Imagine a Washington, D.C. where Republicans came to work each day fired up with renewed passion and zeal. A Congress where energized Republicans legislated in bi-partisan fashion on behalf of the American people. Imagine them joining with Democrats to enact meaningful health care, immigration,...

The Republican feeding frenzy masquerading as an investigation into the Benghazi, Libya terror attack is nothing more than a shameless witch hunt manufactured to derail Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Prominent right-wingers are rapaciously devouring this alleged scandal in the hope that it not only tarnishes President Obama's counter-terrorism record but keeps his former Secretary of State out of the Oval Office in four years. The cries of "cover-up" is partisan politics at its worst.

"I think this is, Sean, one of the worst cover-ups, probably in the history of the republic," said Liz Cheney to Fox's Sean Hannity. Let's not ignore the irony in that it is Cheney's father, former vice president Dick Cheney, who prosecuted one of the most ill-conceived, ill-advised, unjust wars in American history. "We are not talking about a policy that went awry here, we are talking about an ambassador and three other Americans who were killed. We are talking about a nation under attack."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote an op-ed in The Washington Times last Friday that said Clinton should "never hold high office again."

Karl Rove's American Crossroads has an incendiary television spot charging that the attack occurred "on Hillary Clinton's Watch."

The over-the-top rhetoric is targeted to Obama as well, with Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) suggesting that the president could be impeached over what he alleged was the "greatest cover-up in American history. People may be starting to use the I-word before too long. Of all the great cover-ups in history -- the Pentagon papers, Iran-Contra, Watergate, all the rest of them -- this ... is going to go down as most egregious cover-up in American history."

And former GOP presidential candidate and talk-show host Mike Huckabee said last week that Obama "will not fill out his full term."

The truth is, the average American likely knows more about Ben Affleck than it does Benghazi. And three years is an awful lot of time in politics. House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who's heading the probe into the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy, is delusional if he thinks voters will ultimately hold Clinton personally liable for the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. For this narrative to play out, and given the tightness of recent elections, it would require a critical amount of Democrats, not just Fox-friendly conservatives, to move the needle from her. Not very likely.

Leading the charge with Issa is Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who's accused Clinton of putting politics before the nation's security needs...saying the country was "misled at every step." Putting politics before security is something Chaffetz knows a lot about. If he really wants to talk about what is misleading, he can start with the fact that it was he and his fellow House Republicans who've critically cut funding for U.S. embassy security since 2010.

As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote last fall: "For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department's Worldwide Security Protection program -- well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration's request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012. ...Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans' proposed cuts to her department would be "detrimental to America's national security" -- a charge Republicans rejected."

When pressed by former CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien about whether he pushed for these cuts Chaffetz replied: "Absolutely. Look we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have...15,000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, a private army there, for President Obama, in Baghdad. And we're talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces. When you're in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices. You have to prioritize things."

Which makes Chaffetz's role in the current "investigation" mind-numbingly hypocritical and contemptible. It's an insult to the intelligence of every American and an unconscionable abuse of the political process.

Not political theater you say? From 2002-2008, when George W. Bush occupied the White House, there were at least ten other terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies, consulates and compounds abroad in which sixty Americans were killed. I don't recall the righteous indignation and outrage from Republicans then.

Most reprehensible is how conservatives since last September have relentlessly attacked Obama during this time of national crisis. This runs counter to how the entire nation, including Democrats, rallied around Bush after the 9-11 attacks. Republicans used Benghazi before the last election for political purposes and are now setting the stage for the next one.

If only the GOP would've conducted such an aggressive investigation into the Bush administration's manufacturing of WMD evidence to justify its craven rush to war in Iraq. If they had, perhaps Bush, Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the war's chief architects, would be in jail. Some perspective is important here: a terrible tragedy, for sure, but four people died in Benghazi. In the Iraq war 4500 American soldiers died, not to mention the tens of thousands of others, including Iraqis, killed or maimed. Yet Washington never witnessed such outrage and a quest for the truth from Republicans, whose disingenuous motives on Benghazi are now utterly transparent.

