Here we go again with another week of Republicans cranking up the Benghazi fake scandal outrage machine, aided and abetted of course, with some help from their friends over at Faux "news."
Fox Helping GOP Hype (And Lie About) Its Benghazi Report:
The Republicans on the House Oversight Committee just released their latest report on last year's attacks in Benghazi. One of its conclusions was that "it is likely, based on email evidence, that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's views played a role in the decision-making" regarding the Benghazi mission. This very carefully hedged and largely toothless allegation is part of the Republican PR strategy to create buzz around the report -- if you want to get reporters talking, you take a swipe at Hillary Clinton. And predictably, Fox News is giving the GOP a hand by lying about the report and overstating what it actually says.
House Oversight Committee member Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) went on Fox News' America's Newsroom this morning to discuss the report and hype up the Benghazi hearings his committee will hold later this week. Host Bill Hemmer was intrigued by the partisan report's findings, and described them for his viewers: "It also points to Hillary Clinton's views, and how they played a major role in the decision-making in Benghazi."
As they noted and have written about previously, that's not what the report says, but they're sure as hell not going to let that stop them from continuing with their Hillary scandal-mongering.
And as Sarah Jones at PoliticusUSA reminded us, this is how they're spending their time with the prospect of a government shutdown looming: Four Congressional Working Days Before a Shutdown, Time for Another 3 Benghazi Hearings!:
Unless the House cancels their week off (they just got back from recess, they’re exhausted), they have just four Congressional working days left before a government shutdown. So what do they do?
Benghazi-gasm!
Yes, buckle up patriots. Perhaps your House won’t even sit down for budget reconciliation and they had to delay their continuing resolution vote because, well, they didn’t have the votes. Mind you, the CR is sort of the morning-after pill of budget planning – it’s the oops stopgap, and they can’t even do that. Not good.
But one thing Republicans can really get behind is
investigating our security clearance failures due to sequestration another Obama Hillary witch hunt obsessing over the horrible tragedy in Benghazi. [...]Nowhere in there is an explanation for why Darrell Issa won’t let the co-chairs of the Benghazi report testify in front of the TV cameras. There is also no investigation into the Republican-leaked and deliberately changed emails that implicated the White House and State Department. Oh, gosh, no, they’re just looking for the “truth” you see.
