Gail Collins, "Hillary and Benghazi": An American Tragedy

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In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary and Benghazi," Gail Collins writes of the proceedings of the House Select Committee on Benghazi and Hillary's imminent testimony before that body:

"The first step on the road to national sanity is to acknowledge that our leaders all want to keep the people safe. There is absolutely no reason to worry on that point."

Sorry, Gail, but I don't believe that. Not when President Obama can run off to play golf just minutes after expressing his grief over the beheading of American journalist James Foley. Not when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can promise Patricia Smith, mother of slain Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, a full accounting of the September 11, 2012 attack, and then just ignore Ms. Smith. You see, politics on both sides of the aisle is awash in narcissism, and most politicians don't give a damn about anyone except themselves.

Gail Collins continues her op-ed by observing:

"How do you know if politicians are transcending their parties when they’re investigating these painful and sensitive matters? Well, do they seem interested in important but unsexy issues like the State Department security chain of command?"

"Chain of command"? What are you intimating, Gail? That Hillary was too high up at the State Department to bear personal responsibility for the disaster? Well, I don't give a flying f*ck (pardon my French) about chains of command. A disaster of this magnitude occurs, and the head of the State Department should take personal responsibility . . . and not run for president. But Hillary, being Hillary, comes first.

What exactly did Hillary know prior to the disaster? Perhaps we will never know, owing to Hillary's erasure of her emails. (Let's see what the FBI determines regarding her use of a private server and the erasure of her emails, notwithstanding Obama's attempt to meddle with the investigation.) Collins says of Hillary's attempt to wipe clean her server:

"I believe I speak for many when I say that if email had been around during the Nixon administration, we would have seen erasures the size of Mount Whitney."

Nixon would have behaved worse than Hillary? I find that less than reassuring.

Which brings me to Biden's decision not to run against Hillary for the Democratic nomination. We still need to hear from the FBI, but as of now, Hillary appears to have the nomination in her pantsuit pocket. Now we must wait and see if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, thus heralding a hurricane of narcissism which might never wind down.