Nearly 90 percent of the House Republican caucus members want a spot on the House Benghazi select committee. Congressman Lynn Westmoreland reportedly told journalist David Drucker that 206 of the House’s 233 Republican members have requested consideration for being placed on the select committee. The committee, once it is chosen, will consist of seven Republican and five Democratic members of Congress.
As Republican members of Congress pursue their mad dash to join Fox News in pursuing an unproductive partisan witch hunt that has been rehashed over and over for months, it becomes crystal clear that the GOP lacks a substantive legislative agenda.
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Suddenly, the very same House Republicans who have not made any effort to pass significant legislation in months, are highly motivated to take part on a committee whose sole purpose is to try to score partisan political points by exploiting a terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Libya. Based on the numbers, it appears that nearly every House Republican is eager to jump on the Benghazi exploitation bandwagon.
While, in an election year, there is little doubt that reviving the Benghazi dead horse and beating it time and again may rally the hardcore GOP base, there is also little question that the investigation is not likely to lead to anything more substantial than the facts that have already been uncovered. Those facts, while not exactly flattering for U.S. officials, hardly reveal any pattern of criminal behavior, or any ethical breaches worthy of the effort being expended to habitually restate what we already know.
The fact that a majority of GOP Representatives can think of no better use of their time than to revisit a string of Benghazi conspiracy theories, yet one more time, is more an indictment on the House Republican caucus than it is a blemish for the Obama administration. While the Benghazi incident could certainly have been handled better by the White House and the State Department their conduct is not nearly as disturbing as the behavior of the GOP lawmakers who continue to try to exploit the four murders for cheap partisan political theater.
Keith Brekhus is a progressive American who currently resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. He holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri. In 2002, he ran for Congress as a Green Party candidate in the state of Missouri. In 2014, he worked as a field organizer for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick’s successful re-election bid in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus or on Facebook.
