Clinton's parting shot at her Benghazi critics
"They just will not live in an evidence-based world"
On her last day as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton took a parting shot at critics of the Obama administration's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. "I was so unhappy with the way that some people refused to accept the facts, refused to accept the findings of an independent Accountability Review Board, politicized everything about this terrible attack," she told The Associated Press. "There are some people in politics and in the press who can't be confused by the facts. They just will not live in an evidence-based world. And that's regrettable."
Clinton was referring to critics who have accused the Obama administration of attempting to cover up the attack. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the attack stemmed from a spontaneous riot outside the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. The Obama administration later corrected the error, acknowledged that a riot had never taken place, and claimed that Rice had been merely reading off erroneous talking points provided by intelligence officials.
However, many Republicans and conservatives, as well as right-leaning media outlets such as Fox News, continued to suggest that the administration had attempted to mislead the American public. In testimony before Congress last week, Clinton erupted at a Republican senator who maintained that she could have figured out exactly what happened sooner.
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Still, the GOP remains skeptical. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) recently said Clinton "got away with murder" on Benghazi. The conservative site The Daily Caller captured the response to Clinton's latest remarks with the headline: "If you don't believe Hillary Clinton's lies about Benghazi, you don't live in an 'evidence-based world.'"
In her interview with the AP, Clinton reiterated her claim that the attack in Benghazi, which killed U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens, was the low point of her tenure, but suggested it would not be a factor in whether she decided to run for president. "I am going to be secretary of state until the very last minute when I walk out the door," she told the AP. "And then I am going to take the weekend off and then I may start thinking about all the various offers and requests and ideas that have come my way."
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Ryu Spaeth is deputy editor at TheWeek.com. Follow him on Twitter.
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