We all saw some or all of the committee hearing on Benghazi, or the news clips, heard the commentators, read the headlines, etc. I don’t know much about most of the members of Congress who sit on the committee. After watching some of them, observing their actions, expressions, demeanor and questions, if you can call them that, I am disgusted to think that is who we are. Is that the very best our states can elect as their representatives? Who voted for these people and do they have the same attitude or anger or worse hate? An American Ambassador died, a very very good ambassador. He knew the country and understood it. Does anyone truly believe that any Secretary of State would not do everything possible to protect any ambassador? An inquiry is appropriate and required by law. It was in fact completed and headed by former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, an honorable person. The committee report was completed and is available for all to read. It would have helped if anyone of the republican committee members had taken the time to read it themselves. It was obvious each member had an agenda and an opinion not based on facts. The demeaning of the Pickering report and Mr. Pickering was disgraceful on it’s own. The lack of knowledge of how any large organization be it private or public communicates within the organization is mind boggling to me. Did none ever read a basic book on organizational structure? In public administration Dwight Waldo wrote of “muddling through” as a means of pubic sector movement. This committee was not muddling through it was “muddying up” by making up facts, being ignorant or simply lying. I have to assume this was for personal gain because it certainly did not benefit the country nor seek to insure we learn better ways to secure our embassy staffs around the world. Ambassador Stevens deserves better.
There have been other congressional committees reviewing previous incidents to insure tragedies do not repeat. There is always an element of blame but the goal should be how to prevent a recurrence. Does anyone feel this is the goal of the committee? Representative Gowdy is a buffoon as a chairman and a disgrace as a member of congress and that includes some of his republican colleagues. Former first lady Clinton was also a senator and a Secretary of State and is a democratic presidential candidate. Would any of these people on the committee have treated any other former first lady in this manner, Mrs. Nixon during Watergate, Mrs. Reagan after the barracks explosion in Lebanon or Mrs. Bush after 9/11, if for any reason each was appearing before any congressional committee? I would have expected each to be treated with respect and dignity, two terms these hippocrits could neither define nor comprehend.
I am angry to think this is the best we can elect. This is not the government which I like to think I helped to defend and would again. Our world is so divided. The dividing line seems to fall between hate and ignorance. In her book Scoundrel Time Lillian Hellman wrote that “emotion masquerading as reason can only confound the situation.” This is a time of scoundrels and they are at work confounding and confusing without reason. I can accept that these people can get emotional and lose it a bit. In the end I expect them to be reasonable if not fair. We all need to look at these people without our political biases and try to decide are they really seeking truth and trying to be reasonable. If they are not then I have to defer to their electors to decide if this is who you want to represent you and our way of governing.
The attitude I am trying to convey is that we all need to review the actions of our elected officials at all levels and judge these actions based on our beliefs not our own political biases. I hope we can all try to do so, myself included.
phil ward
Phil's Personal Perspectives 