With their 11-hour savage grilling on Thursday, October 24, the Republicans may have just handed the American presidency 2016 to Hillary Clinton – without a single vote being cast.
I am no Republican or Democrat. Nor am I supporting one side or the other. And I certainly have issues with Hillary Clinton – all kinds of issues.
I cast my vote based strictly on who I think at any given time, and in any given race, may be the best candidate for the post.
But I saw, on Thursday, what much of America and the rest of the world saw that day on television: a brutal beating up of a woman, fairly advanced in years, for no less than 11 full hours, without pity or let up, in ways that frequently defied comprehension and that at times made your skin crawl.
That seemed beyond human endurance and capability – what Hillary Clinton endured that day.
To those watching, the questions and answers did not really seem to matter – I don’t think so.
But what loomed large, right in front of everyone’s eyes was the sight of this woman, seemingly prepped and rehearsed well past any level of drilling, taking it all on the chin, imperturbable to the core, for a length of time that never seemed to end.
Full 11 hours to be exact – in one single day of 24 hours.
That is a vision that is going to be seared in everyone’s memory forever.
People will also carry in their heads the pictures of how she did not collapse in a heap of spent muscle and bone, and how she did not even seem to ask for food or water that viewers could see.
And she did not at any stage appear to lose her poise, or her composure, or her cool – or her temper.
Nor did she give the appearance of hedging her answers, or fudging her facts, or withholding any information that the Republicans so brutally tried all day to pry out of her.
No All-Star Professional Public Relations Team could have choreographed this kind of a positive show-casing of a presidential candidate. No amount of money would have done it.
Evidently, this hearing was a game changer in this election cycle – 2016. It will sweep away all opposition from Hillary Clinton’s path. No Democrat can stand up to her now.
And the bumbling Republican presidential candidates will continue to do just that: bumble away without being able to mount any serious opposition to Hillary Clinton.
Not even Bernie Sanders, with his amazing message clarity and consistency, and his unassailable personal probity and integrity, poses a threat to Hillary Clinton any more, even if he did so earlier.
Bernie Sanders, however, will continue to do well. For, there are enough Americans around who are tired of all the voices of corruption and obfuscation milling around the American political arena and media portals.
But Hillary Clinton will soon soar out of sight on her way to the White House.
Her election coffers will soon fill to the brim. And her poll numbers will soon explode out of all charts. As of now, Hillary Clinton is as good as elected President in 2016: the first female president in the history of the United States, if you want to call her that, or just simply “President.”
All of it courtesy Republicans – and the way they attacked, at times viciously, and mercilessly mauled Hillary Clinton in their Benghazi Congressional Committee Hearing on Thursday.
In their feeding frenzy, the Republicans grilling Hillary Clinton seem to have lost sight of the fact that the woman before them was a former First Lady of the United States – not once but twice over.
And she was a former member of the United States Senate. And she was also a former Secretary of State.
The Republicans may have chosen to ignore all that. And they may not have shown her even a modicum of respect or recognition that may have been her due based on those credentials.
But it is unlikely the American people watching this bizarre drama unfold before their eyes on television will. I don’t think the American people are likely to miss the blood lust in Congressional Republican eyes that day.
American people are basically a decent people. And it is part of their political and social DNA to side with the underdog.
And that is what the Republicans did on that fateful day, in the secularly-sacred halls of American Congress: They hung a huge neon sign around Hillary Clinton’s neck that read: UNDERDOG!
For all of 11 hours. And forever thereafter.
One wonders what Allah has in store for His world – and for Islam and Muslims – this time around!