Comments about ‘In our opinion: Hillary Clinton's 'What difference?' comment matters’

It's all about telling the truth, not dodging it.

From the article "The purpose of congressional hearings ought to be, the discovery of the truth."

I would consider that a secondary issue. The first would be "how do we learn from it and prevent it in the future" That should be the main goal.

I never really understood the whole Benghazi issue.

Had Rice said right off the bat "this was an Al Quada terrorist attack" what would have changed?

I believe that there were conflicting information in the immediate aftermath and they went with the best story.

Were there political motivations? Possibly.

After watching these hearings, it was abundantly clear that the main goal was to allow partisan members of our congress to bloviate for political gain. They were more interested in partisan monologues to beat their chest and play to their base, than to learn from any mistakes made and make corrections.

We are spread throughout this world and things like this have happened and will continue to happen.

Deseret News, you are being deliberately disingenuous and hyper-partisan by only including the first sentence of Hilary Clinton's "What difference" response.

Here's her full response: "What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator."

She was not being dismissive of the seriousness of the attack. She was being dismissive of the idiotic direction Republican Senators were trying to take their questioning of her.

The only thing separating the Benghazi attacks from numerous other tragedies over the years that prove that supporting American diplomacy can be dangerous is that Republicans have chosen to try to turn the tragedy in Benghazi into a political issue. They're embarrassing themselves in the process.

Read Article II, Section 4 before excusing Obama or Clinton or anyone else who had knowledge of the real state of events in Benghazi. Those people sitting in the White House who watched the attack were elected or appointed to protect the interests of America regardless of their personal feelings and regardless of any "political fallout" that may or may not have occurred as a result of executing their duty.

Obama chose to do nothing, even when a Navy Seal repeatedly "painted" the target so that the drone or other aircraft in the vicinity could stop the attack. That Navy Seal is a hero. He saved the lives of at least thirty people who otherwise would have been killed.

The actions of the President, the Secretary of State and of everyone else in that room, do not constitute a "lesson". Those actions, at least for the President, who is the Commander in Chief, constitute dereliction of duty. Were he a lowly private in the Army, he would face, at minimum, a court martial, and if convicted, he would receive, at minimum, a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and confinement.

Don't sweep this under the rug.

Reporters from The New York Times and Reuters who were on the ground immediately after the attacks relayed that people involved in the mob scene around the compound repeatedly cited the video as a cause of their anger.

The ARB (the report issued by Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering's panel), in its unclassified form, mentions that the attackers' motivation is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation. But the classified version, Clinton said, detailed the possible motivations for the attack, and suggested while they were pre-coordinated and deliberate, they were also opportunistic and not planned extensively.

DN is less interested in bringing forth facts and has adopted FoxNews strategy of one-sided "reporting" (if that is what you want to call it).

Yes Mike. It is clear to everyone that the actions taken by Obama and Clinton were calculated attempts to insure that people died.

Does that make any sense to you? What motivations do you believe they had?

Seriously. How about we use a little logic here.

Different decisions may have saved lives. Isn't that almost always the case?

Please, take me through what you believe was Obamas thought process.

The only truth that the American people can really know from the congressional hearings and the other propaganda about Benghazi is that the republicans in congress will take any opportunity, real or made up, to discredit the Obama government.

The culture of hate is so pervading the if the president would say “have a nice day” the republicans would spend millions of dollars to discredit his motives.

The real truth that it is our foreign policy of buying the favoritism of corrupt governments for greedy American businessmen that causes the hate for Americans around the world. The military arms and assistance we give to these governments enable them to oppress their people.

But no one in our business controlled government and media will tell that story.

When are repubs going to "investigate" bush & cheney for the lies and mess in Iraq?

From Pickering/Mullen's report:

"For many years the State Department has been engaged in a struggle to obtain the resources necessary to carry out its work, with varying degrees of success."

Re:MikeRichards

"The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans. In addition, at the State Department’s request, the Department of Defense also provided a Marine FAST (Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team) as additional security support for Embassy Tripoli on September 12."

The President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and other want power without accountability. That is tyranny, and we should not tolerate it any longer!

From Pickering/Mullen's report:

"For many years the State Department has been engaged in a struggle to obtain the resources necessary to carry out its work, with varying degrees of success."

