House Democrats to remain on Behghazi committee

The Benghazi committee began a marathon hearing on Thursday in which Clinton, the former secretary of state who is the frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, is the sole witness.

Yet it was her steady determination that won plaudits on Thursday when she headed off Republican questioners on the Benghazi committee, intent on pinning the death of an ambassador to poor leadership at the State Department.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.): I object on the grounds that this is silly.

Clinton’s prime-time cable appearance was also another milestone in the Humanizing Hillary Project-along with recent appearances on several other Comcast/NBC Universal vehicles, notably a Today Show town hall, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live-as the formerly scripted and brittle politician exposed her softer, warmer side, empathizing with Joe Biden (who helpfully declared his non-candidacy on Wednesday), and emoting over the meaning of friendship and the memory of her mother. Is this thing forever?

“If we stay here much longer”, Schiff quipped in a friendly way to Clinton, “you’re going to have to take that 3 a.m. phone call from the committee room”.

Clinton visited Utah in August to raise funds, an event organized by former Utah Democratic Party Chairman Donald Dunn, who had worked in the Clinton White House.

In the debate in Las Vegas, Mrs. Clinton cited the “tenacity” she would bring to the presidency.

Clinton: I didn’t hear a question in that. Mrs. Clinton looked unflappable because she doesn’t think that she failed Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glenn Doherty and Ty Woods, the 4 American patriots that were murdered during the terrorist attack of 9/11/2012.

Democrats noted that the probe has now cost taxpayers more than $4.5 million and has lasted longer than the 1970s Watergate era investigation.

“The reality is that after 17 months, we have nothing new to tell the families. And I think that sometimes, as a leader in a democracy, you are confronted with two bad choices”, she said.

Gowdy said important questions remain unanswered: Why was the U.S.in Libya? “They are additional requests for security for the compound”. Why was the military not ready to respond quickly on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks?

“These questions linger”, he argued, “because previous investigations were not thorough”. But said he did not know whether the embattled panel gained credibility.

Ripping a page out of husband president Bill’s never-say-die playbook, Clinton – who led rival Barack Obama early in their 2008 battle only to see him snatch the nomination later in the race – may be proving that she too can be the comeback kid.

Clinton’s many explanations of why she used a private email system raise uncomfortable comparisons to former President Bill Clinton’s parsing of “what the definition of “is” is”, his labored and false explanations about Monica Lewinsky.

“Clinton said that “some” people had wanted to use the video to justify the attack” and said she rejected that justification.

The Jordan-Clinton exchange hit at the core of the protracted partisan feuding on Capitol Hill.

When asked if President Obama was “naive” to have expected to work with Republicans in office, Clinton demurred, but said the president had been “bewildered” by GOP efforts to block in on issues like the economic stimulus package early in his first term, which was then overshadowed by the financial crisis and a deep recession.

THE FACTS: Clinton’s assertion that her actions were “allowed” is misleading. But it also left her vulnerable to claims she helped politicize the Benghazi tragedy.

“There were probably a number of different motivations” for the attack, Clinton said, describing a time when competing strands of intelligence were being received and no clear picture had yet emerged. You can’t knock her down.

“I’m sorry that it doesn’t fit your narrative”.

There was more good news when she added the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a 1.6m member labour union, to her growing list of endorsements. She never raised her voice as she had at a Senate hearing on Benghazi in January 2013, when she shouted: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”