While Hillary Clinton’s very checkered career has served up any number of examples of just how unfit to be president she is, none so clearly captures the real Hillary’s essence as Benghazi.

Why? Because Benghazi places in bold relief the essential Hillary -- incredibly incompetent and fundamentally dishonest. Incompetent because she not only needlessly placed Americans in harm’s way, but, worse yet, she failed to come to their aid when aid was requested. Dishonest because she lied about the real nature of the Benghazi catastrophe (as did the rest of Obama’s minions) long after she knew that the slaughter was not due to a casual protest run amok because of any video taking Islam to task. That is what she is – incompetent and dishonest, and, as I noted in a previous column, lacking a modicum of judgment. By any measure, she is unfit to lead – anything at all, much less the greatest country on the planet.

But in the history of numerous Washington scandals, where should we put Benghazi? Right at the top! Why? Because, to pick up on one of the left’s favorite critical mantras, Hillary lied and Americans died. To put Benghazigate in perspective let’s compare and contrast it with one of the left’s all-time favorites -- Watergate, for which President Richard M. Nixon was pilloried and ultimately driven from office (an affair in which Hillary made her bones, so to speak). Watergate, which involved a keystone cop raid on Democratic headquarters at the Watergate hotel, was a bungled effort at larceny; it was almost universally described as a “third-rate burglary.” No one died; indeed no one was even injured (except possibly the bruised egos of the men who carried out what was an obviously unnecessary criminal act (McGovern was never considered a serious threat to Nixon’s re-election effort). And Nixon, a very bright guy, no matter how unlikable he appeared to be, handled the cover up in an incredibly stupid manner, thereby committing an act of political suicide.

In Benghazi, as noted, Americans who were placed in a very dangerous position -- for what reason, the administration has yet to reveal -- informed their superiors of their precarious situation and requested help of said superiors to deal with the danger at hand. Unfortunately, their request went unheeded, and, as a consequence, they were slaughtered. Furthermore, contrasting the Watergate cover-up with that employed in Benghazigate, Nixon burnt 18 minutes of tape, Hillary deleted more than 30,000 emails, or half the entire amount involved in her 4 years in office. In addition, Hillary used her own server at her personal residence, a procedure in clear violation of common practice, if not the law. In short, Watergate pales into insignificance when contrasted with Benghazigate; as noted, Watergate was a third-rate burglary (a bungled one at that), while, as noted in the title, Benghazigate was a first-rate massacre.

Thanks to Hillary’s fundamental dishonesty, we are still trying to find out what happened that evening. When queried on the possible cause -- before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, her response was an audacious “what difference at this point does it make?” To which Senator Ron Johnson, a decent fellow, wilted into silence instead of making the following observations:

1. To the people behind you (family and friends of the deceased at Benghazi) it makes all the difference in the world; and
2. To her point that what’s important is that it should not happen again, how do we do that if we don’t know why it happened the first time.

But, as noted, Senator Johnson and his colleagues were intimidated into relative silence by Hillary’s brazen and disingenuous attack.

So, for an extended period – well past the point when the truth was abundantly clear, Hillary adhered to the standard Clintonian response -- denial (lie), stonewall, slow walk, etc. (when William Safire called Hillary a “congenital liar,” he flattered her).

When it became clear that Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack -- i.e. that Hillary and the administration could no longer lie about some irrelevant video -- Hillary stepped up and claimed “responsibility,” Now usually, when one claims responsibility for a failure of management, one is accountable for such a failure, i.e. they are punished for the failure. Not so with the new Clinton form of responsibility; it’s just I’m sorry, and we move on -- no one, not even an underling, falls on a sword. In this regard, it should be noted that the mainstream media did little to out the truth; if this were a Republican involved, they would be screaming for her head. The full story on Benghazi has yet to be told, and, if Hillary has anything to say about it, it never will.

Benghazi is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Hillary’s qualification for any position of rank. She is fundamentally dishonest, completely incompetent, lacking in any leadership skills, unpleasant, unlikable, and yet there is the real possibility that this harridan may end up as our next president. That disturbing possibility may say a lot more about the depleted state of America than it does about Hillary Clinton.