There's no question that Obama believed the Benghazi attack was the work of terrorists. In a Rose Garden speech the day after the violence, alongside Clinton, he very pointedly referred to it as "an act of terror." (For the record, during a visit to Washington Hospital Center on September 13, 2001, just two days after the World Trade Center attacks, Bush described the incident as an "unbelievable act of terror").

And in her now infamous, State Department career-ending interview on Meet the Press September 16, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice stated it was the administration's early belief that the Benghazi attack was a "spontaneous reaction" and the the result of a "hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated throughout the Arab and Muslim world."

But when pressed further by host David Gregory, she added: "First of all, there's an FBI investigation which is ongoing. And we look to that investigation to give us the definitive word as to what transpired...What we think then transpired in Benghazi is that opportunistic extremist elements came to the consulate as this was unfolding. They came with heavy weapons which unfortunately are readily available in post revolutionary Libya. And it escalated into a much more violent episode. Obviously, that's-- that's our best judgment now. We'll await the results of the investigation."

Excuse my righteous indignation, but what the fuck is wrong with waiting a couple of weeks for an investigation to more fully flush out the details before a rush to judgement? Especially after the country was lied into a devastatingly costly 8-year war by Republicans who were so quick to judge and place blame (wrongly, I might add), even in the absence of evidence? Between Obama, Rice, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI and others, no one was denying the role that terrorists played in the Benghazi attack. Rather, the Obama team responsibly chose to reserve drawing conclusions as to the specific who, what, where, when and how of it all until the facts could be determined.

On September 19, three days after Rice's Sunday morning television appearances, Obama dispatched the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matt Olsen, "up to Capitol Hill and specifically said it was an act of terrorism and that extremist elements inside of Libya had been involved in it....Who executes some sort of cover-up or effort to tamp things down for three days? So the whole thing defies logic."

Exactly. It defies logic. But what it doesn't defy is reality....which is that Republicans remain angry and frustrated after two bruising elections and a loss of power, and are rabid in their quest to undermine and take down this president and Hillary Clinton at any and all cost, regardless of the toll it takes on...

The United States has a two-term black president. Gay marriage bills are passing all over the country. A majority of voters support sweeping immigration legislation. Organized religion is facing more challenges than ever. And most Americans favor stiffer gun laws and a hands-off abortion...

A funny thing happened on the way to the polls in South Carolina Tuesday. Voters in what Gallup cites as the sixth most religious state in the country re-elected Republican Mark Sanford, an Episcopalian, to the congressional seat he held from 1995-2001. If...

So Jason Collins, the 7-foot NBA center, is gay. His groundbreaking declaration came in a Sports Illustrated op-ed published Monday. And yes, it's 2013 and times have changed, as the jubilation across the country, and among several prominent players, has demonstrated. But once we get past the hoopla and the...

Let me begin with full disclosure: My wife was brutally murdered in 2006, so I know first-hand what devastating shock...

As of this writing there have been no arrests made, no persons of interest announced by authorities and no terrorist organizations claiming responsibility for Monday's Boston Marathon bombings which killed three people (including an 8-year-old boy) and injured more than 100. The powerful...

New York. The greatest city in the world. It deserves a mayor with spunk, moxie, chutzpah, balls (pun intended)....who might even be a bit of a dick (intended pun #2). A colorful character in the tradition of Wagner, La Guardia, Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg. Someone not afraid to speak his...

The United States Supreme Court this week heard arguments on two critical cases that will either be a devastating setback or a landmark victory for gay marriage: a challenge to California's Proposition 8 which overturned a lower court's ruling allowing same-sex marriage; and a...

Jerry Seinfeld made a decision early on...

Teen pregnancy. It's a problem for which Republicans have historically argued a common-sense solution, and it's not contraception or sex-education. Their fix is simple and straight-forward: abstinence. Just keep the penis out of the vagina. So how come the same philosophy doesn't apply to...

In a Benghazi-leverage-fueled power-play that is both shameful and unsurprising, Senate Republicans Thursday filibustered President Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. In a 58-40 vote, Democrats lost their bid to call a vote on Hagel, the decorated Vietnam War vet, a Republican, who used to be besties with Sen. John McCain and who Majority Leader Mitch McConnell once called one of the Senate's most respected foreign policy experts.

