The Benghazi hearings are not over and there may be a lot more we will learn from them in the future. But the questioning of Hillary Clinton is over and answered two important questions. The first had to do with who was responsible for making the decisions that led up to a dwindling security presence at the Benghazi Compound.

We found out that there were over 600 requests for greater security and the only actions taken were to reduce security. The answer to the question, “who was responsible” is “no one”. I'm not being facetious. There were a couple of names mentioned who were singled out, and their superiors that one Republican questioner described as "who I'm not sure who they are", but it is of no importance. No one cares about those responsible because it's a mute question.

The reason, and this is new to me, is because no one in government can be held responsible or accountable for their actions. This is why no one is ever fired, or loses a dollar of pay no matter how incompetent they are or how destructive or ineffective their work is. Unless a government employee commits a crime, is arrested, and jailed, he or she will be on the job with pay no matter what they do.

This is not just at the State Department; it holds true for all government jobs. So, the cause of the Benghazi attack goes much deeper than a single incident. It is our system of government that is at fault.

When Hillary Clinton made her opening statement she freely admitted that she took responsibility for the attack and the four deaths in Benghazi. Why should she try to hide it? It has no meaning and no repercussions. It is of no consequence. Being held responsible within government is a meaningless phrase.

There was a recent report of a government employee that had not shown up for work for over a year and yet collected full pay. He was depressed and didn't feel like working. No action was taken. Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS and her underlings who were responsible for the singling out of the Tea Party, conservative groups and businesses for tax punishment, have never been disciplined and have collected their salaries on leave. They are responsible; but not for a crime. They are responsible for violating policy. No charges were brought against them and no penalties. Like Benghazi, it is the system that is to blame, not individuals.

Lying, cheating, gross incompetence, even the kind that can lead to the destruction of lives, careers, and reputations of individuals and/or their businesses and livelihoods, is permitted without penalty within our government’s system of employment. If you lose a season or two as a coach in sports, you are fired. If you are a billionaire and head of a corporation and don't succeed quickly and sufficiently, you are fired. But if you are an employee of the government, there is nothing you can do wrong, no extreme you can't go to (save committing a felony) that will cause you any discomfort what-so-ever.

So, who is responsible for allowing over 600 requests for protection of an American ambassador and his aides to go unanswered to the point that they were murdered in the night with no help before, during, nor after the attack?  The "system" was. And all agree the system needs to be fixed. Except there is no politician, Republican or Democrat, that is willing to call for a system of hiring and firing or a rules-based employment contract anything close to that of the private sector. No one is calling for government employee accountability.

Those in government from the highest politician to the lowest bureaucrat do not live by the rules that apply to the rest of us. They scream for equality and fairness, yet in practice enjoy the most unfair and unequal status of all. They are separate, apart, and immune from the justice they legislate and enforce on others.

It's not that Hillary Clinton and several employees did nothing wrong; it's that they are immune from the consequences of their actions by the rules and the laws of our government -- unless and until changed. 

The second thing we learned from the Benghazi hearing is that Mrs Clinton lied about the video being the cause of the attack on Benghazi. In e-mails released at the hearing, we learned that one hour after the attack she told her family that the attack was launched by an "Al-Qaeda-like group". She told the Egyptian prime minister the same thing, two hours later. She stated explicitly that it was not due to the release of a video.

She then changed her story and directed Susan Rice to tell the nation that it was due to a video and the attack was not launched by terrorists, that it was not a planned attack, and was the result of random protestors that night. She held to that story right through the return of the bodies of the Ambassador and three service men which she met at the airport. And to the families of the dead, and in front of the entire nation, she pledged to find and prosecute the producer of that video.

She had company. President Obama two weeks after the attack went before the United Nations and said the same thing. I will let you guess why they lied, but it is no coincidence that Obama was in a tight race for re-election and the mere idea that his Administration and/or State Department might have had something to do with the attack, even if it was incompetency, could have been the deciding factor in his re-election.

Sixty-five percent of the American people believe that Hillary Clinton is untruthful and don't trust her. Yet, will it matter in her bid for Presidency? If she lied about the deaths of four of our best and brightest, what will she do, and what will she cover up if she is Commander-In-Chief and makes mistakes or exercises poor judgement? And what else has our current President lied and covered up about? I’m sure history will reveal much more than we know today about the degree of incompetency and deceit practiced in the Obama Administration.

All of this or none of this may matter over time, but there is an FBI probe concerning national security information, leaked, hacked, or provided by those in the State Department including Mrs. Clinton. There are perjury matters and protocol violations that are indictable offenses. Hillary and her friends are not off the hook yet. The FBI investigation will hopefully be a non-partisan investigation - which is more than I can say for the present partisan questioners that are obviously politically motivated and biased. All are up for re-election.

After hearing the testimony of the Benghazi committee and Mrs. Clinton, I strongly suggest that we focus now not on Hillary, but on the rules and laws that allow all politicians and elected officials to ignore the rules and laws that all other citizens of the United States must abide by. We need to eliminate the double standard in hiring and firing and compensation rules of government employment. We need for there to be accountability for incompetence and penalties for dereliction of duty. We need sanity returned to the terms of government employment. We need to return to the concept of public service as it used to be, and get rid of today's government "kingdoms".

I intend to fight hard against the election of Hilary Clinton. Only her defeat will serve as punishment for her misdeeds, her incompetency, and her cover-up of the attack on Benghazi. We may not have the ability to cut government employee pay for failure to perform or fire government bureaucrats for unethical behavior, but we still have the ability to fire our elected officials.

Let's do so.

Paul Nathan

paulnathan.biz