Whoopi Goldberg and her fellow co-hosts on ‘The View’ have had just about enough of the Republican Party’s ceaseless attempts to smear Hillary Clinton for her role in the Benghazi tragedy of 2012. Goldberg and her crew lashed out at the GOP, likening the endless proceedings to a sick joke and decrying the partisan nature of the attacks on the likely Democratic presidential candidate.
Whoopi has long been known as someone who speaks her mind without a second thought, and her attack on the GOP ranged from serious procedural questions (the report released recently was the product of the eighth committee formed to examine the circumstances surrounding Benghazi) to outright disbelief that the party is still captivated by such a seemingly open and shut issue. Even after four years of tireless research, investigations, interviews and hearings, the issue still cannot be put to bed by those in power in the House of Representatives.
Four Americans and the American ambassador to Libya were killed in an attack on an American compound in Benghazi in 2012. Afterward, attention focused on then-Secretary of State Clinton’s role in the murders — she was accused by Republicans in the House of Representatives of everything from ignoring pleas for beefed up security from the ambassador to staging a massive cover-up of the real events that occurred in Libya that day. After eight committees and nearly four years of hearings, including one marathon eleven hour session in which representatives grilled Clinton herself, the eighth committee to research Benghazi submitted its final report that absolved Clinton from any wrongdoing at all in the incident.
Goldberg’s gripes were multitude, but her main issue with the smear campaign is that it has undeniably worked: despite a tacit admission by Congress that Clinton did nothing wrong, the public pays more attention to the fact that scrutiny and trials existed than to the result of those trials and that scrutiny. She notes that Republicans and NRA officials have already released campaign ads supporting Donald Trump that imply the full truth on Benghazi has not yet and may not ever emerge.
Despite the best efforts of several committee members, the issue has become partisan and is now inextricably tangled into the 2016 presidential campaign. Goldberg and her fellow hosts, speaking as part of the shows ‘Hot Topics’ segment, came out loud and clear against the partisan battles that Benghazi has caused and urged politicians to move beyond the spectacle in order to focus on real issues. Although their advice likely will not be followed by those in power, particularly on the Republican side, the ladies of The View spoke their minds and issued a sharp challenge to political actors on both sides of the aisle.