GOP anger over Benghazi shows just how hypocritical they are

For nearly a year and a half, conservatives have been trying to stir up anger over what happened at Benghazi, Libya. No matter what they tell you, they have just one purpose -- to damage the Obama administration.

What happened at Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, was tragic. Four American diplomats died when Muslims attacked the consulate, and Republicans immediately began using the issue to try and change the momentum of the presidential campaign.

It didn't work, of course, because no matter what Republicans think, they haven't managed to dumb voters down enough to believe them,

Four dead in Libya was tragic, but there had been 60 people killed in eight attacks during the previous administration and not one Republican had even said a word about it.

No one lost their job, no one stood trial and there were no Congressional investigations either. My two adult children both serve in the Foreign Service, and while they accept the dangers of their chosen profession, neither one of them were especially disturbed by what happened in Libya.

Despite the lack of anger from the professionals, Republicans still decided to have the proverbial cow. The way they overreached and hyperbolized on the subject would have been humorous except that they were so sincere about it.

Some of it may have been racism, but my guess is that most of it is that they simply cannot understand why Americans would elect a Democrat president.

Of course, Democrats have won four of the last six presidential elections, and they have actually won the popular vote in five of the last six.

In a way, it's almost as if reality has driven them crazy. They say Democrats are buying votes with entitlement programs and they have turned the whole divide into a ridiculous "makers vs. takers" thing in which the only real Americans are on their side.

The problem with that track is that when you start looking at it that way, the next steps get worse and worse.

First is taking away their votes, which we're already hearing from people like the billionaire who said that if someone pays a million dollars in taxes, he should get a million votes.

Once they've lost their votes you start taking away their rights and eventually their freedom. Of course that doesn't always happen, but once you start demonizing your opposition as the "other," it becomes all too easy to dehumanize them.

And that is definitely not the American way.