Assessing the Benghazi hearing during a break in the proceedings at about 4 p.m. Eastern, NBC foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell hailed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as "poised" and "steady" while her Republican interrogators did not "cover themselves in glory" with questioning that failed to get to the "root cause" of the Benghazi tragedy and failed to break any new ground.
Here's the relevant transcript (emphases mine):
MSNBC
MSNBC Live
Oct. 22, 2015; 3:59 p.m. EasternBRIAN WILLIAMS: Andrea, what stood out to you from the last segment of this hearing.
ANDREA MITCHELL: ...What stood out to me what you guys have been discussing, that they missed an opportunity, so far at least, to get to the root cause of why was there such a terrible security failure, what have they done to fix it and that Hillary Clinton, unlike what happened back in 2013, when she was admittedly recovering from a concussion and other ailments, she is poised. She is steady.
She has signaled both with her put-downs, well, you can read that in my book, or I don't accept your narrative or that's your story but those aren't the facts, sir, or just with her facial expressions, Brian. She has shown attempts at humor or laughing off their efforts to get her to look at tab 17 or else just an expression of weariness, patience, and dare I say, at times, contempt.
That seems to be sort of the demeanor of the former secretary of state, facing this panel which so far at least has not covered itself with glory, although they've got some good ammunition if you will, asking her why there wasn't more security, why Chris Stevens wasn't listened to, but that was all pursued by previous hearings.
There have been seven previous hearings and they have, with a number of witnesses, including the deputy chief of mission, made it very clear that all of those requests were either denied or ignored and she's made the point that none of them got to her level. That was an institutional question, which I think that they could do a better job of pursuing. I don't know what your takeaway is, but it seems to me there are a lot of lessons that should be learned and she has discussed what reforms have taken place. But there could be a lot more said about why the mission was not better protected.
