Conservatives will never let their pet phony scandal rest. Benghazi will always be close to their lips no matter what the situation is. If you talk about Chris Christie and Bridgegate, the mention of Benghazi is never far behind. Rudy Giuliani said this when talking about Chris Christie to Martha Radditz on ABC:
RADDATZ: But this is traffic, this affects everybody. This seems very different.
GIULIANI: Well, that affects a lot of people. And the reality is, things go wrong in an administration. And frankly, you know, he was in campaign-mode at the time, during campaign-mode you miss a lot of things. You're not paying as much attention. We see that with Benghazi.
Yes, things go wrong, Benghaaaaaazzzzi.
Here's Matt Gertz on the new report:
A bipartisan Senate report released this week concludes that the intelligence community was behind the Obama administration's suggestion that the 2012 Benghazi attacks grew out of a protest against an anti-Islam video. The revelation is yet another devastating blow to Fox News' efforts to scandalize the administration's focus on the video. But instead of reporting on that conclusion, Fox News instead spent last night reporting that they "were told" that President Obama and his closest advisers held a meeting the night of the attack and issued "marching orders" for the "video explanation."
For more than a year, Fox News has been fixated on a set of administration talking points that linked the September 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, to the video. Those talking points were used by then-U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice in a series of highly-criticized September 15, 2012, interviews on the broadcast Sunday shows.
Fox has suggested that the talking points were part of an elaborate plot to conceal the reality of the attacks as part of a scheme to protect President Obama's re-election effort. The network has continued to push this conspiracy long after the revelation that the initial draft of the talking points -- which was generated by the CIA -- promoted the video connection, and emails indicated that then-CIA director Gen. David Petraeus was disappointed that the final draft didn't do enough to link the two.
Fox is trying to start another phony conspiracy on Benghazi by saying there was a secret meeting at the White House.
Chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reported that the network has "had information" and "were told" that during a meeting at the White House between President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the "marching orders were laid out for the video explanation."
Fox's coverage is pathetic and borders on the insane and my head hurts from it, but what's sanity got to do with it when you're dealing with Roger Ailes?
The new report actually criticizes the State depart and the late Mr. Stevens for not taking extra protection when it was offered him.
During an Aug. 15, 2012, meeting on the deteriorating security around Benghazi that Mr. Stevens attended, a diplomat stationed there described the situation as “trending negatively,” according to a cable sent the next day and quoted in the report. A diplomatic security officer “expressed concerns with the ability to defend post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound.”
It's all so sad. Big mistakes were made by the administration, but to try and make this into a Nixonian-style Watergate conspiracy has been ludicrous.
Bill O'Reilly's new tact was to attack the mainstream media for refusing to cover the new Senate report. Yes, that's his new scandal.
