HILLARY = DEFAULT FAVORITE

The hearing by the House Committee on Benghazi was a farce.  This unfortunate event was bungled from the offset when Susan Rice was ordered to act as "liar in chief".  I doubt if we will ever know who did what in the Obama Administration and when.

Yesterday was Hillary's turn. We are not wiser.  I only retain the inexcusable abrasive behavior of the Republicans who acted like some deranged species. If the Republicans choose to be hostages of the Freedom Caucus or of the mad Charenton crazies of the Trump/Carson-type, so be it.  Mrs. Clinton kept her cool , and the truth.  She won, insofar as the Republican screaming onslaught might boomerang and offer her martyrdom in place of her well known triangulation.

In the end, it is the whole political class which is on trial here. It is understandable that Paul Ryan hesitates to become House speaker at a time when the system is in a coma. The country is orphaned because a lack of leadership has created a void wherein noise banishes discourse. Soon the debt ceiling will create another melodrama.  Economic, military and social priorities, as well as international credibility will yet again pay the price. 

It is time for the United States to review the electoral mechanics. They are hostage of what is a two-year pre presidential electoral cycle, which leads to prolonged dysfunction and discontent. The outgoing president becomes an accessory to what is already a bad scenario. Politicians, who have become a travelling circus, are not good at the high-minded trapeze. If nothing changes, the disparities on social issues might become nefarious. Sometimes comparisons are made to European regionalism, notably with Catalonia, Flanders, and Scotland which strive for more autonomy, but this phenomenon is of a different, more legitimate historical nature. There are also ulterior motives at play, generally economic redistribution and taxes, but the cultural and religious wars are over (as long as they are not re-imported by way of immigration). In America, the splits between North and South, the Middle and the Others, the rural and the urban mindsets, conservatives and liberals remain unresolved. Obama promised healing but he left the bedside for the golf links.  Both parties talk pork rather than reason and as a consequence, the outsiders win.

Only Mrs. Clinton has the survival pedigree. She is intelligent and by comparison desirable. Such a resigned commitment does not bode that well for the future.