SO, HOW CLOSE TO HILLARY'S PUBLICATION DATE WILL THE BENGHAZI SELECT COMMITTEE'S FIRST MEETING BE?

So John Boehner is going to convene a select committee on Benghazi: This seems logical:

Renewed Benghazi push best evidence thus far that Obamacare is dying as a GOP issue for 2014

— Markos Moulitsas (@markos) May 2, 2014

Then again, why does this help the GOP in 2014? Sure, it seems designed to rile up the base -- but base voters (as opposed to the rest of us) are already in (to use Charlie Pierce's phrase) "a permanent state of rile" with regard to Benghazi (Obamacare too, for that matter). They couldn't be more motivated to vote than they are now. Where's the potential gain? And how do you tar Democrats in the House and Senate with the alleged misdeeds of the executive branch?

So I see the 2014 connection, but I wonder if this has more to do with 2016. After all, this anouncement comes five and a half weeks before the publication date for Hillary Clinton's new book, which is June 10. Think Boehner's crew might manage to convene the week of June 9? Or do something high-profile that week to try to steal Hillary's thunder, and to put her book tour under a big Benghazi cloud? I don't know how fast these things tend to happen, but we'll sure be talking about Benghazi all that week, and in the weeks to come, if Republicans have anything to do with it.

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And on that note, I'm out out here for the weekend. There'll be guest bloggers here, though, so stop by. See you Monday.