This was such a dumpster fire. Like... we knew it was going to be, but it was just a bonfire of stunning proportions. And I don't like Hillary that much but she did hold it together very well and I think this was a very solid win for her when she'd been struggling quite a bit. The Foreign Service Officers in my office and I watched as much as we could yesterday, and the congresspeople up there got SO much wrong about how the State Department functions at a fundamental level. Truly embarrassing.
I don't really mind the meta coverage of this saga, but what's really annoying me is the actual coverage. NPR had a whole segment on "what did we learn" today, and I couldn't even listen. The only way to cover this story is to cover its political implications. Anything else is just repeating the republican lie machine's party line. The fact that no one in the media has pointed out that members of Congress seem to have no idea how State works is a testament to the press' epic failure here. They're so afraid of getting labeled "liberal" that it actually took a GOP leader on the record saying that this affair is politically motivated for them to acknowledge it (even though it's been obvious since 2012 when they were trying to pin it on Obama). Hopefully the democrats will have the courage to boycott the committee now that the hearing is over.