Poor Trey Gowdy (not really). After 11 hours of grilling Hillary Clinton about Benghazi, he was forced to admit he learned exactly nothing.

The sad part of that statement is that it summarizes just how bad this interminable hearing was for Republicans. Like the Planned Parenthood fiasco, they tried and tried to dig for something that wasn't there and came up with dried cat poop instead.

Some of the reactions from conservatives tell the story:

Washington Examiner columnist Byron York, disappointed the hearing had been "billed as an epic, High Noon-style confrontation," concluded the day was "a bust."

"In other words, no big deal. And that is very, very good news for Hillary Clinton," York wrote.

Right-wing radio host Erick Erickson wrote that the hearing "was all a political spectacle" and "a waste of time."

"God bless Trey Gowdy for trying to learn the facts and understand what happened. But the rest of it was just a carnival road show of back bench congresscritters playing to the cameras and Hillary Clinton working hard to play persecuted victim," Erickson wrote.

Or this:

As insult to injury, a new poll shows that 72 percent of Americans believe this is a political effort and hasn't got anything to do with the truth.