Amidst her rebounding polls, controversy for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arises once again. On October 22, 2015, Clinton testified before Congress to defend her name against allegations of a negligent response to the 2012 assault on the american embassy in Benghazi, Libya. The attack killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Clinton, the Secretary of State at the time, was blamed for denying request to increase security at the embassy. Since then many republicans have criticize, what is in their eyes, Clinton's glaring inability to lead and battle terrorism in the middle east.
The hearing clarified information and possible reasoning to the State Department's alleged inaction. Documents show that different bureaus of Washington weren't aware they shared the responsibilities to maintain security on the embassies, resulting in an incredible miscommunication between different departments action was taken. Secondly, Hillary Clinton claimed that the requests for heightened security never reached her in the first place, but after the attack she immediately began creating reform and preventative measures for possible future assaults. However, the committee chairman Trey Gowdy states that Clinton's emails show her staff chose to prioritize away from the request to focus on her political career. Regardless, Clinton admits to some responsibility for the attack.
The hearing was comprised of representatives of both parties, who claimed to avoid partisan arguments in respect to the victims of the raid. Democrats and Republicans alike criticized Clinton and her staff on the evidence of negligent behavior seen in her emails. Clinton fired back repeatedly with witticisms and charm, and sincere moments of reflection and mourning. Regardless of the bi-partisan attempts of the committee, it seemed to the representatives and viewers that the arguments were rooted deeply in political opinion. After a long back and forth, Clinton plead to viewers and the committee to "understand that this was a fog of war" or to understand that there was very limited communication, and to "not take away from the heroic efforts the diplomatic security officers exhibited." The trial, of course, does not actually convict any one person of a crime. However, depending on how the electorate react to her testimonies, it could embed an even greater distrust of Clinton as a politician and may even instill the image of a weak leader.
Do you think that Clinton's Presidential campaign will be impacted by these recent discoveries and testimonies?
If so, in what way will public opinion change?
Are criticisms against Clinton rooted in politics or are they justified?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34602691
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/22/politics/hillary-clinton-benghazi-hearing-updates/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34598958
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3 comments:
There is some justification on the attacks against Hillary's negligence of the Benghazi attacks. Clinton did mess up. Whether it was her fault completely is debatable. But I believe it is justified for the republicans to criticize her actions even if it is simply political. This is a topic that the public deserves to know when they make their vote in the 2016 presidential election and the only way we as Americans would hear about it is through these attacks. Clinton's political ability in foreign matters has been constantly questioned by political opponents, and this was the accumulation of that.
During the trial, Clinton did her best to deflect any of the criticism away from herself. While this is very defensive, it is very necessary for Clinton to do with an election coming up. The impact that the accusations will have on her political campaign at this point will not be very much. For the past few months or so, Clinton has been constantly amidst political controversy and at this point, this is just another drop in the barrel. People either trust her or they don't, an the point of all the republican mudslinging has been to get the people to mistrust her, which in a sense has worked, they've just exhausted it.
http://news.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-tells-benghazi-panel-u-diplomats-must-152230990.html
Clinton's actions during this crisis in Benghazi definitely were a mistake and show a possible weakness for her possible presidency in the future. This would concern a lot of her followers because it shows that she may not be able to properly handle terrorist situations. This provides a lack of sense of security for Americans. However, the validity of these worries is not necessarily great because the entire argument is being based off of only one situation. It is fair for people to judge her actions toward this event to evaluate her management of foreign matters in the past. But, it is not fair to completely write her off because of this situation; she has probably learned a lot from this mistake and grown. It is difficult to tell what anyone would do until the situation comes. It's just a question of whether people trust her with these issues that will determine many people's opinions in the upcoming election.
Overall, Clinton being tried for any issue is bad for her campaign because voters are developing an increasing distrust. Between the email scandal and this, many people do not have faith in her to do what is best for the country while in power. Clinton's best move for now is to just defend herself as much as possible and try to prove to the public that she can be a trustworthy, strong leader.
From what I have seen of Hillary Clinton's hearing, it has been more of a partisan shouting match than an actual hearing. Literal shouting was thrown back and forth as Trey Gowdy and two Democrats argued over the intent of Clinton's email exchanges with her friend Sidney Blumenthal, resulting in threats from the Democrats to leave the hearing. “We have been having an ongoing discussion about whether it makes sense for us to continue this partisan exercise, and those conversations are going to intensify the longer we go forward and certainly after today,” one of them said. Even on Clinton's side, it seems as if she is not taking the hearing seriously. Instead, she is coming off as off-putting-ly cool and collected while trying to incite anger in her questioners rather than answer the questions. Critics are placing blame on Clinton for ignoring department rules and ignoring many emails that were sent to her about lack of security that led to Benghazi. While there may or may not be any criminal outcome, this is definitely a bad show of Clinton's character.
http://time.com/4083085/hillary-clinton-benghazi-hearing-livestream-video/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/us/politics/hillary-clinton-benghazi-committee.html
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