Editorial: Lie confirmed

Thursday’s Benghazi hearings revealed a lie that could affect Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Strong Democratic loyalists and devout Hillary Clinton supporters are crowing about the former secretary of state’s performance in the hours-long grilling by members of the Select U.S. House Benghazi committee.

They portray her as coming out of this pressure cooker unscathed and ready to sail past any competition to gain the Democratic presidential nomination and then march into the White House Oval Office.

The headline in one national newspaper said, “Plenty of fireworks, no smoking gun.” Another headline read, “Little new revealed in Benghazi hearing.”

This may be how many view Clinton’s testimony: that there were no bombshells or damaging blows to Clinton’s years-long campaign to win the presidency.

However, there was one glaring and tremendously powerful revelation coming out of the hearing. Clinton lied about the cause of the attack on Benghazi. She lied to the public and she lied to the mothers and fathers of those killed in the terrorist attack. She and her spokespeople initially claimed the attack was a reaction to a video shown in Cairo rather than being a well-organized terrorist attack.

Testimony at Thursday’s hearing disclosed Clinton knew immediately it was a terrorist attack. She told others it was a terrorist attack, but she told the public it was merely a reaction to the video and that the U.S. government would not stop looking for and prosecuting the individual who produced the video.

This was window dressing designed to minimize the damage to President Obama’s re-election efforts. He had emphasized that dangers from terrorist attacks had been minimized or downsized significantly during his first term in the White House.

To many, the “bombshell” coming out of the hearing was that Clinton lied about the attack that cost the lives of a U.S. ambassador and three security officers.

Once a person lies, whether it’s a presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, or an average citizen, how can he or she be trusted to tell the truth on future matters? Various national polls prior to last week’s Benghazi hearings said the word “liar” was one of the most prevalent one-word descriptions respondents attached to Clinton.

How can lying be laughed off or considered inconsequential when considering attributes or weaknesses of a presidential candidate — or anyone else? How can a liar be trusted or placed in a high government position?