Even before House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy let slip last month that the Benghazi investigation was a deliberate ploy to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances, the controversy surrounding the 2012 attack had already become a focal point for Republican anti-Hillary paranoia.

While the partisan spirit of the House Select Committee on Benghazi was expected, the effectiveness of this would-be political hit squad was still up in the air when Hillary appeared before the committee last Thursday.

In a nearly 11-hour televised hearing, Republican committee members not only failed to crack Clinton’s professional, even dismissive exterior; they embarrassed themselves on national television, coming off as petty, totally at odds with Democratic committee members and motivated more by conspiracy theory than the facts of the case.

The 2012 terrorist attack itself is tragic—four Americans lost their lives at the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi, including the highly-respected ambassador, Christopher Stevens. Still, the attempts of committee members like chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Peter Roskam (R-IL) to cast Hillary as a villain who essentially plotted their murders comes across as almost maniacally childish.

As they drilled into the topics of Clinton’s private email server and her close relationship with longtime advisor Sidney Blumenthal, committee Republicans clearly aimed to paint an unrealistically sinister picture of the former secretary of state. By attempting to drum up “Clinton-boogeymen” legends of the type that have tantalized their party for nearly two decades, Republicans blew their chances to strike a meaningful blow against Hillary.

Because truthfully, Hillary did screw up when it comes to Libya. In 2011, she urged American military intervention in a conflict that proved catastrophically destabilizing to not only the war-torn Northern African country, but the entire region. Clinton clearly failed to plan for the ensuing power-vacuum and the Islamist-led unrest that would follow the fall of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.

Libya in 2015 is a hotbed of chaos and socioeconomic insecurity, despite the positive gloss Clinton attempted to put on the issue during the Oct. 13 Democratic primary debate. Also, the fact that the State Department denied Stevens’ request for higher security in Libya two months before his death is particularly troubling, reflecting a lack of conscientious responsibility from the department that Clinton led.

By questioning Clinton’s irresponsible hawkishness in this vulnerable area, and approaching the Benghazi tragedy from a less conspiratorial and politicized angle, the committee might have succeeded in knocking her down a peg.

Instead, after more than 17 months and around 4.5 million taxpayer dollars, the committee has succeeded only in reflecting poorly on the partisan machinations of the GOP, and in emboldening Clinton. The televised Benghazi hearing may have even humanized Hillary to viewers, putting voters in her shoes as she was forced to fend off increasingly inane hints that she didn’t care about the loss of American life.

It’s disgusting to see partisanship within the GOP that’s simultaneously so shortsighted and pathetically incompetent. It’s also disheartening to see that incompetence botch an opportunity to take Clinton to task on her role in Libya. Despite the gravity of the logistical mistakes and lapses in judgment leading up to the attack, the GOP’s crusade to convict Clinton of deliberate malice is beyond idiotic.

Meanwhile, the inability of even Hillary’s most bitter rivals to take her to task would seem to light her an easier path to the Democratic nomination, and possibly the presidency — an idea troubling to those who believe the Democratic Party and the country may not be best left in her hands.

Thomas Beckley-Forest is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at tjbeckle@syr.edu.

Published on October 26, 2015 at 11:49 pm