Guest Post: Ray Gonzales, Ph.D.
Dr. Gonzales is retired from the California State University system, served in the United States Marine Corps (1957-59), was elected to the California State Assembly from Kern County in 1972, served in the first Jerry Brown administration, was a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1980 to 1990, Director of Recruitment for the Peace Corps from 1993 to 1997, and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at CSU, Bakersfield.
Dr. Gonzales is retired from the California State University system, served in the United States Marine Corps (1957-59), was elected to the California State Assembly from Kern County in 1972, served in the first Jerry Brown administration, was a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1980 to 1990, Director of Recruitment for the Peace Corps from 1993 to 1997, and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at CSU, Bakersfield.
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In 2012, shortly after the Benghazi
consular attack by Al Qaeda militants who took the lives of four Americans, I
wrote an article noting that the call by GOP House leaders for a select
committee investigation of the incident was motivated to “tarnish the image of
Hilary Clinton as she appears to be the Democratic Party’s front runner for the
presidential elections in 2016.” On September 29 of this year, the potential
new Speaker of the GOP-House, Kevin McCarthy, confirmed my suspicions. In an
unbelievable comment on a Fox News program, McCarthy boasted, “Everybody thought
Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special
committee….What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because
she’s untrustable. But no one would’ve known any of that had happened had we
not fought and made that happen.”
Democrats, of course, were thrilled at
McCarthy’s damaging comments. Former Vermont Governor and presidential
candidate, Howard Dean, noted, “The Republicans lied through their teeth when
they said this wasn’t about politics.” Even some Republican House members were
incredulous. Oversight Committee Chairman, Jason Chaffets, who announced a
last minute bid for the Speakership, urged McCarthy to apologies for his
remarks. There were other GOP House members who were upset by McCarthy’s
political ineptitude.
In that same article on the Benghazi attack, while not attempting to defend Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I
pointed out that, “while the killing of Ambassador Stevens…was tragic and
lamentable, Ambassador Steven, himself, was, in many ways, responsible for his
own tragic death. His action were not only dangerously risky, but one might
say, even reckless.” Typically, no ambassador in a hostile country would
consider traveling outside of the embassy with less than a dozen security
personnel in fully armored vehicles. There were no Marines at the Benghazi
consulate as they are posted only at embassies. Stevens had only two security
guards when he arrived at the consulate. The Ambassador had not been ordered by
Secretary Clinton, nor anyone in the State Department to travel to Benghazi
during those dangerous times.
Nevertheless, Republican House majority
sought to maximize the political fall-out as Kevin McCarty has recently
admitted. He has in the last few days attempted to walk back his comments of
the 29th. “It was never my intention to ever imply that this
committee was political. Because we all know that it is not.” I am not sure
who McCarthy means when he say, “we.” Certainly Democratic House members and
even some GOP representatives have their doubts. That is why McCarthy’s quest
for the Speakership is not automatic.
This is not the first time McCarthy has
misspoken and exposed the GOP’s political agenda. It is a well-documented fact
that on Inauguration night of 2009, when President Obama took a giant step
forward in American presidential history, Republican leaders were meeting at the
Caucus restaurant in Washington to discuss how they could thwart Obama’s efforts
and sabotage his presidency. As Kevin McCarthy, the GOP Minority Whip at the
time, stated, “If you act like you’re the minority, you’re going to stay in the
minority…We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on
every single campaign.” Certainly, the GOP followed McCarthy’s
recommendations. They opposed every effort Obama made to pass needed
legislation, opposed every appointment, and became the Party of “NO” for most of
Obama’s initiatives. It was their philosophy of non-cooperation for Obama’s
entire term, regardless of how it affected the nation.
Now, as the GOP has taken control of both
Houses of the Congress, their goal is the presidency. They started planning
early, as the evidence now shows how they plotted the destruction of Hillary
Clinton’s presidential campaign, by “challenging them on every single campaign,”
as McCarthy advised them. The new pretender to the Speakership has tipped the
GOP’s hand. McCarthy has a habit of misspeaking, and even butchering the
English language on occasion. On October 2, when he tried to clarify his
misstatement on the Benghazi Select Committee, he uttered an incoherent
statement: “…I should have come out right afterwards. Never my intention. It
wasn’t, in my mind, was saying out there. I was saying some truth came out from
this committee. You can always improve.”
If McCarthy is to be the new Speaker
and spokesperson for the GOP House, he should get himself a good speech writer
and never vary from the written text. Otherwise, the Party will have to spend a
lot of time cleaning up the messes he makes. Like he says, he, himself, may be
“untrustable.”
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- Mark
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