Re:MikeRichards

"The Board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans. In addition, at the State Department’s request, the Department of Defense also provided a Marine FAST (Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team) as additional security support for Embassy Tripoli on September 12."

This is so obviously nothing more than a political toy for Republicans. Before the election they said it was President Obama's fault. After the election, with hints that Clinton may run in 2016, its suddenly her fault.

How dare anyone ask a liberal politician for accountability! Accountability is only for Republicans! I remember "Watergate" was on the front page of every newspaper of the country for months and was the "crime of the century" even though no one died! There were hearings and investigations for months, even though no one died. Heads rolled and a President resigned in disgrace, even though no one died. How things have changed in America! No real investigation, stonewalling, lies and cover-ups and it barely makes the last page of any newspaper and is almost never on the TV news and when it is, its "poor little Hillary, those mean Republicans are asking her questions! Difference? Its a liberal Democrat this time, and people died!

You all seem to be under the false illusion that mike or any of the others on the far right still tryi g to score politcal points over others tragic deaths care about truth.

We have been lied to and they have been caught. So now they say - what does it matter? If this doesn't disturb some of you libs then you have your head in the sand.

It all about the truth... agreed. And what many seem to be forgotten is that at the exact same time, there were protest - real ones - going on in several other countries concurrently. I know it is a lot easier to put that little factoid to the side, and pretend like this event happened in isolation... that from DC, government officials were all watching this unfold on big screen tvs. But the truth is there were multiples of events going on at the same time - each and every one of them with the potential for what happened in Libya.

So if it is the truth you want... you need to start with putting the events into full context... not partial or select information. You need to understand that while there were memos about security in general, that the situation on the field "felt" stable enough for the staff to continue business as usual.

Lets stop trying to turn these mens deaths into something that they weren't. If this is the smoking gun of incompetence the conservatives are thinking leads to bigger issues, they are grasping at straws for political value only - not fixing the problem.

Mountainman... I remember Watergate, Iran-Contra, weapons for hostages, scooter libby.... clintons little affair.... we remember them all.

Is it your assumption that someone needs to die for a president to have operated outside of the law.... that breaking and stealing from the other party is an insignificant act, the having government records destroyed in an attempt to cover the act up means nothing?

No one is denying people died. People died in a lot of events over the last 30 years.

Whats the difference..... one president lied, broke the law, and denied it. The other act, at best, is an act of incompetence. If a president is to resign every time bad information is passed - we would never have a president.

Lets keep this in perspective. Who died with Clinton's impeachment? Anyone? Any laws broken... ? Anyone go to jail over it?

So lets stop comparing apple to oranges. Did Reagan resign over the Lebanon bombings that left over 200 marines dead, and nearly as many diplomates in the second bombing? Lets talk about gross incompetence with like events. How many Americans have died at the hands of terrorist in the last 5 years? How many in the preceding 8?

There is no way to have a civil discourse when we discuss Benghazi. Tyrone Woods is dead. Chris Stevens is dead. Glen Doherty is dead. Sean Smith is dead. Because of the actions of Woods and Doherty who disobeyed direct orders, more than thirty other Americans are alive.

Obama is alive. Hilary Clinton is alive. Susan Rice is alive. They were safely watching the attack thousands of miles out of harm's way. They had no skin in the game. The Commander in Chief might just was well have been watching a golf tournament. He did not act. He did not fulfil the duties of his office. He did not keep his oath. He had an election to win and Benghazi wasn't in his plans.

Clinton wants us to forget Benghazi. Obama wants us to forget Benghazi. America must never forget that a Commander In Chief did nothing when his call to duty came - and Americans died while he watched TV.

When history is fully written, Obama will be seen as the ultimate coward - a man who put self before duty.

So a bunch of terrorists sneaked up on a house (not a consulate) and laid down fire 11,000 miles from Washington. The next day Obama denounced such "acts of terror." Intelligence pointed to a simultaneous wave of protests about the video as possibly connected. They're trying to find the killers. All the self-righteous second guessers here seem to forget it took a while to figure out what happened 9/11/2001. Give them a chance to figure it out and resolve it.

@mountainman
This stopped being about accountability a long time ago this is all about the GOPs unabashed desire for power no matter how many people's death the disrespect along the way