Political columnist Dana Milbank reports that a Heritage Foundation discussion panel on the Benghazi "issue" rapidly descended into a very weird congeries of all the most reactionary, ridiculous, and irrational conspiracy theories harbored by the extreme right, not to mention the verbal mob stoning of a Muslim student who suggested that possibly not all followers of Islam are evil killers.
The main point I take away from this report is how far the Heritage Foundation has wandered from its purported character as a non-partisan think tank. Sure, they've always had conservative leanings, but any organization that can't bring together a better group of discussants than this definitely forfeits its right to be taken seriously. (Could the histrionic quality of the discussion possibly stem from the fact that there's no real "issue" here?)
A secondary point worth noting is, of course, the degree to which conservatives seek to focus on the Benghazi non-issue in their patently political quest to discredit Hillary Clinton.
On the same page of today's paper we have another report: The conservative Washington Free Beacon now seeks to dredge up a case that Hillary the lawyer handled in 1975, when she evidently committed the unspeakable outrage of giving an accused rapist a vigorous - and apparently successful - defense. Apparently the idea is to discredit Mrs. Clinton with women for failing to support the rape victim (though that was not her job at the time).
The GOP is scared to death of Hillary, even though she hasn't yet committed herself to running.
And well they might be, considering the disarray within the party (well-analyzed today by Michael Gerson, incidentally, who points out that all the fervently fought issues that are dividing the part today are totally unrelated to the real issues they face in winning the next Presidential election).