This clip is one of several strewn across Fox News' coverage of the newly-released Benghazi report Wednesday. The Fox Message of the Day is that Hillary Clinton is faking her concussion in order to duck having to testify before Congress about the Benghazi attacks.
Not that I'm surprised they dished this up. I could have predicted they would, because God forbid someone might actually be suffering from a real illness. It's not as if this was actually news. Her doctors said she couldn't travel two weeks ago because she had the flu. This, while Susan Rice was still being pilloried by Gramps McCain and his merry band of bashers.
On a personal level, this is really insulting. My mother, who is just a little older than Hillary, suffered a horrible concussion 16 months ago as the result of a fainting spell which still is unexplained. It is a serious and common condition, particularly in women over the age of sixty. In Hillary's case, her doctors said dehydration was the culprit. Whatever the cause, it is no laughing matter when one's head hits the floor with full force and no buffers. The concussion my mother suffered was far worse than whatever caused her to faint in the first place.
But for Fox, there are no excuses, there is no health condition serious enough for them to take a pass on pummeling her reputation. Sadly, she's already taking a hard hit over the report on Benghazi, which excoriated the Department of State for not taking proper security precautions and ignoring pleas for additional security at the Benghazi mission.
Four State Department officials have resigned after the report's release. Via CNN:
Eric Boswell, assistant secretary of diplomatic security, resigned, effective immediately, Nuland said.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Charlene Lamb is among the officials placed on administrative leave, a source told CNN.
Earlier Wednesday, a senior official had told CNN that Lamb and another State Department official had resigned as well.
Boswell and Lamb oversaw security for the Benghazi mission. Lamb testified before Congress about the security precautions. Documents show Lamb denied repeated requests for additional security in Libya.
Veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering, who was chairman of the review board, said the members placed primary blame "at the assistant secretary level, which is in our view the appropriate place to look, where the decision making, in fact, takes place. Where, if you like, the rubber hits the road."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was recovering from a stomach virus and concussion, ordered the review in the aftermath of the attack. Such reports are mandated by Congress when Americans working on behalf of the U.S. government are killed overseas.
I realize Fox viewers are not paragons of critical thinking, but let's just try and walk through this. Secretary Clinton ordered the review. The review was done. She accepted full responsibility for the conclusions with no equivocation. With those things in place, why on earth would she duck testifying before Congress? Answer: She wouldn't.
Fox News has a need to scapegoat someone in order to ignore their own dishonesty and misinformation campaign. Even the Washington Post gets this:
The board offered a needed corrective to some of the false charges and conspiracy-weaving about Benghazi by Republicans and conservative media. Contrary to claims by Fox News, the investigation found no evidence that a security force at a nearby CIA mission was slow in responding to the attack; it also discounted suggestions that U.S. military assets could have been brought to bear during the attack. In Washington, it concluded, “the interagency response was timely and appropriate.”
The report uncovered problems. Those problems are being addressed. Hillary Clinton has a concussion. That doesn't render her unconscious; it just means she needs to be careful about what physical activity she undertakes for the next few weeks. It means she should take time to recover properly, and it will take time. Sixteen months later, my mother still suffers the side effects of her concussion. It won't fix itself overnight.
Fox talkers just look as stupid as they are when they make a head injury into a conspiracy. For once, they should mute themselves before the rest of us do.
