The Patriot Post® · Hillary Blames YouTube, Calls IRS 'Real Scandal' and Trashes Gun Owners

Touring the media circuit to hawk her book, “Hard Choices,” Hillary Clinton made another round of interview appearances Tuesday. Here are some excerpts we think are worthy of rebuttal.

Regarding the delayed-for-two-years capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, who is believed to have been a perpetrator of the attack at Benghazi, she boasted, “What was made abundantly clear by this latest effort, is we have an unwavering commitment to go after anyone, no matter how long it takes, who is responsible for harming Americans.” The shame is, in part because of her dereliction of duty, Americans were harmed in the first place. And not just harmed – U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were murdered.

What has she learned? Well, not much. In fact, she’s stubbornly sticking to her original talking points on the YouTube video. “This was the fog of war,” she said. “You know, my own assessment careened from, you know, ‘The video had something to do with it, the video had nothing to do with it. It may have affected some people, it didn’t affect other people.’ And I think the conclusion to draw – because we were not just monitoring what was happening in Benghazi once it began to unfold, but remember we had a very dangerous assault on our embassy in Cairo that same day, which was clearly linked to that video. … I think that the investigations that have been carried out basically conclude, ‘We can’t say that everybody was influenced and we can’t say everybody wasn’t,’ but what the intelligence community said was ‘spontaneous protests’ and that is what, at the time, they thought.”

In other words, she and the president were perfectly justified in continuing to blame the YouTube video long after that theory was utterly discredited. She alluded to the talking points, which remain one of the most serious questions about the episode. Barack Obama was re-elected in part on his narrative that al-Qaida had been “decimated” and admitting the attack was terrorism would have undermined that happy ending.

Still, she says, “We’re doing the best we can to find out what happened.” Despite numerous investigations, she added, “I’m still looking for answers.” It’s ironic she said this on the 20th anniversary of the low-speed chase involving O.J. Simpson. He’s also still looking for the “real killer.”

In other foreign policy news, she doubled down on her insistence that the five Taliban jihadis swapped for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl pose no threat, though this time with a qualifier: “As long as they’re in Qatar, they’re not a threat to the United States.” She added, “In Qatar, with an agreement that has been entered into, they are supposed to be constrained from what they can do, and certainly they are not supposed to be permitted to travel. In that situation, they are not a threat.” Unfortunately, the five are reportedly free to move about the country and can leave altogether in a year. We have no doubt they are a threat.

Turning to a domestic scandal, Hillary admitted that the IRS Tea Party targeting is a big deal, contrary to Barack Obama’s insistence that it’s a “phony scandal” and there’s not a “smidgeon of corruption” at the agency. “Well, I think any time the IRS is involved, for many people, it’s a real scandal,” Clinton said. “And I think, though, that there are some challenges that rightly need to be made to, uh, what is being said and I assume that the inquiry will continue. So, I don’t have the details, but I think what President Obama means … is there really wasn’t a lot of, uh, you know, evidence that this was deliberate but that’s why the investigation needs to continue.” That’s kind of hard to do now that the IRS insists that it’s “lost” a bunch of relevant emails.

On the Second Amendment and the Left’s various efforts to push gun control, she insisted banning semi-automatic rifles (“assault weapons”) and standard-capacity magazines (“high-capacity” magazines) would protect students – who are already in “gun-free zones” – from “that very, very, very small group that is, unfortunately, prone to violence, and now with automatic weapons, uh, wreak so much more violence, uh, than they ever could before.”

She declared, “We cannot let a minority of people – and that’s what it is, it is a minority of people – hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people.”

This is perhaps one of the most dishonest and disgusting attacks on the Second Amendment we’ve seen, and that’s saying something. First, there have been two – count ‘em, two – murders committed with legally owned automatic weapons since they were first heavily regulated in 1934, and one of those was committed by a police officer. It’s very difficult to purchase a Class 3 firearm. But gun control fanatics all too frequently (and deliberately?) confuse semi-automatic weapons, which fire one round per trigger pull, with automatic weapons, which can fire multiple rounds per trigger pull.

Second, Hillary seemingly contends that it is a “viewpoint,” not an evil or deranged person, who “terrorizes the majority of people.” King George couldn’t have said it better himself. In one fell swoop, she’d take away not only the Second Amendment but the First Amendment that it secures.

It’s clear that voters should make the Easy Choice and reject Hillary Clinton as anything more than a hypocritical and overpaid public speaker.