The Democrats have caved in and announced their appointees to Trey Gowdy’s select committee on investigating the Benghazi incident. Nancy Pelosi’s choices?
| Name | Background | Ideology |
| Elijah Cummings | Lawyer | Liberal |
| Tammy Duckworth | War Veteran | Liberal |
| Linda Sanchez | Labor | Progressive |
| Adam Schiff | Prosecutor | Liberal |
| Adam Smith | Prosecutor | Moderate |
The choices are obvious. Cummings flatters himself that he’s Darrell Issa’s foil, over at Oversight; presumably Pelosi expects that the Benghazi committee needs similar attempts at logrolling. Duckworth is there because she’s as close as House Democrats have to a foreign policy expert these days. Schiff is there because he thinks that the entire thing is stupid and having Democrats on the committee just gives it too much credibility (translation: expect no useful work out of him). Smith, ditto.
All in all, no surprises. Not much help from Nancy Pelosi. Alas for her, she may not understand that theatrics are not necessarily on the Benghazi menu. Gowdy wants depositions, not sound bites. Those are harder to hijack.
Moe Lane
PS: No, I didn’t forget Sanchez. Her only reason to be there is to provide Nancy Pelosi with an opportunity to insert precisely the talking points that Nancy Pelosi wishes to insert. Think of her as having a Meat Puppet Override Switch and you won’t be too far off of the mark.
Cummings and Sanchez are there to rouse rabble and generally be pests. Duckworth and Smith will be looking for obstruction nuclei, details and procedural points around which the whole thing can be slow-walked into boring footnotes. Dunno bout Schiff.
Duckworth is also in for an interesting election .. her district was gerrymandered as a leans-Dem in 2012 specifically to nuke Joe Walsh, but it’s still *at best* leans…
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If (and it’s a rather large “if”) Rauner has any coattails and/or the Dems are generally depressed, she could be vulnerable .. but she also is not a very sharp person so may not realize that.
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I would suggest, if any of the coherent non-drooling members of the IL-GOP are listening, watching Duckworth’s performance for damning soundbites.
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Mew
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(not to minimize Rep. Duckworth’s service, but losing two legs in combat in the sandbox does not count – in this cat’s opinion – as “significant foreign policy experience”… one wonders why she’s here instead of all over the VA scandal, especially with the job Rahm Emmanuel found for her after she lost to Roskam in .. 06? 08? (R-IL))
Because the VA scandal is going to splatter? Duckworth’s presence there would force the media to report on their findings, and there’s no way Duckworth can sugar-coat the findings.
The VA scandal seems to be actively splattering ..
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http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/21/video-house-democrat-destroys-shinseki-obama-over-va-fiasco-in-floor-speech/
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And, as I alluded, Duckworth spent the years between her 2006 loss in IL-6 and her 2012 victory in IL-8 (and, yes, I had the year of the IL-6 race wrong) as .. Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.
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So .. *as* the VA scandal spatters, some of the fallout should stick to her.
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Mew
Frankly I think that Duckworth is probably as sharp a blade as can be found in the Democrats’ cutlery drawer, outside the raging-hysterical-partisan tray.
The problem with Benghazi from the Democrats’ perspective is that a competent investigation would likely damage Hillary worse than Obama.
This is the big nightmare for Hillary. Her entire term at State was an exercise in keeping her ass firmly covered in reactive-armor panties. She was almost invisible and went out of her way not to make decisions or touch anything that’d be seen as controversial.
And then this blows up, and she’s waking up at 2AM in a cold sweat, she knows if she gets the Les Aspin post-Mogadishu treatment she’s going down in history as Mrs President 42 and nothing more.
I reiterate the theory that Hillary isn’t really running, she’s clearing a path for someone else…
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someone else, who wouldn’t be taken seriously today, but as a hail-mary play after the “obvious candidate” drops out…
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Mew
Not much of a nuke considering Joe managed to get 46% in a D+8 district. Obama’s coattails helped Duckworth.
Which is why Duckworth is in for Interesting Times, eh?
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D+8 my fuzzy .. nevermind.
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Mew
It had been leaning D before if I recall correctly. But 2010 happened. If Walsh hadn’t had that gaffe, he’d probably still be a Congressman ( or if he cut back on the MSNBC appearances)
“Walsh’s” district was gerrymandered when the Illinois Diaspora cost us a seat.
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Mew
There’s a difference between Progressive and Liberal ideology?
Yup. Or at least in intensity level.
Mostly in the age of the ideologues. When the term socialism was irrevocably damaged in the united states, all the socialists became liberals. Similarly Liberal has morphed into Progressive. I have no idea what Progressive is going to morph into, but it’s well on its way to needing to.
Progressives are rabid liberals.
Seems to this cat that progressives are marginally less emotional, they seem to be writing the emotional pap liberals flock to like moths to a flame.
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Mew
Meat Puppet Override Switch was Primus’ worst album by far.
Wait, are you sure? I thought Override Switch opened for the Meat Puppets and Stone Temple Pilots back in the ’90s …
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Mew