In the short run, as the media will try to persuade the American people, Hillary “won” the confrontation with the Gowdy committee yesterday. But enough damaging information came out in the hearings to spell trouble for her later in the election campaign. Nearly all on the left, and even a number of conservatives think that Hillary Clinton triumphed over the House Special Committee on Benghazi yesterday.  Scorn laced the reactions of the left, as in MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell proclaiming on air, “If this is all the GOP has on Benghazi, they have nothing.” The Kevin McCarthy-generated theme that this was all about politics, and the image of a woman being harassed for over ten hours and bravely triumphing fed the contempt being dished out for the GOP-led committee. Predictably, NBC News led its nightly newscast with the story of how “Hillary Clinton stood her ground in the face of withering GOP questioning”   This is...(Read Full Post)