lost and we need to find out why. Conservatives ran ads claiming she really said the lives did not matter.
Her comment was lifted out of context, placed among a damning narrative, and ran as a hit ad all over the country. I had conservative friends actually chant this to me....It doesn't matter to Hillary that people were killed! Dirty politics at its worst has become the new normal in Washington. And, the right wing is practicing it at full bore.
Now the ultimate in hypocrisy. It seems that in the last Presidental "debate" run by CNBC, with one questioner a Latino, the candidates complained about the content of the questions. Incredibly, the head of the GOP has suspended NBC from carrying a future debate!
Interesting, Republicans get to pick and choose their questions to answer, the Democratic front runner for President is subjected to eleven hours of witchhunt with no chance to screen the questions?
The real threat is to the First Amendment. A free and unfettered press is essential to the existence of a democracy. The press, and this includes Fox News, is necessary to hold politicians accountable. Watergate comes to mind. So does the Vietnam War and yes, the Iraq War. During the Civil War, when the nation's very existence was in question, the free press attacked President Lincoln at every turn.
The Press, even the opposition press, must be able to ask probing and yes even stupid questions. This is necessary and proper to our freedom!
If a politician does not want to answer the question then he/she has the option of saying so. There may or may not be fallout. At a recent debate that happend to Mrs. Clinton. She was asked about her emails and she simply chose not to answer. That was it, no answer.
The Benghazi Committee is not the free press, but Mrs. Clinton still showed up and endured eleven HOURS of grilling so brutal that even Republicans were shocked. It is a direct threat to our basic political freedoms for the National GOP leadership to boycott CNBC.
What is next, allowing political parties to shut down news companies they don't like? That my friends is totalitarianism.
