Rand Paul Trolls Hillary Clinton

[Dylan]

Can you read?

[Kane]

Well, this will appeal to his solid constituency of naive college students and the minuscule percentage of libertarians out in every day life.

[exploited]

Yeah, my point most definitely was not to validate shallow political showmanship.

President Obama made a very serious mistake by deciding to release early intelligence about the attack. From a leadership perspective, that decision was truly disastrous. I firmly believe that on issues of such importance, a leader must remain quiet until the facts are as certain as they can be. He needed to be the calm in the sea of chaos, not the person who folds under media pressure, or ends up releasing erroneous information because they felt the people "deserved to know."

For the same reason, when people criticized Bush's immediate response to 9/11 (finished reading a story to some kids), I was a bit flabbergasted. That was exactly the response that a strong leader should have. It doesn't show weakness to remain calm - it shows that you are in control of yourself, which in times of national crisis, provides an immeasurable and intangible public benefit. In the same way, Obama should have risen above the fray by simply refusing to comment until he knew exactly what happened and why. It was a rookie mistake, to be sure, but ultimately just a mistake, not an intentional conspiracy to influence the elections.

Which brings me back to political showmanship. If Republicans were to put forward a serious attempt to fix the systematic problems that led to this incident (such as reduced Congressional funding for overseas diplomatic security, political appointments instead of merit-based appointments, problems with America's overarching foreign policy, etc) and then criticize Obama for not displaying proper leadership, that would be acceptable. I could understand that, because what Obama did was pretty damned foolish. But that isn't their goal, nor are their criticisms reasonable. In fact, the majority of the shit you hear from Republicans regarding Benghazi is little more than absurd conspiracy theories, which are really quite embarrassing.

And that is ultimately my point, which unfortunately I've had to reiterate: there are valuable lessons about leadership, security, foreign policy, etc. to learn here, but they are being overshadowed by retarded political showmanship, solely for the purpose of making the President look bad, instead of making sure stuff like this never happens again. It is disgraceful and shameful given the fact that a true American hero died in the process.

[Ben Huh]

...and you expect them to be able to put forth changes, how? You even mention Benghazi and you are instantly hit with remarks about it being old news or no one giving a shit.

...also, who's talking conspiracy theories? Putting it at Hilary's feet is probably the least conspiracy like thing the GOP can do with Benghazi, and it's certainly better than continuing to blame Obama for it.

[Dylan]

[Ben Huh]

Dafuq are you talking about at this point?

[Dylan]

I've pointed out in plain English on several ocassions that it is the means of communication by Rand in this context that is childish, ridiculous and demeaning to the persons who died and their family members. You seem incapable of grasping this. Which is why, among many many other reasons, I think you're not very smart.

[Ben Huh]

...to which my response was, "who f*cking cares?" I admitted in my first post that some in the GOP were using it as a grandstand and exploiting those who died, but I also admitted I didn't care. It's politics, remember me saying that? Who needs reading lessons now?

[exploited]

[Ben Huh]

I could give a f**k about being cool and edgy, I'm not a tween like you. It's the reality of politics. Name one issue that isn't grandstanded to death by either party, and not done on the backs of dead people...

All of this talk about "disrespect, blah, blah" is literally all over ONE PICTURE on the fake Hilary account that Rand Paul made, which was a picture of Libya with Benghazi highlighted with a bold, red dot as seen on the news. Seriously? This is the end of civil discourse? A bad joke on pinterest by a man with no real shot at the White House, ever?