Hillary Clinton faced an 11-hour grilling by the House Benghazi committee on Thursday, and the consensus is that she managed to emerge largely unscathed from the marathon hearing, which included discussion of her emails and a tense exchange about Sidney Blumenthal. But, as panel chief Trey Gowdy admitted afterward, it didn't reveal anything new about the 2012 attack. A few takes on the hearing:
- The long-anticipated hearing turned out to be pretty boring, which made it a triumph for Clinton, according to Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. Unlike the Benghazi hearing in 2013 where she clashed with Rep. Ron Johnson, "there was no negative sound bite from her. No acknowledgement of error," or signs of "weakness or confusion" about the events in Libya, he writes. "The hearing was, in a word, boring. And that's exactly what Clinton wanted."