Hillary faces down the angry men

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:31:00 +0000

Three weeks after her release from a New York hospital with a blood clot on the brain – a health emergency mocked on the right as “Benghazi flu” -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Senate Republicans their day of rage over the Sept. 11 Benghazi killings on Wednesday.

From the intellectually underwhelming Ron Johnson of Wisconsin to the ever-angrier John McCain, with cameos by unimpressive 2016 hopefuls Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, Clinton stood up to the raging bulls with grace and fire of her own.

The stature gap between Clinton and those possible 2016 rivals – OK, nobody’s announced they’re running, but I couldn’t help thinking about it – was enormous. When Rand Paul huffed “had I been President at the time and I found that you did not read the cables [from Benghazi] I would have relieved you of your duties,” it wasn’t intimidating but funny. President Rand Paul? Try to say that without laughing.

Steely yet sometimes emotional, Clinton defended the State Department’s handling of the Benghazi story while not denying the underlying Libyan unrest or security troubles that caused it.

Clinton aide: Only an “imbecile” would say Hillary’s faking

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:07:00 +0000

A senior adviser to Hillary Clinton has told the New York Times that only "an imbecile" would suggest that the secretary of state would fake an illness rather than answer questions from Congress about the Sept. 11 attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed ambassador Chris Stevens.

Clinton, who is recovering from a concussion and then the discovery of a blood clot near her brain, needed to cancel her appearance before an investigative committee in December. When the concussion was first announced, prominent conservatives including John Bolton, Charles Krauthammer and Monica Crowley all suggested there was something a little too convenient about the timing.

But in a story in Saturday's New York Times about Clinton's recovery, Reines -- a Clinton aide with a history of speaking his mind -- fired back at that notion.

Salon.com > Benghazi flu

Hillary faces down the angry men

Clinton aide: Only an “imbecile” would say Hillary’s faking