Daniel Henninger devotes his weekly Wall Street Journal column to 13 Hours. The column is “’13 Hours’: It’s political” (accessible here via Google, I hope). Henninger’s column marks an important contribution to the discussion. Among other things, Henninger writes:
The movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” opened last week, and the cold-water machines have been hosing it. No one cares about Benghazi anymore, the conventional sniffing goes, because the box-office is tepid. At 144 minutes, “13 Hours” is too long and, really, it’s just too political.
I sat through it, and these political faces and names appear nowhere in the movie: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice. But for the last 75 minutes, I could think of only one thing: the Obama administration’s YouTube coverup, the story—or “talking points”—about how an obscure anti-Islamic video made in California caused Benghazi to happen.
“13 Hours” is a graphic, reasonably accurate depiction of the events on Sept. 11, 2012: the consular assault, Chris Stevens’s death, an escape under heavy fire to the CIA annex a mile away, and the successful, nightlong defense of the annex. With apologies to the politically delicate, “13 Hours” makes the memory of the government’s tall tale, which it insisted on repeating for more than a week, hard to stomach.
And one other, impossible-to-flinch conclusion: There ought to be a political reckoning over this with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, her emails revealed, was complicit in a White House concoction she knew the night of the attack was untrue. She is now asking the American people to let her succeed Mr. Obama into the White House. Benghazi is toward the top of the list of reasons they should say “no.” From the looks of it, many are doing so already.
Also worthy of note, Deroy Murdock provides a compelling view of the film at NR “13 Hours confirms Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s lies about Benghazi.” He writes:
It is impossible to experience the gripping new film 13 Hours and escape this conclusion: Obama and Hillary Clinton have lied through their teeth, gums, and cheeks about Benghazi.
Despite Obama’s and Clinton’s recurring lies to the contrary, the deadly attacks of September 11, 2012, on U.S. diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya, had no connection with political protests. In director Michael Bay’s political-action thriller, which Paramount Pictures calls “a true story,” these two outposts get slammed ferociously by growing waves of well-armed jihadists who know exactly what they are doing. As if mocking Obama’s and Clinton’s lies, they do not drop their picket signs and then suddenly grab grenades, rocket launchers, and mortar shells. Instead, these killers skip the placards and head straight for the firepower.
(Spoiler alert: In this piece I discuss this film’s plot, although the facts here should surprise no one who has followed this controversy.)
Read the columns. See the movie. Buy the book.
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