Benghazi occurred over four months ago, and the Republicans, most of them lawyers, could not prepare a decent examination of the Madame Secretary? What are they paid for?

I did not go to law school, have no staff, and have not studied Benghazi very thoroughly, but here are some lines of inquiry a high school student might have opened up:

"Madame Secretary, you say that you did not read the cable last August from Ambassador Stevens about the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi because there are 'a million cables addressed to me a year.' Fine. Can you then tell us who did read it? Because you are not going to tell us that no one read the ambassador's cable, are you?

"Surely you know who saw the cable and decided it was not important enough to bring to your attention? After all, your department has been assuring the American people for four months now that you were doing a very, very thorough investigation. Extremely thorough. Has that person or persons been put on administrative leave? Asked to resign? Promoted?

"Time was, Madame Secretary, when someone in your position would have offered your immediate resignation following such a debacle. Did you do so?"

Perhaps it's time to rename the GOP the POM, Party of Missed Opportunities. I would say that they keep swinging and missing, but I can't even say they're swinging.

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a technical writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d [@] gmail.com.