Republicans' 11-Hour Gift to Hillary Clinton
Conservatives on the Benghazi committee practically picked Clinton up and carried her toward the White House
By Jeb Lund October 23, 2015

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/republicans-11-hour-gift-to-hillary-clinton-20151023

Eleven hours is a long damn time. Eleven hours is long enough to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco with two stops along the way to watch a movie and a football game in their entirety. And over the course of 11 hours of hectoring, insinuation and questions that started out redundant and turned into echolalia, Hillary Clinton never lost her cool. If she's elected president, she should send every Republican member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi a needlingly effusive thank you card. They practically picked her up and carried her toward the White House.

As explained before, things weren't going well for the committee even before Thursday's marathon testimony. To begin with, it's now the longest sitting special committee in American history, having surpassed the investigation into the Iran-Contra scandal and the historic Church Committee, which investigated not only Watergate but abuses by the CIA, FBI and NSA. That this committee has lumbered over the political landscape like some idiot golem willed into existence from a pile of trash only highlights the insignificance of its focus. Those other committees were merely about the power of the presidency, civil liberties and what kind of republic we have. The Benghazi committee is like Angie Jordan saying "ham" for 15 minutes.

If that weren't bad enough, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy went and gave the game away, admitting the truth that anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew all along: that the committee's signature accomplishment had been driving down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, which was the only reason for its existence in the first place. By the time Thursday's events were gaveled into order, anyone paying attention knew they were about to bear witness to the toxic alchemy of campaign ratfucking melding with a surpassing waste of everyone's time.

With that in mind, Trey Gowdy, Congress' own version of Matthew Lillard lengthened by a machine press accident, had Hillary sworn in, in private, foregoing the political dynamite of an image of her once again standing with her hand raised and swearing to tell the truth. The civility and good sense ended there.