Republicans hope reinvestigating Hillary will help Americans ignore investigations of Trump

Rep. Trey Gowdy* is preparing to begin year eight of the Benghazi Investigation into what happened in the city of that name where American diplomats were killed by terrorists. Most of Mr. Gowdy’s and his predecessor Darrel Issa’s prior inquisition has focused on the slowness with which the tragic sequence of events were described to the public by the White House team of then President Obama and then Sec of State Hillary Clinton. In the fog of war, the facts about what happened can be slow to emerge and confirm. (The first reports are often filled with rumor.) Try as they might, they cannot stop investigating Hillary. She is that fascinating…

Mostly, though, it appears to be an effort to distract from how the Russians punked our election to put Trump in the White House.

From the Guardian

What’s ironic is it has taken a considerable amount of time for the Trump administration to tell Americans what happened recently in Niger and nobody is promising an investigation of that. Would it be hypocritical of Democrats to mount the same kind of partisan witch hunt over the Niger incident? Maybe.

The difference between the two tragedies, though, is the Obama information sequence followed protocols for reporting this kind of event: seeking the best available facts before reporting to the public. The delay of several days by the Trump White House appears to be related to casual indifference and detachment and perhaps slow efforts to locate Niger on the map. (Niger is right next door to Nigeria after all. I am guessing the Trump team often confuses the various Dakotas and Carolinas and Virginias.) The problem is the Trump administration dislikes best practices and is very short on professional staff. The unprofessional staff seems secretive and dishonest. Also––and not surprisingly–– the chain of command in this very-generallish White House doesn’t seem to go all the way to the top.

From The Hill newspaper

President Trump on Wednesday said he did not personally authorize the mission in Niger in which four U.S. soldiers were killed, saying “my generals and my military” have decision-making authority.
Asked if he authorized the mission, Trump responded, “No, I didn’t, not specifically.”

“I have generals that are great generals,” he continued. “These are great fighters; these are warriors. I gave them authority to do what’s right so that we win. That’s the authority they have. I want to win. And we’re going to win.”

Trump made the comments to reporters on the White House south lawn as he left for Texas.

“My generals and my military, they have decision-making ability,” he added later. “As far as the incident that we’re talking about, I’ve been seeing it just like you’ve been seeing it. I’ve been getting reports. They have to meet the enemy and they meet them tough and that’s what happens.”

Which prompts me to ask the question I have been asking for months now: “How many generals does it take to screw in a junta?”

(*I have learned from reliable sources that Rep. Gowdy plans to go as Draco Malfoy again for Halloween this year.)