Don’t call it a comeback.
Mark Sanford completed his political redemption Tuesday night as he handily beat Democratic challenger Elizabeth Colbert Busch in the special election for the seat South Carolina’s First Congressional District. The former disgraced governor of the state, who exited the office a shamed man in 2011 following revelations of an extramarital affair, garnered nearly 55% of the vote.
Just a few weeks ago, it appeared as if the election was going to be a nail biter, with Colbert Busch even enjoying a small lead in some polls. In the end though, garnering the support of a majority of voters in a deeply-red district of a deeply red-state for the neophyte Democrat, was too big a hill to climb.
On Capitol Hill today, the deadly attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya takes center stage. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will get the chance to grill State Department witnesses, including Gregory Hicks, Foreign Service Officer and former Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affairs in Libya. Hicks’s testimony is expected to be used by Republicans to further pin the blame for the attack directly on President Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The commander-in-chief was seething Tuesday after the Pentagon released a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 the previous year. President Obama pulled no punches declaring, “The bottom line is, I have no tolerance for this. If we find out somebody’s engaging in this stuff, they’ve got to be held accountable, prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period.”
Will an F.B.I. proposed overhaul of surveillance laws, making it easier for Internet users to be wiretapped, upset the titans of Silicon Valley? The Obama administration appears likely to back the new plan.
Finally, as the rescue of three kidnapped women in Cleveland continues to captivate the nation, questions are emerging as to why the trio wasn’t found sooner. The three alleged abductors, Ariel Castro, 52, Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50 are expected to be charged later today.
Adam Garnett