A trip around conservative media shows many commentators interpreted the hearings the same way mainstream and liberal reporters did: As a victory for a poised and polished Clinton, and a defeat for Republicans on the panel. One place to start is Fox News, where Ed Henry spoke with Greta van Susteren even as the hearings crawled along to their finish, 11 hours after they began.
In terms of the narrative on Benghazi, there was no major new development that rocked her side of the story, that changes this in some way,” he said. “What you have here is another big test for Hillary Clinton, and another big test that she appears to have passed.”
Henry cited a source inside a top GOP presidential campaign who said Clinton “looked presidential and was in command” and called the hearings a “total wipeout” for GOP members. Van Susteren agreed, saying Clinton’s performance was closer to the politician she had watched over the years than the tentative, stumbling Clinton of this campaign so far.
Of course, Henry and van Susteren are parts of Fox’s news crew. Bill O’Reilly, one of the network’s talking heads, focused not on how the hearings had gone but on whether Clinton was trustworthy.
At the Washington Examiner, columnist Byron York was similarly damning about the proceedings, though he blamed Clinton and committee Democrats for throwing things off track: