Beat-Up Poet? One of the Men Punished Over Benghazi Security Failures Fights Back with...Scathing Verse

Raymond Maxwell is one of the four State Department officials who was disciplined due to security lapses leading to the U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, last year

Raymond Maxwell

But after he was placed on paid administrative leave last Dec. 18, CBS News says that rather than sulk in silence and shame, Maxwell has been publishing poetry about his ordeal--often scathing verse--that can't be making officials in Washington, D.C. applaud (or snap their fingers, whatever the case may be).

CBS News calls attention to his "Trapped in a purgatory of their own deceit."

Here Maxwell writes in part:

"The web of lies they weave / gets tighter and tighter / in its deceit / until it bottoms out - / at a very low frequency - / and implodes...Yet all the while, / the more they talk, / the more they lie, / and the deeper down the hole they go... Just wait.../ just wait and feed them the rope."

CBS News opines:

It's a bold and almost shocking verse from the 20-year foreign-service worker who was the well-respected deputy assistant secretary for Maghreb Affairs in the Near East Bureau and former Chief of Staff to the Ambassador in Baghdad. Fluent in Portuguese, Maxwell is also an ex-Navy "mustanger," which means he leapt from enlisted ranks to commissioned officer.

Maxwell uses lynching imagery in his "Invitation," CBS News notes:

"The Queen's Henchmen / request the pleasure of your company / at a Lynching - / to be held / at 23rd and C Streets NW [State Dept. building] / on Tuesday, December 18, 2012 / just past sunset. / Dress: Formal, Masks and Hoods- / the four being lynched / must never know the identities/ of their executioners, or what/ whose sin required their sacrifice./ A blood sacrifice- / to divert the hounds- / to appease the gods- / to cleanse our filth and /satisfy our guilty consciences...

You can check out more of Maxwell's poetry on his blog.

(H/T: Diplopundit)