Does anyone really believe the media would uncritically accept the Incompetence Defense, over and over again, from a Republican administration? Of course not. The “dog ate my homework” jokes would be a staple of late-night comedy. Every single statement uttered by the likes of Obama, Biden, and Clinton would be exhumed and compared in detail with yesterday’s testimony. In fact, since they already had some idea of what Hicks was going to say, the press would have been prepared to do this in real time. When partisan congressional Republicans at the Mirror Universe hearings peddled their absurd claim that they weren’t allowed to participate in the Benghazi investigation, or had no time to prepare, they would have been laughed off the national stage – no Incompetence Defense would be permitted for them, either.

Above all, a Republican administration’s claims of “transparency” would lie in ruins after yesterday’s hearings. That’s an incontrovertible conclusion for anyone who paid the slightest attention to the testimony. There were very specific allegations about Administration interference with congressional investigations, and no one has attempted to refute them. There is no way to square this whistleblower testimony with the notion of an honest White House and Secretary of State working with Congress and keeping the American people informed. That would be a huge story for the media today, if they were not primarily interested in ignoring all that bombshell testimony, so they can push the Obama-approved line that Benghazi is old news. Just try to imagine them performing such a service for a Republican president.