"What difference at this point does it make?" - Part 2

Mark Steyn recently addressed the "What difference at this point does it make?" comment by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning the Benghazi debacle.   Steyn, who hails from Canada, is a conservative and has written five books (one of them, "America Alone:  The End of the World As We Know It," is a New York Times bestseller), as well as numerous columns which appear in various publications.  Steyn also fills in occasionally as a radio talk show host for Rush Limbaugh.

Here is the link to Steyn's column:

THE OBAMA SIMULACRUM:  This administration sneers at reality and its consequences - by Mark Steyn

A few excerpts from  Steyn:

1) In reference to Beyonce lip-syncing the National Anthem and Obama's inauguration:

- Whether Beyoncé was lip-syncing to the band or the band were lip-syncing to Beyoncé is like one of those red pill/ blue pill choices from The Matrix. Was President Obama lip-syncing to the Founders, rooting his inaugural address in the earliest expressions of American identity? (“The patriots of 1776 . . . gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.”) Or maybe the Founders were lip-syncing to him as he appropriated the vision of the first generation of Americans and yoked it (“preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action”) to a statist pitch they would have found utterly repugnant."

2)  Clinton's "what difference does it make" remark:

- A couple of days later, it fell to the 45th president-in-waiting to encapsulate the ethos of the age in one deft sound bite: What difference does it make? Hillary Clinton’s instantly famous riposte at the Benghazi hearings is such a perfect distillation that it surely deserves to be the national motto of the United States. They should put it on Paul Krugman’s trillion-dollar coin, and in the presidential oath:

“Do you solemnly swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States?”

“Sure. What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Well, it’s the difference between cool and reality — and, as Hillary’s confident reply appeared to suggest, and the delirious media reception of it confirmed, reality comes a poor second in the Obama era. The presumption of conservatives has always been that one day cold, dull reality would pierce the klieg-light sheen of Obama’s glamour. Indeed, that was the premise of Mitt Romney’s reductive presidential campaign. But, just as Beyoncé will always be way cooler than some no-name operatic soprano or a male voice choir, so Obama will always be cooler than a bunch of squaresville yawneroos boring on about jobs and debt and entitlement reform. Hillary’s cocksure sneer to Senator Johnson of Wisconsin made it explicit. At a basic level, the “difference” is the difference between truth and falsity, but the subtext took it a stage further: No matter what actually happened that night in Benghazi, you poor sad loser Republicans will never succeed in imposing that reality and its consequences on this administration."

3)  As for Hillary "taking responsibility" for Benghazi, Steyn points out the absurdity of such a claim:

- "So Hillary lip-synced far more than Beyoncé, and was adored for it. “As I have said many times, I take responsibility,” she said. In Washington, the bold declarative oft-stated acceptance of responsibility is the classic substitute for responsibility: rhetorically “taking responsibility,” preferably “many times,” absolves one from the need to take actual responsibility even once."

4)  Steyn points out the irony in which Obama and Clinton refer to "Chris" (Ambassador Stevens) over and over as if he were a close personal friend.  A close personal friend whose e-mails for help and more security at the Embassy went unanswered by Clinton & Co...

-  "Nor was the late Christopher Stevens any old ambassador, but rather Secretary Clinton’s close personal friend “Chris.” It was all “Chris” this, “Chris” that when Secretary Clinton and President Obama delivered their maudlin eulogies over the flag-draped coffin of their “friend.” Gosh, you’d think if they were on such intimate terms, “Chris” might have had Hillary’s e-mail address, but apparently not. He was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends cabling the State Department every hour of the day.

Four Americans are dead, but not a single person involved in the attack and the murders has been held to account. Hey, what difference does it make? Lip-syncing the national anthem beats singing it. Peddling a fictitious narrative over the coffin of your “friend” is more real than being an incompetent boss to your most vulnerable employees. And mouthing warmed-over clichés about vowing to “bring to justice” those responsible is way easier than actually bringing anyone to justice."

In closing, Steyn sums up the Benghazi mess AND the new reality we live in - a reality created by Obama and Co.  A reality that has nothing to do with the truth.  The truth no longer matters.  What does matter is what Obama wants people to believe.  

- "Obama is the ultimate reality show, and real reality can’t compete. Stalin famously scoffed, “How many divisions has the Pope?” Secretary Clinton was more audacious: How many divisions has reality? Not enough."

(Please be sure to click on the link to Steyn's column and read it in its entirety.)