Poll: 67 Percent Support Creation of Benghazi Special Committee

Townhall.com:

The White House derides continued questions about the Benghazi attacks "conspiracy theories" driven by "delusional" partisans. Harry Reid calls the new commission chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy a distraction cooked up to protect the Koch Brothers' interests. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) has compared the coming proceedings to a lynching. NBC journalist Chuck Todd sniffs that "all" relevant questions have already been answered. The American people have a decidedly different perspective, according to a new Fox News poll: 

Fully two-thirds of the public endorses the propriety and necessity of forming this select committee, which all but seven House Democrats opposed. Fewer than 30 percent have embraced the official White House line on the matter -- and by a 16-point margin, Americans say the Obama administration's general goal has been to deceive, rather than elucidate the truth, regarding Benghazi. Now, it's not as if voters view Republicans as crusading champions for truth in this scenario. Asked whether the GOP was pursuing the select committee to get to the bottom of what happened or to score political points, respondents broke for the latter option by more than a 2-to-1 margin. They nevertheless overwhelmingly back the probe. More numbers lay bare the depth of the public's cynicism over this entire episode: A majority (51/39) believes Obama's team "knowingly lied" about the cause of the attack to boost the president's re-election bid, and a similarly-sized majority (50/40) says Hillary Clinton has been deceitful about the raid.

Seventy-two percent of respondents believe the Obama administration bears at least some responsibility for what happened, with another super-majority (68/27) blaming the administration for the fact that nobody has been brought to justice for the assassinations. Democrats have been agonizing over whether to boycott the panel, or to assign members to it. I've warned that a boycott wouldn't just been a dereliction on principle -- it would be a political liability, too. This poll reaffirms that public opinion does not align with the Left's instincts to walk away from Benghazi. Not by a long shot.

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