15: Number of times President Barack Obama was mentioned during the hearing

Number of times President Barack Obama was mentioned during the hearing 71: Number of times fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was mentioned

In case you have any lingering doubt about the true agenda of House Republicans in yesterday's Benghazi hearing , check out these numbers*:

If this were still before election day 2012 and Mitt Romney were still the GOP's great hope, those numbers would be reversed—the president would have been the one getting five times as many mentions as Hillary. But this is 2013 and Mitt Romney is history, so they've decided to focus on their next political target—and as you can tell from this tweet by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, they're positively giddy about it:



I can understand why Republicans would want to target Hillary Clinton: Unless they figure out a way to destroy her, she's be a stone-cold lock to win in 2016 (assuming she decides to run). But what I can't understand is why they think Benghazi is such a big winner, especially given how badly the issue played for Mitt Romney in 2012. On the other hand, if they're determined to walk themselves off a political cliff, I'd be happy to give them a hand.

*I tabulated the numbers based on a review of the hearing transcript.