Republicans Replay 1998 on Benghazi

By Albert R. Hunt, Bloomberg
May 11, 2014 11:00 AM EDT

With political indicators and historical cycles in their favor, Republicans are pushing the envelope to further energize their base with a full assault on the head of the opposition.

It's 1998, and House Republicans have moved to charge President Bill Clinton with an impeachable high crime for lying about sex.

Parties that don't control the White House invariably gain in midterm elections. But the anti-Clinton drive energized Democrats. That year, Republicans failed to gain congressional seats in a midterm for the first time since 1934 and for the first time in a president's second term since 1822.

In 2014, the Republicans risk a smaller-scale fiasco with the creation of a special committee to investigate the 2012 tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, were killed. House Republicans see this as a political two-fer: an attack on President Barack Obama and on the Democrats' presumptive 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state during the attack. This strategy is aimed at exciting the party's base and raising campaign cash.

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