Darrell Issa, Jason Chaffetz and the rest of the idiots in the Republican party — Mitt Romney included — are so hell-bent on finding a way to blame President Obama for the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, that they are acting like proper assholes, and recklessly endangering people’s lives.
One such life? A Libyan woman human rights activist who is leading a campaign against violence, and who was detained in Benghazi. According to an administration official, this woman “expressed fear for her safety to U.S. officials and criticized the Libyan government,” and until today, she wasn’t publicly associated with the U.S. government. She was relatively safe.
But this afternoon, Darrell Issa — in a stroke of sheer idiocy — published reams of State Department documents, and this woman’s name appears in the documents — unredacted.
And now her life is in danger. The lives of several other Libyans named in the documents are in danger. And House Republicans, specifically Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz, are to blame.
[read full post at ABLC]
mai naem
Well, Darth Cheney did it with Valerie Plame why not with some third world black muslim woman?
Yutsano
Pfft. So what if a few browns get killed? There’s a ni-CLANG in the White House! Surely defeating him is a higher priority!!
(I refuse to look, but I bet some winger is making an argumment like this.)
jurassicpork
Does this really surprise anyone that this is coming from the same political party that outed Valerie Plame and wrecked a soup kitchen’s private funding for the sake of a photo op? The Republican Party and virtually everyone in it is a walking, talking cancer to everyone and everything it touches. And someone needs to stand up to these psychopaths.
The 3rd Debate That Liberals Are Dying to Hear.
Soonergrunt
What’s the life of a protected asset or two against a few political points?
Villago Delenda Est
mai naem beat me too it. What do you expect from the party that celebrated the destruction of the US covert nuclear intelligence presence in Iran?
Also, what Yutsano said. Priorities, people, priorities. The damn sheriff is NEAR, for the love of Joe Arpaio.
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: He’s trying to run for President, for Pete’s sake!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: They really don’t care that other peoples lives are fucked over. They care about winning and having power. C’est tout.
handy
For all those people who like to talk about the South seceding, let me remind all of you this SOB represents and continues to be elected by a district in deep blue Kawleefwonia, one by the coast even.
Origuy
Suggest you not read the comments on that Foreign Policy article. Some of those people are insane.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: D’accord. C’est tragique.
beltane
These days, one can be a good American or a good Republican, not both. These are people who will jeopardize national security any chance they can as long as there is the possibility of political gain. The GOP is like a separate country operating within US territory.
handy
And once again the party of national security proves they should be nowhere near the keys, Also, too.
General Stuck
These clowns fuck up everything thing they touch. And now, in another Bengazi wingnut stupipalooza, it looks like Susan Rice was just relaying info she got from the CIA and other intelligence folks, who were confused at what happened for a time until after her Sunday teevee appearances.
Which by the way, is PERFECTLY NORMAL.
The total lack of anything resembling self appraisal, is inherent to some of these fools clamoring for Obama’s impeachment for whatever moldy reason they can spit out over this tempest in a chamber pot. They don’t seem to remember GWB invading a country based on lies and falsehoods, that got quite a few more folks killed than this tragedy.
I hate them. Today’s republicans. I do hate them so.
Villago Delenda Est
@Origuy:
No kidding. The stupid seriously burns there. They don’t see a problem with revealing the name of a US ally in Libya? How moronic can these insects be?
PeakVT
@Villago Delenda Est: The only things in this world that matter to teatards are hating liberals and defeating liberals.
ETA: FP’s comment system is almost as bad as the new Gawker-sphere system. I don’t want to see what hundreds of twits are twatting, and there’s no way to turn them off.
The Dangerman
Feature, not bug; the person at risk was working, at some level, with the Obama Administration. Who gives a shit about her, or any Libya, when Tax Cuts are at stake?
Percysowner
There are days I wish I believed in Hell, so I could wish people like the Repubs who leaked this could go there. But I believe in reincarnation, so I hope they come back as a member of a group that is truly suffering oppression (as opposed to the horrible oppression of being Christian in a country with freedom of religion that doesn’t shower you with glory for being Christian) and then be outed by some dumb f**k and have to live in fear, or even be persecuted. I’m mean that way.
Narcissus
They absolutely do not care because anyone who isn’t a “Real American” isn’t an actual person to them. That sure as hell rules out some brown lady in the third-world.
James E. Powell
The Republican irresponsibility on foreign policy matters, of which this is just the most recent example, has to be wrapped up in a ball and smashed into Romney’s face on Monday night.
The Republicans do not have a foreign policy argument against the president. They have nothing. So they tried to manufacture something out of Benghazi.
It started with Romney right after the event. It continued with Issa and FOX and the whole right-wing team.
Somebody has to make them pay for it and pay dearly. Or they will just keep doing it.
Matt McIrvin
DikiLeaks!
Ash Can
@Percysowner: I’d be down with them just coming back as rolls of toilet paper.
Lurking Canadian
Is there room for Issa in the cell next to Bradley Manning?
Kyle
@handy:
San Diego would be a smallish tourist town without the gusher of military-industrial federal money. As a metro area deeply subsidized by the rest of the country like the goober red states, naturally it became a hotbed of Teatard hypocrite politics.
rmirth
Pat Tillman’s death was covered up by the DoD and there was not a peep from the right-wing base. They’re convinced / hoping there’s a cover-up to that degree by this administration. Susan Rice was the prime culprit here but there’s no evidence it was coordinated by the White House.
