Remember the Benghazi tragedy?
Of course you do.
But do you remember the other tragedy?
The one where Republicans attempted to "turn the Benghazi tragedy into a political scandal."
The one where Republicans tried their darndest to discredit -- destroy is a better word -- the president and, especially, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The one where Republicans squandered millions of taxpayer dollars in two years of investigation after investigation, committee hearing after committee hearing, report after report -- seven of them, count them -- while accusing the administration of dark conspiracies, cover-ups, intelligence failures, malfeasance, and worse.
The one where Republicans accused the Obama administration of ordering CIA operatives to "stand down," in effect nixing a military mission to rescue the four Americans at the Consulate in Benghazi, allegedly causing the tragic deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other brave Americans.
The one where Republicans accused the Obama administration of intimidating CIA employees from testifying, of manipulating and cooking up phony talking points for political reasons, of acting in bad faith, of lying and intentionally misleading the American people.
Well, as Republicans quietly slipped out of town late Friday for their long Thanksgiving break, they released "with little fanfare" a report -- the sixth one -- that, according to the New York Times:
...left Republicans in the same position they have been in for two years: with little evidence to support their most damning critiques of how the Obama administration, and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, responded to the attacks.
Similar to five other government reports, the one released by the House Intelligence Committee on Friday said that the administration had not intentionally misled the public about what occurred during the attacks in talking points it created for officials to use in television appearances that turned out to be inaccurate.
Late Friday, the New York Times, under the title "New Benghazi Investigation Finds No Fault in Response," summarized the report as follows:
A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the C.I.A. and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees.
Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a C.I.A. rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the C.I.A. was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led Susan Rice, then American ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when there had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found.
The report did not conclude that Ms. Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people. The attacks in Benghazi killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the foreign service officer Sean Smith, and two C.I.A. contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty. A Libyan extremist, Ahmed Abu Khatalla, is facing trial on murder charges after he was captured in Libya and taken to the United States.
But do you think this report will end the Republican witch-hunt?
Hell no!
The report released Friday does not end the controversy over how the Obama administration and the agencies it oversees conducted themselves during the period surrounding the Benghazi attack. The House Select Committee on Benghazi has yet to complete its investigation.
"The Select Committee on Benghazi received the Intelligence committee's report on the Benghazi terrorist attack, and has reviewed it along with other committee reports and materials as the investigation proceeds," spokesman Jamal Ware said in a statement. "It will aid the Select Committee's comprehensive investigation to determine the full facts of what happened in Benghazi, Libya before, during and after the attack and contribute toward our final, definitive accounting of the attack on behalf of Congress."
If this is not an indication that Republicans intend to continue their political witch hunt, just listen to what the Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, said today on CNN's "State of the Union." Graham called the report, put together by his own Republican colleagues and Democrats, "full of crap."
Four Americans killed, seven investigations that have asserted no wrongdoing by the Obama administration and all Mr. Graham can talk is "talking points" -- 11 times in the span of about four minutes-- and claim the report "full of crap" and what his own Intel Committee has found, "absolute garbage."