Americans to Congress: Don’t Give Up on Benghazi
Helle Dale /
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Americans are still outraged at what happened in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.
They know that four brave Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, died at the hands of terrorists. They know American diplomats did not receive the protection and the support they deserved.
But what remains incomprehensible is why no one at the White House has done anything about these terrible acts; why none of the guilty parties have been punished; or why Congress has not managed to force officials—from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on down—to come clean about what really happened that night.
Americans do know, however, that the lack of answers to these questions is wrong.
A new opinion poll by Fox News reveals that most Americans continue to distrust the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi affair. While President Obama had hoped he could brush off Benghazi as a “phony scandal,” there is no sign the issue will go away. A full 60 percent of American voters surveyed want Congress to continue to investigate Benghazi, believing the White House is “trying to cover-up” the truth, rather than “being open and transparent.”
Indeed, across the political spectrum, Americans want Benghazi investigated. Among Democrats 42 percent are in favor of further inquiry (a minority but a sizeable one). Republicans (not surprisingly) feel the same way by a large majority, 77 percent. And, interestingly, independents are also in favor by a solid 61 percent 3majority.
Who is responsible for what happened in Benghazi? Most Americans, 55 percent, blame Hillary Clinton, the woman in charge of the State Department when it sent its diplomats out into post-Qhaddafi Libya without adequate security.
Were the Senate to change hands in November, chances of a bi-cameral investigation of Benghazi would increase. Members of the Senate have continuously called for a Joint Select Committee on Benghazi to pursue the investigation, in particular Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R–N.H.), Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) and John McCain (R–Ariz.).
As more information about the Washington angle of the Benghazi scandal comes out—the latest being the revelations about former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell’s role in altering the Obama administration’s Benghazi talking points—the more obvious it is that Americans have been denied the full facts of what happened on that fateful night in September 2012.
People want to drag the truth about Benghazi out from behind the bureaucratic obfuscation and into the light of public accountability. Keeping up the heat by demanding that Congress continue to look for the answers is critical.