May 08, 2014 05:11 PM UTC

Really Bad Idea: The "Benghazi Watchdog" Fundraising Ploy

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• by: Colorado Pols

Politico reports, as whatever moral high ground Republicans may have enjoyed in the much-politicized investigation(s) of the 2012 terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya is ceded:

A number of Republican candidates and conservative groups have openly used the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, as a cash grab. And that’s likely to continue despite a strongly worded rebuke from the new chairman of the Republican select committee assigned to investigate the response to the attacks.

Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, commented on MSNBC Wednesday that he and fellow Republicans should not fundraise off “the backs of four murdered Americans” — creating a new standard by which the party can be judged and opening the GOP up to charges of past, present and future hypocrisy.

That’s put the party in an awkward spot. Republicans on Capitol Hill are eager to lend the looming committee investigation into the murder of four Americans an air of sobriety, dignity and seriousness. But political strategists are eager to mobilize the GOP base and amp up grassroots fundraising by capitalizing on the base’s outrage over how the Obama administration handled the attacks.

The desire by Republicans to exploit the deaths of four Americans in the attack on the Benghazi consulate for political purposes has overshadowed from the start any legitimate interest in getting to the bottom of what happened, resulting in a loss of credibility for Republicans doggedly "investigating" the incident. One of the first victims of this was Mitt Romney, who tried and failed embarrassingly to gin the Benghazi attacks into an electoral issue. Romney's overwrought and factually deficient freakout about Benghazi set the stage for what was to follow. How can one compare any ex post facto spinning that may have occurred here with the lies that led to thousands of dead Americans in Iraq–just to cite one example? The rank hypocrisy, and the obvious goal of making Benghazi stick to Republicans' biggest political targets–President Barack Obama and likely 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton–severely undermines Republicans with an already deeply cynical public.

We're pretty sure that was the case before they tried to raise money off it.