#Benghazi is now dead for #teaparty bitching — what's next?

A scene in Benghazi the night of the 2012 attack.
AFP/Getty Images via Washington Post

The Washington Post reports that a Team Obama commando raid has captured a top suspect in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya embassy bombing, the first such person to be nabbed.

The New York Times now reports the operation to seize Ahmed Abu Khattala was in planning for about a year. The Obama Administration reportedly did not want to destabilize the Libyan government (so much for the success of nation building, not just now but in years to come, eh?) and wanted to make sure it had enough evidence to stand up legally. (At least he's apparently? not going to be tried by a military commission.)

Anyway, the operation was reportedly smooth:

A United States law enforcement official said the military-law enforcement team — composed of American commandos and F.B.I. agents — captured Mr. Abu Khattala somewhere on the outskirts of Benghazi. No shots were fired, no civilians were hurt and no one else was taken into custody, the official said, in what was apparently a surprise raid.

So, we can probably now expect the tea partiers and the official GOP to go officially silent about Benghazi. The "do-nothing" and "inept" angles have both been abruptly removed.

That's especially true since a wingnut-friendly senator is on the record as liking things. Per the Post's story:

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters after news of the capture broke that the administration had “been in touch with us for the last several days on this.”

“It’s good news,” Chambliss said. “He’s being interrogated right now.”

Well, there you go, wingnuts. The Benghazi gig is past its expiration date for sure. (Unless, of course, Saxby Chambliss is a sellout, which, of course, he may be.) That's even more true since Abu Khattala has now confirmed an anti-Islam video is at least part of what drove the attack.

So, what now, wingnuts?

Given that more and more U.S. district judges are ruling more and more states' gay marriage laws unconstitutional, I guess that will be our next big scandal. Ignore that some of these judges have been appointed by either Shrub or Poppy Bush, of course.

And, there's always the socialist Obama destroying our country, with the EPA carbon emission standards proof of that. Never mind that a fair portion of those reductions are already "baked in" from earlier control standards.

And, of, course, there's Iraq. Never mind that we still have nobody from the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, to revise an old phrase, volunteering to go over and fight themselves.

The least you nutbars could do is come up with a new scandal or two, like reparative therapy for Obama Derangement Syndrome. THAT, after all, IS a choice.

Of course, the wingnuts could double down on Benghazi, too, claiming that this arrest was made to hide the true record of what happened there. Stay tuned.

(Bowe Bergdahl is also "dead" as a meme since, as Wonkette notes, he was actually a Randian who wanted to go Rambo.)

The true, true record, of course, is one that nobody wants to discuss in either party. Benghazi was a spook shack. The CIA didn't want uniformed military security there in part for that reason.  Ambassador Christopher Stevens presumably went along, and hence the result.

The true, true scandal is that Eisenhower warned about the "military-industrial complex" even as he ramped up the covert war complex. Mossadegh in Iran. Arbenz in Guatemala. The Bay of Pigs was originally his baby, too, don't forget. And, since then, nobody in the bipartisan foreign policy establishment has looked back.