Some perspective is needed here: only twice in modern history has a Cabinet nominee been filibustered (Reagan's second-term Commerce Secretary C. William Verity and George W. Bush's Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne) and never has there been one in the case of a Defense Secretary. So this week's action, or inaction, is just more of the same old partisan vitriol coming from a bunch of angry old rich men still pissed about the election (and I mean the one in 2008, not just last November's trouncing). They hate Obama, hate Democrats, and continue to "just say no" to everything the left puts forth.

Defending his party's opposition, McCain said: "There's a lot of ill will towards Sen. Hagel, because when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly -- at one point, said he was the worst president since Herbert Hoover -- said that the [Iraqi troop] surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam war, which is nonsense. He was very anti-his own party and people. People don't forget that. You can disagree, but if you're disagreeable, then people don't forget that.... Further, Chuck Hagel does not have the qualifications -- in the view of many of us, particularly me -- to serve. He's has no managerial experience. His view of the world is very different. His answers on Iran were troubling. His opposition to the surge, saying it would fail. You can only judge people on what they're going to do by what they've done in the past -- and that record is not a good one."

Well for one thing, if by his "record" McCain's referring to Hagel's opposition to the Iraq War, then I'd say his record is stellar, given that engagement's cost in terms of dollars and human life, let alone its uncertain outcome. And if by "troubling" McCain finds Hagel's caution against more Neocon tough talk on Iran, then I'd say "his answers" show exactly the sort of restraint and diplomacy the U.S. needs in a Defense Secretary. Lastly, McCain's blistering, personal-vendetta against Hagel is rooted in the contention that all Republicans are expected to march in lock-step with the party, acting as a rubber-stamp for anything and everything the leadership calls for. Disagreement, or dissent, is about as welcome to these myopic spoiled brats as a Barney Frank lecture on gay marriage.

Whatever happened to the House and Senate being about diverse ideas and opinions, both within a caucus and across the aisle, in protecting America's best interests? What happened to "putting country first," which was McCain's '08 campaign theme? As the undeserved witch-hunt against Hagel painfully demonstrates, it's tow-the-line or else with this current crop of Republicans. And as Obama charged Thursday, they now expect every Democratic bill in Congress to need a filibuster-proof majority in order for passage. Fuck compromise.

Hagel, who had no involvement in the administration's controversial handling of the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. embassy is Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens were killed, is being used as a pawn in the GOP's rapacious quest for "answers" on the terrorist attack. This malicious, spiteful, defamation of Hagel's character has less to do with his overall qualifications than it does Republicans simply acting like a bunch of nasty dicks because they can.

But after all the vituperative crowing and chest-thumping is over, Hagel's nomination will likely pass, but not before more taxpayer time and money is wasted and voters' approval of Congress sinks lower than McCain's trumped-up...

Well, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy, right? There he was, Marco Rubio, the Republican Party's boy wonder and Great Latin Hope, imploding right before the nation's very eyes as he gave the GOP's rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

To be sure, the words Poland Spring will never be the same again to Rubio. In what has become his very own bizarro Bobby Jindal moment, Rubio will be remembered not the way he hoped--for a searing, provocative response to Obama's big government expansion speech--but rather for a humiliatingly awkward episode with a very little water bottle.

Plagued by an obvious case of cottonmouth, and in the middle of an attack on Obama's "false choices," Rubio suddenly and quickly bent down, leaned to his left and desperately reached for the bottle all the while strangely darting his eyes back and forth between the bottle and the camera (like he was hastily picking up his dry-cleaning while eyeing his double-parked car). After an awkward gulp and swish, you could almost hear the stampede of big donors running for the door. You may recall how Jindal, in his 2009 State of the Union rebuttal, swiftly killed his own presidential buzz with one of the most forced, awkward deliveries in the history of politics.

Rubio attempted damage control Wednesday morning, poking fun at himself on ABC's Good Morning America. "I needed water, what am I going to do? God has a funny way of reminding us we're human." Well, if this is God's way of looking out for Rubio I'd suggest he try Atheism.

