Politics: Diplomacy involves considerable
travel. What it shouldn’t include is free rides from both the media and
political establishment. But Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are getting
just that as the guard changes at State.
Outside the frothy bubble of U.S. political
concerns lie only the hard realities of the real world. That’s why hard
questions should be asked — and real answers demanded — of U.S.
secretaries of state and those who would be them.
That’s not the case with either Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, who puts up excuse after excuse to avoid
testifying on the U.S.’ biggest foreign policy failure in Libya, while
her would-be successor, John Kerry, wins plaudits from the media despite
a long record of anti-Americanism and bad foreign policy calls.
Clinton claims she can’t testify for
Congress on Thursday because she fell down over the weekend and got a
concussion. Maybe so, but thus far no one’s seen a medical report.
What’s more, it’s the second time Clinton has put off crucial
congressional testimony about the murder of a U.S. ambassador and three
other U.S. officials by Islamist terrorists in
Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11. The previous time, she had more pressing
business, tasting wine in Australia and checking up on East Timor.
It looks like avoidance of responsibility
to preserve her own political viability. Clinton is believed to harbor
political ambitions for 2016, but the fact that the State Department
failed to provide enough security to embassy personnel, failed to come
to their aid after their calls during the attack, and had live video
showing just how bad the attacks were, were all her responsibility.
Photo Credit: Aaron Webb (Creative Commons)
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