The press’ big takeaway away from Hillary Clinton’s appearance this week before the Select Committee on Benghazi is that she “won,” meaning the former secretary of State survived hours of questioning without any harm to her 2016 presidential campaign.
“The Daily 202: Eight reasons Hillary Clinton won the Benghazi hearing,” the Washington Post promised in a headline.
Time magazine added, “How Hillary Clinton Won the Benghazi Hearing.”
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Commentary’s John Podhoretz declared in a New York Post op-ed, “Hillary wins — theatrically — in Benghazi hearing.”
The special committee has been tasked with investigating the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya. As such, the Democratic front-runner is being investigated for her role in the State Department’s handling of security risks facing American assets around the world.
The committee chair, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Thursday’s hours-long hearing didn’t produce any big surprises.
“I don’t know that she testified that much differently today than she has the previous time she testified,” he said, referring to when Clinton appeared before Congress in 2013 to testify on the same topic.
For the press, the only interesting takeaway is that the former secretary of state “won.” Both left and right-leaning media appear to share this sentiment.
“Hillary won the Benghazi show before saying a word: How TV hearings drum up support for the accused,” the left-wing Salon said in a report.
Conservative radio host Erick Erickson said in a blog post, “The hearings are a waste of time because everything about it is politicized and nothing is going to happen. There will be no scalp collection … Most of the rest of the committee just wants to grandstand for the folks back home as either prosecutors of or defenders of Hillary Clinton.”
Fox News White House correspondent Ed Henry added, “In terms of the narrative on Benghazi, there was no major new development that rocked her side of the story, that changes this in some way. What you have here is another big test for Hillary Clinton, and another big test that she appears to have passed.”
But it didn’t really matter what was said at the hearing, the Washington Examiner‘s Ashe Schow noted. All Clinton had to do was avoid having a public meltdown. The press was already primed to hand her victory.
“She appeared competent, but she didn’t ‘wow’ anyone. The fact of the matter is that Ms. Clinton simply has to show up and not fail, and she will be declared a winner,” Schow wrote.
Prior to the publication of numerous articles explaining Clinton’s clear victory, reporters and pundits spent most of Thursday eagerly sharing that they were bored. As the nearly 10 hours long hearing wore on, reporters grew increasingly restless, and many of them took to social media to complain about the content of the questions as well as the length of the hearing.
“Give the Benghazi panel’s majority representatives credit for physical prowess, this is a s—load of sharks for any mortal to jump,” Fusion senior editor Adam Weinstein wrote.
New Yorker editor Nicholas Thompson complained, “Congressional investigations into Benghazi: 8 Congressional investigations into Sandy Hook: 0.”
“I’m glad that I wrote that long thing about the Benghazi hearing. I’m glad I’m up this late. I’m very glad that happened,” the Guardian’s Jeb Lund said, complaining even louder that Thompson.
Media disinterest and antipathy lasted long after the hearing wrapped up late Thursday evening. When approached with one of the few takeaways from the event, that Clinton appears to have lied outright when she said that the deadly attacks were caused by a YouTube video, Politico’s chief political correspondent Glenn Thrush replied with a simple: “Meh.
