Now that House Speaker John Boehner has moved forward with the formation of a Select Committee on Benghazi under Representative Trey Gowdy, John McCain and Lindsay Graham are lobbying for the committee to be a joint House-Senate probe. Graham was up first, asking Harry Reid, mother-may-I. From the Washington Examiner Harry Reid: No Benghazi select committee in the Senate

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will not form a select committee in the upper chamber to examine the fatal terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, despite a House move to create such a panel.

Reid made the announcement after a top GOP senator told the Washington Examiner he plans to formally ask Reid to create a select committee to look into the matter.

“I’m going to ask our Democratic colleagues, and I’m working on a letter now to have a select committee in the Senate,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told the Examiner. “Let’s look at it anew, look at every agency with one set of eyes. A new set of eyes.”

Graham said like the House select panel, a Senate select committee should be headed by the majority party.

When this idea didn’t take hold, John McCain floated a new idea:

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) called for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) to allow the Senate to take part in the Benghazi Select Committee Wednesday on Fox News.

McCain said allowing Senate participation will lend credibility to the committee and is appropriate because members such as himself, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) have been involved in the issue from the beginning. The Arizona senator cited his September, 11 2012 Face the Nation interview after Susan Rice appeared in which he cast doubt on her assertion Benghazi was a spontaneous attack.

McCain also added he was friends with Ambassador Chris Stevens and has participated in extensive meetings with individuals such as Mike Morell and David Patreus about Benghazi.

This is a profoundly bad idea from every possible perspective other than furthering the cover-up.

• The House Select Committee will have a partisan make-up of 7 Americans and 5 Democrats. This ensures some real investigative effort will be devoted to uncovering the truth. Adding a similar number of senators and saddling Mr. Gowdy with a Democrat co-chair would guarantee a whitewash.

• John McCain would be the worst possible addition to any committee. Not only is he well past his “use by” date, he is hopelessly compromised when it comes to dealing with Democrats in actual confrontations, and he simply does not play well with others. We could rely on McCain to sandbag Gowdy in order to raise his own profile.

• Adding more people to the committee, much less Senate-sized egos, would guarantee the entire effort would degenerate into a morass of inertia.

The Senate had its chance to act. The befuddled and corrupt Harry Reid decided that dead Americans were a small price to pay for protecting his party. Now that Mr. Boehner has formed a committee he should ensure that Mr. Gowdy gets the chance to conduct a fair and transparent inquiry.