Gravenstone
At what point does a formal charge of treason become an option? Seriously, these assholes are so intent on trying to damage the president that they make no effort to protect what should be sacrosanct intelligence assets.
Hanging a couple of them might have a salutary effect on the rest.
handy
@Gravenstone:
Not in this political climate.
pseudonymous in nc
They’ve gone from stupid to dangerous and wicked. It’s really telling how on the GOP side, seniority goes to the utter fucknuts. PBO needs to wrap this around Mittens, because be is the de facto leader of the GOP now, whether he wants the job or not.
@General Stuck:
As I said before, the US had a much clearer understanding of every political powerbroker in Libya when Gaddafi was in charge, because multi-decade dictatorships are fairly easy to read. Post-dictatorships are different, because everybody else wants a claim on power.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can: Toilet paper is useful. They would come back as something both sandpapery and ineffective.
Jay C
And what was even worse than Issa’s Committee’s action in the first was the asinine/assholish response from some spokeslackey: basically that concerns for Libyans’ security were trivial compared to President Obama’s “laxity”, and that that was what reporters ought to be concentrating on….
Viva BrisVegas
@Gravenstone:
The time for that was early 2009. Since they got away with it then, they now know that they are untouchable.
The right wingers are the political equivalent of banks, too big to be taken down.
Gian
So, just thinking in a scifi way, if a drone strike just happened to take out a government (not saying which government) official who was putting US national security at risk by leaking the identities of protected assests (err people)
would the left or the right make the bigger outcry?
edit never mind, for the right it depends on if the target was on their team.
GregB
On the infamous 47% video, a questioner asks Romney if he can “duplicate the scenario” regarding the Iran hostages, Jimmy Carter and Iran.
This entire sick scam is Romney’s efforts at duplicating the scenario with him in the Reagan role and Obama in the Jimmy Carter role.
It is such a sick and horrible thing they are doing. The fucking morons who allowed 9/11 are now trying to make this into an Iran hostage crisis.
Fuck them.
GregB
Also too. Romney NEVER called the event in Benghazi terrorism the day he held his pathetic presser attacking Obama. Never called it an act of terror.
Merp
This is indeed a tragedy, but the most important thing to take away from this incident is that Wikileaks is a terribly immoral organization.
Omnes Omnibus
Testing.
Omnes Omnibus
Testing.
Dave C
@Kyle:
FYI, San Diego has more registered Democrats than they do Republicans. Issa’s district isn’t even in San Diego – it’s in one of the more affluent suburbs. Don’t blame us for that asshole!
Omnes Omnibus
Testing.
Dave C
@Kyle:
FYI, San Diego has more registered Democrats than they do Republicans. Issa’s district isn’t even in San Diego – it’s in one of the more affluent suburbs. Don’t blame us for that asshole!
Omnes Omnibus
Testing.
Jamey
So, how do we make this stick to Issa? Seriously, who has enough juice to give this story legs?
Joey Maloney
@handy: I’d settle for the State Department refusing to share classified information with any committee that Issa sits on. Him or any other Congressman who has disclosed classified info. “Because of your documented history of reckless disregard for national security and the lives of Americans and American assets…”
xian
@James E. Powell: there needs to be a “have you no decency?” moment.
Svensker
@xian:
There was, in the last debate. Republicans were, however, too busy focusing on whether or not Obama was wearing a secret Muslim decoder ring to get it.
debbie
Wasn’t Issa one of the conservatives condemning Assange for not bothering to redact names in his document dump?
debbie
Come to think of it, it may be fun to watch the part of Monday’s debate where Obama’s comeback to Romney’s charges of ineptitude in Benghazi: “But Governor, your Congressional allies now appear to have put Libyan freedom-fighters at risk. How would you respond to their ineptitude? Do you condemn them?”
Jay C
@xian:
And if President Obama is smart, he’ll make that “moment” some time in Monday’s FP debate…..
Howard Beale IV
@debbie: Both State and Issa’s committe could have redacted.
Neither did.
maya
The Al-Republica party should be labeled as a terrorist organization and hunted down with drones.
Holden Pattern
Isn’t this the kind of thing that a lot of good team-jersey Democrats and self-avowed liberals thought was a literal crime when Bradley Manning and Julian Assange were responsible?
ericblair
@Holden Pattern:
Kind of but not really. Manning is a uniformed serviceman subject to the UCMJ with a security clearance who was obviously releasing this information deliberately. Julian Assange is not a US citizen, has no US security clearance, and unless he was in a conspiracy with Manning before the fact, doesn’t seem to have broken any US law. (You’ll notice the whole flap in London is not about the US.)
Issa and his ilk don’t have security clearances: they take oaths of secrecy which can’t really be revoked as far as I know. They could easily argue that they did this out of rank fucking incompetence, which I would certainly buy. And good luck getting those idiots up on treason charges.
Ben Franklin
@handy:
When is it time? Instead of whining about Wikileaks, send his opponent some money.
http://jerryforcongress2012.com/site/
Another Halocene Human
@ericblair: Issa and his ilk don’t have security clearances: they take oaths of secrecy which can’t really be revoked as far as I know. They could easily argue that they did this out of rank fucking incompetence, which I would certainly buy. And good luck getting those idiots up on treason charges.
Will nothing embarrass his constituents enough to vote his ass out of Congress?
Can’t the DCCC run tv ads accusing Issa of palling around with terr’ists?
Another Halocene Human
@Howard Beale IV: Both State and Issa’s committe could have redacted
I think they will now!