The beginning of the end?

David Gerlernter is a conservative Yale professor who sees and speaks clearly.  Here's his assessment of Benghazigate.

DAVID GELERNTER: WHO IS ON TRIAL FOR BENGHAZI?

David Gelernter is professor of computer science at Yale and the author, most recently, ofAmerica-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats). He wrote “Why do we live in America-Lite?” for us, briefly summarizing the themes of the book.

Professor Gelernter returned to expand on the themes of his book in “What keeps this failed president above water?” and in “Don’t say we didn’t warn you (or dammit, wake up!).” Today he turns to the subject of Benghazi:

Obviously President Obama and Hillary Clinton are on trial—not before a court, but in the minds of thoughtful people everywhere.   It appears (given the limited evidence we have so far) that they were grossly negligent before Benghazi, criminally incompetent that night of the attack, and then that they aided and abetted a conspiracy to lie about the murders—all for the obvious political reasons and because Obama and Clinton (and nearly all their leftist friends) believe that Americans are stone-stupid.  But the real trial deals with other suspects.

It is the Democratic Party that’s on trial today; and to a lesser extent, America’s mainstream media.  For Democrats (and especially Democratic senators) it is put-up-or-shut-up time: are they Democrats or Americans first?  Obviously their first instinct was to defend the Democratic administration.  Republicans would have done the same.  But starting with the Hayes story on the Rice propaganda points (and the neo-Soviet process that turned them from truth to lies), and then the Issa hearing Wednesday (and a recent ABC news piece focusing again on the phonied-up talking points), no honest observer can fail to suspect this administration of doing unspeakable things.  It is Congress’s duty to find out the truth.

How would Republicans act if a GOP administration were under this sort of cloud?  We know exactly how.  It was the radically partisan Edward Kennedy who proposed that a senate select committee investigate Watergate—but in February 1973, the Senate voted unanimously to create that committee.  Republican Senator Howard Baker was vice chairman, and asked the key question: ”What did the president know and when did he know it?”  Which Democratic senator will ask that question today, now that the issue isn’t breaking-and-entering but lying about four murders, including the murder of an American ambassador?  Which cabinet member will be Eliot Richardson and resign rather than continuing to be part of a coverup?  Will John Kerry rise to the challenge?

Of course Watergate was a shot-in-the-arm for the American left, which has run US culture (run it into the ground) ever since the Cultural Revolution that turned the country upside down during the post-World War II generation.  Will the bottomless arrogance and incompetence of the Obama administration—and the rising tide of Benghazigate—energize American conservatives the same way?  Probably.  But today we are investigating four brutal murders that were intended precisely as an act of war against the United States; and the Democratic party is on trial for its life.  The rest is small potatoes next to that.