Piers Morgan Accuses GOP of 'Misogyny,' 'Political Grandstanding' at Clinton Hearing
Could Piers Morgan be any more of an Obama hack? After Republicans
grilled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the Benghazi attacks on
Wednesday, Morgan unloaded on their criticism as "political
grandstanding" showing "a whisper of misogyny."
"I've been listening to the Republicans getting on their high horse about this for a long time. Now I've thought a lot of today's criticism was political grandstanding in many ways,"
said the CNN host who has done plenty of grandstanding of his own from
his high horse on gun control.
[Video below. Audio here.]
"I'm getting a little bit weary, I'll be honest with you, with
the relentless attacks first on Susan Rice and now on Hillary Clinton. There's a – a whisper of misogyny to it,
I think, and it's getting pretty, I think, incestuous and very
Washington-orientated rather than in the national interest of America,"
Morgan lamented.
And like a good White House pawn, he switched attention from Clinton to
Republicans: "I think the Republicans have to remember they themselves
made some pretty catastrophic errors when it came to intelligence, and I
don't remember people queuing up, demanding they get fired or anyone
losing their jobs over it."
Actually, Condoleezza Rice took some serious vitriol when she was Bush's nominee for Secretary of State, and as the Washington Post reported, she got "the most negative votes cast against a nominee for that post in 180 years."
Regardless, Morgan kept pointing scrutiny away from the Obama administration, choosing to toss some blame at the media:
"I mean, the biggest mistake, it seemed to me, was putting Susan Rice up on that Sunday morning on television with what turned out to be wrong intelligence when they didn't really need to go that fast. And actually, that's probably as much the media's fault for demanding that they do that kind of thing. So I think everyone's a little bit culpable here."
A transcript of the exchanges, which began airing on Piers Morgan Tonight on January 23 at 9:04 p.m. EST:
PIERS MORGAN: But look – but look. I've been listening to the Republicans getting on their high horse about this for a long time. Now I've thought a lot of today's criticism was political grandstanding in many ways. Because if you go back to catastrophic intelligence failures before 9/11 or in the build-up to the Iraq war, in my view, far more serious than this. And that's not to diminish the deaths of four Americans, but those led to the deaths of many, many, many more Americans.
You know, you've got to say get this in some perspective. Hillary Clinton to me, seemed today to be sincere. I don't think anyone can reasonably expect the Secretary of State to read every cable that comes in. But unless what you're telling me is that you believe she definitively lied and deliberately misled the American people, where do we go with this?
Sen. KELLY AYOTTE (R-N.H.): Piers, first of all, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is this. I don't expect her to have read every single document that comes before her. But when she said that she was clear-eyed about the dangers and threats in Benghazi and eastern Libya, I guess the real question is, when we address what happened here and going forward, we also better address, you know, how are things communicated up the chain of command and why, when you know you're clear eyed about the danger, do you not ask more pointedly have there been additional requests.
So I understand --
MORGAN: Right. Right. But I mean --
(Crosstalk)
AYOTTE: – you're not going to review every document.
MORGAN: Right. Right.
AYOTTE: So in fairness, that's the point I'm making.
MORGAN: Right. I understand that. And I understand clearly big mistakes were made here. There's no question of that. But I also thought that Hillary Clinton made a good point which is, look, the more important thing now is there's 20 more embassies under direct threat apparently at the moment. The more important thing is guaranteeing that lessons are learned and that these embassies are protected and there's no more loss of life. And I'm sure you would agree with that, right?
AYOTTE: I fully agree that the whole goal of this is to make sure we get to the bottom of it so that it doesn't happen again, and also so that we make sure – I mean, one of the things, of course, we learned as well is we had someone in custody in Tunisia. That person has been released and we want to hold those accountable for – who committed these horrible murders on our people.
(...)
MORGAN: And now I want to bring in two people who are surely at odds on all this. PJ Crowley, former assistant secretary of state for Secretary Clinton, and Dana Loesch, conservative host of the radio talk show, "The Dana Show." Let me start with you, PJ Crowley. I'm getting a little bit weary, I'll be honest with you, with the relentless attacks first on Susan Rice and now on Hillary Clinton. There's a – a whisper of misogyny to it, I think, and it's getting pretty, I think, incestuous and very Washington-orientated rather than in the national interest of America. What do you think?
PJ CROWLEY, former assistant secretary of state for Secretary Clinton: Well, I think there are legitimate questions that still need to be answered. And as Hillary Clinton said today, the FBI is still working on the investigation. Director Mueller was in both Libya and Tunisia recently. I get disappointed when people give half of the story.
(...)
DANA LOESCH: Are we going to talk about the Bush years, or are we going to talk about what happened in Benghazi?
(...)
MORGAN: I think it has to be proportionate and I think the Republicans have to remember they themselves made some pretty catastrophic errors when it came to intelligence, and I don't remember people queuing up, demanding they get fired or anyone losing their jobs over it.
(...)
MORGAN: OK. I mean, the biggest mistake, it seemed to me, was putting Susan Rice up on that Sunday morning on television with what turned out to be wrong intelligence when they didn't really need to go that fast. And actually, that's probably as much the media's fault for demanding that they do that kind of thing. So I think everyone's a little bit culpable here.
