On Thursday I kept my weekly radio date with Hugh Hewitt only to find he'd stood me up for some flashier dude. I was not happy about getting bumped for Trump:
HUGH HEWITT: As you know, there's only one man in America that can bump Mark Steyn from the lead segment on a Thursday Hugh Hewitt Show, and that is the Donald, who did indeed lead off most of the first hour. Mark, I hope you do not resent me deeply for putting the number one interview and attraction and ratings booster in America ahead of you.
MARK STEYN: You're a loser, Hugh. Only a loser would put Donald Trump on before me.
After we'd got that out of the way, we turned to Hillary's all-day testimony on Benghazi, still in progress as Hugh and I spoke:
MS: She chose to politicize it from the moment it was happening, even as it was underway. In other words, in the afternoon of September 11th, when it was 9:00 in the evening in Benghazi, she was already politicizing it. And I think it was damaging that on September 12th, she told not only the President of Libya and the Prime Minister of Egypt, but also her own family members that it was a terrorist attack. And yet, there she was on September 14th at Andrews Air Force Base over the coffins of the dead lying to Tyrone Woods' family when she told them we're going to get that guy who made the video, and we're going to have him arrested and prosecuted... She tells the truth to the Government of Libya. She tells the truth to the Government of Egypt. But she lies to the people to whom she is meant to be a public servant, the American people.
The brazenness of what she did ought to be revolting. In free societies, when political leaders demand the citizens ignore a lie, they make them complicit in it:
MS: Do you know what the issue for me in this election is? You know, you can have philosophical discussions about left and right, and conservatism and liberalism. And as I've said to you before, the Swedes come by their liberalism more or less honestly, so do the Norwegians. It's the corruption here. This woman is corrupt, and she, and at a critical moment on a critical date in American history, she opened her mouth and vomited forth a sewer of lies that everybody else is supposed to just try and swim their way through to find out the reality of what went on. And if you're a foreign government leader, you know the truth. If you're the American people, you get lied to.
The bigger picture to emerge during the day was that nobody who mattered could get hold of "Secretary Clinton". Effective foreign ministries operate on the relations between the minister and the world. At Hillary's State Department, not only could other foreign ministers not get hold of her but nor could her own employees in the global hot spots. After ceremonially appointing her friend "Chris" as Ambassador to Libya, she never spoke to him ever again:
MS: She said in all of her lead up, Chris Stevens is her friend. Chris Stevens was not only her friend, but he was the biggest expert on Libya, and what was happening in Libya, and the new Libya. Yet Chris Stevens couldn't get hold of his boss, and Sid Blumenthal, who isn't anybody, and as far as is known has never set foot in Libya, was able to get contact with Hillary Clinton whenever he wanted.
Over 150 times. As for "Chris"'s hundreds of ignored requests for additional security, that's just part of his delightful sense of humor:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speculated Wednesday that former Ambassador Chris Stevens must have been joking when he sent a question about security at the Benghazi consulate where he and three others later died.
This was after the UK, the Red Cross and others pulled out of their better-guarded facilities in Benghazi because of the security situation:
Clinton responded: "Well, Congresswoman, one of the great attributes that Chris Stevens had was a really good sense of humor and I just see him smiling as he's typing this because it's clearly in response to the e-mail down below talking about picking up a few 'fire sale items from the Brits.'"
Rep. Brooks pointed out that the "fire sale items" were security barricades that the British were no longer using because the danger of remaining in Benghazi prompted them to leave. "So they're picking up a fire sale because other consulates are pulling out, other countries are pulling out?"
Clinton's response: "Well, I thought it showed their entrepreneurial spirit."
Hilarious! Stop, you're killing me!
You can read my full interview with Hugh here, and hear it here.
~I'm back on the telly tonight, on the Fox Business Network. If you missed my appearance on John Stossel's much-praised free-speech documentary a week or two back, FBN is re-running it tonight, Friday - "Censored in America", with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Kirsten Powers, Bosch Fawstin and yours truly starts tonight at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific on Fox Business. Hope you can make time to catch it.
