Libya and the Wrong Target

Dan Friedman writes at Fortune:

Libya is a mess. No one argues that the decision by the United State and its allies to conduct a bombing campaign that led to Gaddafi’s death left behind a functioningcountry, let alone a liberal democracy. The September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate that killed four Americans was part of the anarchy that resulted from Gaddafi’s ouster.

Yet the Benghazi Committee spent more than $7 million and wrote 800 pages in a mostly unsuccessful bid to fault Clinton’s actions before and after the attack. The reportdetails mistakes by U.S. officials, and the probe exposed Clinton’s use as Secretary of State of a private server for her email, the biggest drag on her presidential campaign so far.

But Democrats dismissed the inquiry as a partisan witch-hunt that revealed no information beyond what seven prior congressional probes unearthed. It failed to back conservative claims that Clinton or her staff inhibited a military response that could have saved lives, leaving two conservatives on the panel to issue their own addendum attacking Clinton.

For a political party that has famously focused on faulting anything Obama or Clinton touch, the Benghazi report represents a striking failure to coherently express a view most Americans have held since 2011: Clinton screwed up by urging intervention in Libya.