Hypocrisy: Hillary Was Sick Over Trump Military Pardons, but Not Sick Over Benghazi?
Several years ago — it feels so much longer — Hillary Clinton wrote a book about her loss in the 2016 election called “What Happened.”
I’m shocked there wasn’t a question mark at the end, because she seemed to know as little as her supporters did about why she wasn’t back in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
If you want an example of how little self-knowledge Clinton has gained in the interim, you just need to look at her appearance on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show this week and her comments regarding President Trump’s actions in the cases of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher and Army vets Matthew Golsteyn and Clint Lorance, the latter two of whom he pardoned.
Gallagher’s case was the most controversial, ironically, because he hadn’t been convicted of the serious crime he was charged with — killing an Islamic State group member in custody during his time in Iraq.
He was found not guilty of the killing, though he was convicted on charges of taking a picture with the man who was killed.
Trump didn’t pardon Gallagher, but rather allowed him to retire without losing his Navy SEAL trident.
Golsteyn reportedly admitted to killing a suspected Taliban bomb maker during his time in Afghanistan, according to Stars and Stripes.
Lorance, meanwhile, had served six years of a 19-year sentence after being convicted of ordering his men to shoot unarmed men in Afghanistan; he claimed he made the best decision he could based on conditions on the ground.
During her Wednesday appearance with Stern, Clinton talked about the decision to go in and kill Osama bin Laden during her time as secretary of state.
The conversation, you may not be surprised to know, was filled with plenty of self-hagiography by Clinton, who was (of course) one of the few people in the room who wanted to go after bin Laden.
Then-President Barack Obama (of course) slept on it and didn’t act impulsively, she said. (Hillary doesn’t like impulsive decision-makers — did you know that? I sure didn’t.)
The relevant part here starts at about 2:30 but, if you’ve got the time, watch the entire clip. I know plenty of people would say the same thing about Donald Trump, mind you, but Hillary Clinton is proof that true love need not involve more than one person.
Anyhow, Clinton talked about how one of the helicopters crashed during the raid and how that helicopter had cutting-edge stealth technology and needed to be blown up, lest the technology fall into the wrong hands.
“Those Navy SEALs, after having shot their way into that, killed the Kuwaiti courier, killed his brother, killed one of, you know, bin Laden’s adult sons, wounded one of the women who was after them, they took the women and children out, and they took them to the other side of this big compound, as far away from the helicopter explosion as they could so they wouldn’t be injured,” she said.
“Now, that’s — when I think about the American military, that’s who I think about. And I am sick to my stomach about what Trump did, pardoning three men who had been — they were testified against by their own men because of the way they behaved,” she continued.
All right, then. What about Benghazi?
Lest we forget, Hillary Clinton was also the secretary of state when our consulate in Benghazi was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012.
She’s never said she felt sick about what she did then, which was an indecisive mess. She didn’t make the decision to go in there — and four brave Americans died.
No, she didn’t take responsibility for this, either. Instead, her State Department claimed a badly produced YouTube video titled “The Innocence of Muslims” was responsible for creating an organic disturbance which led to deaths of those Americans.
It turned out to be a planned terrorist operation, something that should have been clear within hours.
And, just in case you needed reminding, this was Hillary’s most famous declamation regarding the attack:
I’m not necessarily saying that you can’t have legitimate disagreements over whether or not Trump did the right thing when it came to Gallagher, Golsteyn and Lorance.
I tend to think he made the right decision — particularly on Gallagher, who wasn’t convicted of anything aside from taking a photo with the dead terrorist.
However, if you’re Hillary Clinton and you were the one in charge when the Benghazi attack was carried out, I don’t particularly want to hear how the pardons made you “sick to my stomach.”
When it comes down to a matter of judgment, it simply won’t do to go on Howard Stern and give the audience two-and-a-half minutes of self-celebration followed by a tossed-off condemnation of Donald Trump without the very salient detail that yes, she was secretary of state during Benghazi and yes, she’s never particularly taken responsibility for it.
Hillary Clinton still doesn’t get “What Happened” in 2016. With appearances like this, it’s clear she likely never will.
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