GOP’s demented “Benghazi!” disease: Why conservatives so desperately need a scandal

[DonViejo]

National security is one of the right's best organizing principles. But first they need a controversy

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

Has anyone ever seen a full-blown marketing campaign replete with full-color graphics used to announce a House committee investigation? You have now:

Speaker John Boehner ✔ @SpeakerBoehner

RT to share the news: The House will vote to establish a new #SelectCommittee on #Benghazi.

12:03 PM - 2 May 2014

I’m going to guess that was in development for a while. Somebody worked up a whole strategy for making the Big Announcement. You have to give them credit. What could have been a dull Friday with the only news being some good jobs numbers and Obamacare still not imploding. Instead the D.C. establishment went into another collective frenzy over Benghazi!™

The Republicans may be terrible at governance and they may even be awful at politics. But if there’s one thing they know how to do it’s stoke a scandal. In fact, it’s their very special gift and one to which they can always turn to rile up the rubes and make the Democrats dance on the head of a pin.

I won’t go into the details of the latest alleged “revelation” that supposedly prompted the new investigation (that they’ve obviously been planning for a while). You can read all the charges, countercharges and explanations all over the Internet. But the truth is that while it’s important for journalists and officials to produce the straight story, the substance of the story is not the winner the GOP seems convinced it has.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/05/gops_benghazi_addiction_why_conservatives_so_desperately_need_a_scandal/

[tridim]

1. The first black president is going to complete his two terms with zero scandal...

And an indisputable record of popular progress.

It is the racist party's worst nightmare, which is why they are panicking.

[Rex]

2. +1

It is driving the GOP crazy!

[malaise]

3. +1,000 n/t

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. I've said it before and I'll say it again

Barack Obama's greatest legacy might be destroying the modern GOP- mostly by not lifting a finger. In the Star Wars universe, hate made the Sith powerful but it also destroyed them in the end. So too does it seem like the GOP is doomed to suffer the same fate.