Telling testimony
The poor performance of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in congressional testimony was at odds with your “Clinton, strong” editorial Jan. 25. You wrote that the secretary was offended by the implication that she was unaware of the danger and unconcerned about the American victims and their families.
In fact, in her congressional testimony, Clinton said she wasn’t aware of the embassy’s cables about deteriorating security, nor about her department’s refusal to provide security reinforcements. “It was not brought to my attention” was her rejoinder. Clinton’s banner broadside was, “We had four dead Americans – was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans?”
If the secretary doesn’t know which of these scenarios took place, we should be glad that she’s resigning.
Her following sentence was: “What difference, at this point, does it make?” Well, it makes all the difference to the families of the victims, who need to know where the buck stops in the State Department. No public servant should be allowed to say, “That was then, this is now – get over it.”
Mark E. Sullivan, Raleigh
