Democrats and White House Indicate They Will Not Cooperate With Benghazi Investigation (Video)

In response to Confirmed: Boehner Taps Gowdy To Chair Select Committee:

It appears that Democrats have coalesced around a strategy to deal with Speaker Boehner’s decision to hold a Select Committee. They will respond by plugging their ears, closing their eyes, and covering their mouths. 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) on Sunday called the establishment of a select committee to investigate Benghazi a “colossal waste of time” and encouraged his party’s leadership to not appoint Democrats on the panel.

“I think it’s a colossal waste of time. We’ve had four bipartisan investigations of this already …  I don’t think it makes sense, really, for Democrats to participate. I think it’s just a tremendous red herring and a waste of taxpayer resources,” Schiff said.

Schiff’s comments came during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

When asked by Fox’s Chris Wallace if he meant “that Democrats should not appoint anyone to the special committee, and let it simply be Republicans holding this investigation,” Schiff confirmed, “That’s what I would recommend.”

Schiff, the Senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has a disgraceful record of partisan hackery on scandals that could hurt the president. Instead of cooperating  with Republicans during their investigations, he has seen his role as a partisan defender, protecting a Fellow Dem in the White House.

On Monday during his White House press briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney would not give a straight answer on whether the Obama administration would cooperate with the Select Committee investigating Benghazi, but he seemed to indicate that the White House would not cooperate..

“We have always cooperated with legitimate oversight,” Carney said this afternoon during the daily White House briefing. Asked whether the panel qualified as “legitimate,” he said: “I think if you look at what even some Republicans have said, it certainly casts doubt on the legitimacy of an effort that is so partisan in nature.”

“You know, at some point, you just have to assume that Republicans will continue this because it feeds a political objective of some sort,” he added. “At the same time you have to ask, ‘What about the American people who want to see Congress work for them?'”

If Carney is saying that they will only cooperate with “legitimate” oversight, they must consider everything Republicans do illegitimate, because they’ve stonewalled them on all of their investigations.

Meanwhile, if Democrats go through with their boycott, they will have made their point to the base and the media (but I repeat myself) that the proceedings are an illegitimate waste of time and taxpayer money. 

But over at Hot Air, Allahpundit makes a very good point: 

…the average low-information voter watching soundbites of the day’s hearings at 10 p.m. on cable either won’t know or won’t care about the boycott. All he’ll know is that Trey Gowdy is pounding the table and seems utterly convinced that there’s a cover-up, and that the witness he’s grilling seems shifty and nervous. If you’re a Dem, maybe it’s better to have people on the committee pounding the table about what a farce this all is so that the news networks have something for the “counterpoint” part of the soundbite highlight reel.

I kinda like the idea of no Democrats being around to gum up the proceedings with partisan obfuscations myself.