“What is truth?” and “What difference at this point does it make?”

Last updated on: May 6, 2014 at 9:35 am by Jane the Actuary

“What is truth?” and “What difference at this point does it make?” 2014-05-06T09:35:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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So I was doing a bit of pre-work browsing, and read this piece by Kevin D. Williamson at National Review on Benghazi.

The whole story of Benghazi, as it’s unfolding, is discouraging. The bottom line is that the administration chose to blame the attack on the “Innocence of Muslims” video on youtube.com despite having solid information to the contrary, because of a fear that acknowledging that this was a planned and coordinated al-Qaeda attack would put into question the campaign narrative that Obama had al-Qaeda on the run. The Williamson piece argues that the administration put out this lie because they had become habituated to lying, not because it was vitally important to the campaign strategy, since, after all, Americans well understand that the situation is complex and are not, and were not, fools enough to believe that, due to Obama, all Muslim extremists had laid down their arms.

Other articles I’d read recently, too, such as this piece by Ann Althouse, point to a concerted Democratic strategy at this point to paint those who question the Administration’s narrative on Benghazi as a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists, and to move the narrative as reported in the media to, not just “Benghazi must not be questioned,” but, “the fact that Republicans question Benghazi means they’re just as crazy as the Birthers.”
We’ve got legions of fact-checkers, but we seem, as a country, to have simply accepted that politicians will lie whenever it’s convenient.

Did Obama really oppose gay marriage initially, and only “evolve” later? No one believes that. Even his supporters are quite comfortable with the fact that he lied in the past, because it was a politically-expedient lie to improve his election prospects.

Did the Illinois politicians, when they raised our income tax from 3.5% to 5%, really believe it was “temporary”? Did their supporters believe them? I doubt it — but it was politically expedient.

And the GOP is hardly exempt — I can’t point off the top of my head to a similar instance when a GOP politician lied and rank-and-file supporters knew it was a lie but were happy for the political advantage, but, in the present day, on the comment sections of conservative websites, you’ll find a general conviction that the top GOP leadership is more than happy to sign onto an immigration “reform” bill if only they can maintain the fiction that the bill contains genuinely effective enforcement provisions that aren’t dependent on the administration’s willingness to implement them. Which actually isn’t a good example, because the Base is worried that their elected officials will deceive them, rather than happily being “in” on a lie.

And then we come to Hillary Clinton: “What difference at this point does it make?” Politico provides an extended transcript (more than just the paragraphs below):

Clinton: Well, no, it’s the fact. Number two, I would recommend highly you read both what the ARB said about it and the classified ARB because, even today, there are questions being raised. Now, we have no doubt they were terrorists, they were militants, they attacked us, they killed our people. But what was going on and why they were doing what they were doing is still unknown —

(Wisconsin Senator Ron) Johnson: No, again, we were misled that there were supposedly protests and that something sprang out of that — an assault sprang out of that — and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact, and the American people could have known that within days and they didn’t know that.

Clinton: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator. Now, honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. The IC has a process, I understand, going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out. But you know, to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.

Reading this full exchange makes this more nonsensical than I had remembered: strictly reading her words, Clinton simultaneously says that it doesn’t matter whether the men died because of a protest or a coordinated attack, but then also says they are trying to figure out what happened, and that it does matter. But Clinton’s “what difference” line can only mean, “it doesn’t matter whether we deceived you earlier.”

Which, it being not to far from Easter, reminds me of the Pontius Pilate line, when Jesus says he is testifying to the truth, “What is truth?” — which is understood to be exactly this sort of “who cares about the truth” attitude. The more things change, the more things stay the same, I guess.

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