But let's not give Poland Spring all the credit here. Rubio's stilted, robotic manner and uber-boyish appearance did little to boost his presidential capital. BottleGate simply put a punctuation on these...

Gentlemen...let the civil war begin! Karl Rove, the former Bush operative-turned-superPACman, is creating a veritable shitstorm in the Republican Party with his new Conservative Victory Project, an offshoot of his American Crossroads super PAC. The project is squarely taking aim at the Senate,...

Here's the thing that I find fascinating about conservatives: they think that simply banning the things that terrify them actually make them go away. Of course, logic and reality dictate otherwise. This phenomenon is most prevalent when the subject is homosexuality... be it relating...

What's worse than a Republican chicken hawk wolfishly extolling the virtues and necessity of war with reckless abandon? A Republican chicken hawk who arrogantly attacks decorated war heroes with whom they disagree. That's exactly what's happening in President Obama's fight to appoint former Nebraska...

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After a horrific bloody week of multiple massacres, the latest at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. where twenty first-graders and seven adults were killed, the tipping point has arrived. We need action. What we don't have the time, patience or...

The stars have come out once again to support the Adrienne Shelly Foundation in its 6th Annual eBay Celebrity Auction ( www.ebay.com/asfoundation ). The Adrienne Shelly Foundation (ASF), a non-profit organization dedicated to the memory of adored actor, writer and director Adrienne Shelly (Waitress) awards nine annual production...

When I witnessed how you handled the post-Hurricane Sandy devastation in your state, and in particular how closely you worked with President Obama on disaster recovery and relief, several thoughts came to mind: (1) here's a truly effective governor reacting to a crisis; (2) here's a prominent Republican putting aside party politics for the good of his state's residents; (3) here's a guy who's his own man and doesn't care what the GOP elite thinks; and (4) all of which is exactly why so many people like and respect you.

Then came Rupert Murdoch's November 3 tweet: "...Now Christie, while thanking O, must re- declare for Romney, or take blame for next four dire years." And as the New York Times reported Tuesday, you've been taking it on the chin ever since from party leaders, fellow governors and large donors who, like Murdoch, hold you partly responsible for Obama's victory over Mitt Romney.

At a time when the nation is recovering from the most brutal presidential election in history and years of unprecedented partisan vitriol, and while your state, as well as several parts of New York, are still suffering the horrific impact of the storm, it's an utter shame that you have to expend any time whatsoever on further explaining your motivations and behavior during a time of catastrophic destruction.

Furthermore, given the results of the election and in particular your party's humiliating defeat in all of the critical swing states, it seems terribly counterintuitive for Republicans to be pounding the partisan drum in your ear. What the election clearly demonstrated is that Americans are fed up with the bickering in Washington and the virtual deadlock it's created. Voters affirmed their desire to elect leaders who've demonstrated that they can reach across the proverbial aisle and get the job done. They want politicians who can enact meaningful legislation to grow the economy and provide funding for healthcare, education and clean energy while addressing immigration and protecting and preserving Social Security and Medicare. They also made it clear that they want politicians out of their personal lives... especially where it involves marriage, contraception and religion.

To be sure, the Republican Party, with its radical, intolerant, unyielding, stubborn base, is headed off a cliff unless it heeds the loud warning voters sent it on November 6th. Regardless, and more important, it is politicians like yourself who are your party's future. Men and women who can return Washington to the days when Democrats and Republicans disagreed, discussed, compromised, legislated, shook hands, had a drink together and then came back to the Hill the next day to do it all over again.

What you did during and after the storm was demonstrate true leadership, class and rarely seen political gravitas. Voters will remember that showing of solidarity with your fellow New Jerseyans and your president, whose response to the storm you hailed as "outstanding," "incredibly supportive" and deserving "great credit." In 2016 should you decide to run for president, you'll surely be able to tap that well of goodwill and capital. As for now, let the sore-losing, tone-deaf party crazies whine all they want about how you "sold them out" or became an "Obama surrogate." They're dinosaurs headed for...