WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Director Michael Bay's action film about the September 11th, 2012 attack on a U.S. compound building in Benghazi, Libya is flopping, badly, and at least one Republican congressman thinks it's because they didn't have him write the script.
Taking in a paltry $19 million, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is being widely held as a massive commercial flop. Unlike Clint Eastwood's war movie American Sniper, 13 Hours just does not seem to be resonating with moviegoers. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), says that it's because Bay didn't ask him to write the script. Issa said that years of leading witch hunts against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama over the Benghazi incident has given him the "unique experience" necessary to "craft the finest yarn about Benghazi ever."
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"Who else besides me and Trey Gowdy," Issa asked reporters that caught up with him at a D.C.-area eatery, "have the most experience making stuff up about the Benghazi attack?" Issa pointed to the fact that he was one of the biggest and loudest peddlers of the conspiracy theory that Clinton gave a "stand down" order the night of the attack, essentially leaving the U.S. ambassador and anyone else under attack at the compound as sitting ducks, as reasoning enough that he should have gotten the writing gig.
"That trope has been debunked several times by several witnesses in multiple congressional hearings," Issa said proudly, "and I kept and keep bringing it up. What other writer would have such dedication to his craft?"
Issa declared that had he been able to write the script for 13 Hours himself, he would have included "every single scrap of hearsay and tin foil hattery" that he'd been privy to in the years since the attack. "No one has more desperately tried to pin the blame for Benghazi on the president and Ms. Clinton than me," he said at one point, "and that kind of dogged obsession pays off when you're crafting a tale for the silver screen."
"If you want a story that's authentic to the made-up bullshit we Republicans believe about Bengazi," Issa said, his voice dripping with indigence, "you go to Darrell Issa, everyone knows that." Rep. Issa said that he is "seriously considering" opening a new congressional investigation to determine if Ms. Clinton or President Obama "played an active role in any way" in keeping him from being offered the screenwriter's job on 13 Hours.
"Something just doesn't add up," Issa said as he was walking away, "everyone knows that I'm the foremost authority on Benghazi fabrications, so the fact that I didn't get to write the script for this movie proves that Ms. Clinton and the president are in cahoots in some way, and I will use the full power of Congress to find out what they are up to, and I really, really mean it this time."