Dear Editor:
The amount of time the Republicans spent the first two nights attacking Hillary Clinton as secretary of state for disproven criminal negligence at the consulate in Benghazi is disheartening. Where is there an Eisenhower or a Taft or a Ralph Flanders when the Party of Lincoln needs them so badly?
Instead, the 21st century Republican Party is defined by unrestrained hatred. It offers only ugly cynicism by politicizing the pain and suffering of the mother of a slain marine. Repulsive and despicable cannot fathom the meanness of such exploitation.
Hidden beneath the deafening bedlam of accusations against Secretary Clinton lies the part played in embassy security by the House of Representatives Budget Committee under Chairman Paul Ryan.
To set the record straight, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton had requested funding for additional security at American embassies for the past three years prior to Benghazi. The House Republicans cut $128 million in fiscal 2011, $331 million in fiscal 2012 and nearly $330 million in fiscal 2013.
One representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) when asked by Soledad O'Brien (CNN) a month after the attack if he voted to cut funding for embassy and consulate security, threw out a familiar Republican red herring, "Absolutely. Look when you're in tough economic times in this country we have to make priorities and choices."
The Republicans made their choices. Every since Benghazi, they have been trying to shift the blame for the outcome of those choices onto Secretary Clinton even to the outrage of using the mother of a slain Marine to hide their cowardice.
Honoring the Benghazi marines and surviving mother is one thing. To exploit them the way the Republicans used Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky is beneath civilized.
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