Rand Paul takes anti-Hillary Clinton Benghazi battle to Iowa
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The battle over Benghazi has come to Iowa, colliding head-on with the earliest phase of the 2016 presidential race.
On a campaign-style visit to the first-in-the-nation caucus state Friday, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul sharply and repeatedly accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of failing to stop the chaos and bloodshed at the American diplomatic facility there in September.
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At a pair of events here in eastern Iowa, Paul seized every opportunity to assail Clinton, the popular former first lady and potential Democratic presidential candidate.
He drew the crowd to its feet at the Iowa GOP’s annual Lincoln dinner, a desirable speaking slot for presidential candidates, with a Clinton-whacking discourse that began: “First question for Hillary Clinton: where in the hell were the marines?”
Speaking to a group of about two dozen voters at an earlier household event hosted by the Iowa Federation of Republican Women, the first-term senator went so far as to say Clinton should never be allowed to serve in government again.
“I think it precludes Hillary Clinton from ever holding office,” Paul said of the Benghazi affair. “I think her mistakes were of such significance that she should never again be in that position, to make those decisions.”
And hours before that, Paul told reporters at a press conference that Clinton was “absolutely responsible” for the inadequate security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi. The facility sustained a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2012, that claimed the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
“She was in charge of the State Department. She was asked repeatedly for increased security for Benghazi,” Paul seethed. “I fault her absolutely for not reading the cables.”
He continued: “Part of being in charge is triaging what comes to your desk and what doesn’t come to your desk. And to say that Libya wasn’t important enough for her to be reading the cables from the ambassador asking for more security, I think was inexcusable.”
A Clinton spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment. At a Wednesday briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the administration was fully confident that Clinton had handled her job appropriately. He accused Republicans of trying to politicize the terrorist attack.
“This is a subject that has, from its beginning, been subject to attempts to politicize it by Republicans, when, in fact, what happened in Benghazi was a tragedy,” Carney said
Paul’s appearance at the Lincoln dinner caps off a week in which Republicans in the House of Representatives have grilled State Department and other executive branch officials over the response to the attack in Libya last fall, inquiring whether the Obama administration did everything possible to avert fatalities and inform the public about the details of the tragedy.
Paul says he has not yet decided whether to run in 2016, but by going after Clinton so insistently in a key presidential state, he may hope to convince the GOP faithful that he’s a worthy standard-bearer in three years.
At the same retail event with Republican women, Paul explicitly warned listeners about Clinton as a 2016 candidate – in response to a voter’s musing about the possibility of President Barack Obama seeking an FDR-style third term.
“I tell people, don’t worry so much about a third term of Obama. Worry about a third term of Clintons – because it may not be Bill, but it could be Hillary in 2016,” Paul said.
A woman in the audience called out: “She’s too old!” Paul joked back: “Tell her that – I defy you!”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/rand-paul-hillary-clinton-benghazi-91204.html#ixzz2SzgNbkV0
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