On Thursday, Hillary Clinton will testify before the House Benghazi Committee is what is likely to be a contentious and highly partisan session. But instead of dreading what might be a day of reckoning for their presidential frontrunner, Democrats are actually looking forward to it. Throughout the last year, Clinton has hurt herself by failing to tell the truth about her email server and the way she used it during her time as secretary of state. Moreover, she still has much to answer for about the Benghazi terror attack and the lies the administration told about it in the aftermath of the tragedy. But the impending confrontation has, at least to this point, turned out to be more of a help to Clinton than a problem. The question we should be answering about the committee now is not whether they are targeting Clinton.

Though Chairman Trey Gowdy and his colleagues are scrambling now to portray their efforts as an objective analysis of the disaster that occurred on September 11, 2012, the notion that they should not be focused on Clinton’s behavior is absurd. The timing of the presidential race makes this partisan, but so is everything else that happens in Congress. If we believe, as most Americans do, that there are still some questions to be answered about Benghazi, putting the woman who was in charge of the diplomatic mission in Libya that went tragically wrong in the cross hairs of Congressional investigators is as legitimate as the Watergate Committee’s dogged pursuit of Richard Nixon 42 years ago. Rather than apologizing for the focus on Clinton, Gowdy’s team needs to ignore the brickbats and be sure that their questions hold her to account for what happened.

Through a combination of foolish comments by Republicans, partisan undermining by Democrats on the Committee, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from the Clinton camp and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media, Gowdy, and his staff appear to be more on the defensive than the object of their investigation.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s boast about the committee’s probe of Clinton proved that the GOP caucus was successfully fighting the Democrats was a public relations disaster for Gowdy. So, too, were the claims of a former committee staffer that the committee was not interested in anything but material that would hurt the former secretary of state. The efforts of Representative Elijah Cummings, the committee’s ranking Democrat, to damn all of its efforts as a partisan witch-hunt, have further undermined its credibility. Under the circumstances, it’s little wonder that Gowdy, a tough former prosecutor who acquitted himself well during hearings about the IRS scandal, told Politico “these have been the worst weeks of my life.” Indeed, it may be that Gowdy’s reputation may have been hurt more by the debate about the committee than Clinton’s was by Benghazi.

The committee has been branded by both Democrats and some Republicans as a fishing expedition with the sole aim of tarnishing Clinton. That sets her up to pose as a victim on Thursday and, unless they are very careful, Gowdy and his colleagues will wind up the losers in an exchange that may actually bolster the former secretary of state’s public standing, at least with the Democratic base that she needs to secure the presidential nomination.

But there is something slightly ridiculous about the complaint that Gowdy is focusing too much on Clinton. If not her, then who deserves to be called to account for a series of decisions that led to Americans being exposed to terrorist murderers without adequate protections? If not Clinton, then who should be questioned about the way the administration lied about the attack?

Democrats mock Gowdy’s effort as an unnecessary eighth Congressional probe into Benghazi. Moreover, they say the committee’s only accomplishment after so much time has been expended and millions spent is uncovering Clinton’s private home server and her use of a personal email to do state department business. But the fact that it was only Gowdy’s committee that uncovered this startling fact shows just how necessary it was to create the special committee.

The discovery of Clinton’s server and the fact that she deleted tens of thousands of emails even as Congress was demanding that she hand over all such records has broadened the probe. But the new avenues of investigation about the behavior and the communications of Clinton crony Sidney Blumenthal are important. None of us knew that the former White House political hit man was involved in Libya and simultaneously acting as an advisor to Clinton on the subject while also being a paid consultant to her family foundation. This is not the stuff of conspiracy theories, but a critical element of the Benghazi story since it tells us that Clinton was more interested in Blumenthal’s advice about how the unfolding fiasco in Libya should be spun than she was in providing Ambassador Chris Stevens with the security he had been asking for. Had Democrats found as much about the Bush administration, they would have dined out on it for years and considered the funds spent on the probe well spent.

Perhaps the debate about the committee boils down to whether you think Clinton’s role in presiding over a debacle that cost the lives of four Americans is worth any more of the nation’s time. From the point of view of Democrats, the answer is clearly no. But since we have yet to get clear answers from her about her decisions about security and exposing Stevens, then the arguments against an investigation seem insubstantial. Moreover, now that we also know, thanks to the committee’s efforts, that Clinton’s conduct in office was geared toward protecting her from rules that ensure transparency further questions about the emails are in order.

Clinton may well defeat Gowdy and the Republicans with a bravura performance on Thursday. But the idea that they should not have focused on her is as much a partisan talking point as anything offered by the GOP. Cummings and the Democrats have been just as eager to cover Clinton’s tracks as Gowdy may be to uncover them. The drama that has been unfolding is political in nature, but the force driving it has not been so much a GOP effort to hurt Clinton as a Democratic effort to prevent her from being called to account. If Gowdy’s committee does its job well, the issue may ultimately turn out to be more one of whether President Obama will stop the Justice Department and the FBI from prosecuting Clinton and her aides for illegal behavior than any partisanship by the House majority. If so, Democrats may ultimately come to see their full court press to defend Clinton and demonize Gowdy as the real political error.