How Fox News and the GOP Tarnished Benghazi

How Fox News and the GOP Tarnished Benghazi

by Eric Boehlert | Huffington Post | Posted: 09/16/2014 10:59 am EDT
Excerpts:

"On September 6, Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland spoke at a Cobb County Republican breakfast in Georgia to an audience of 75 people, who each paid $10 to attend his "update on the Benghazi investigation."

Westmoreland is one of seven Republican members picked to serve on the House select committee, which holds its first public hearing tomorrow and could stretch its inquiries into the 2016 election year. The latest Republican-run body follows what has been a parade of costly and repetitive investigations into the Benghazi terror attack that killed four Americans.

But in Cobb County that Saturday morning, Westmoreland insisted the committee's not "a partisan witch hunt." He stressed another point, according to a report in the Marietta Daily Journal:

"I think our enemy stands on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.," Westmoreland said to loud applause.

And so it goes.

Last week, as Fox's Benghazi cover-up conspiracy sputtered across the two-year anniversary line, Roger Ailes' team was furiously promoting not one but two new books, claiming both tomes boasted revelations that deepened the alleged controversy. (They do not.)

Benghazi, of course, has been politicized in the most disturbing way possible, to the point where Fox News and conservatives have turned an American tragedy into something of a macabre Twitter punchline.

It's become sort of a Groundhog Day of exploitation and fakery, with more than 1,000 on-air Fox segments - during evening coverage alone - devoted to the endless pursuit. And now the Republicans' select committee, virtually sponsored by Fox News, is set to add more chapters to the sprawling production, which conveniently doubles as a GOP fundraising tool.

According to press reports, the committee's first hearing will focus on the State Department's Accountability Review Board, which looked into the details surrounding the Benghazi attacks. In other words, Republican investigators have decided to investigate the Benghazi investigators. Again.

And at this point, does anyone even remember in 2012 when the family of slain U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens beseeched opportunists not to politicize his death? ("It would really be abhorrent to make this into a campaign issue.")

Or when the mother of one of the other murdered Americans in Benghazi scolded Mitt Romney when he kept referencing her son on the presidential campaign trail? ("It's wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama.")

Those wishes were almost instantly trampled and are now long forgotten by most; distant echoes drowned out by the churning gears of phony outrage.

The professionally sustained hysteria over the minutia of Benghazi --the YouTube video, Susan Rice's talking points, the allegedly nefarious White House emails, and the imaginary stand-down order - they were all constructed for partisan purposes and none of them were based on fact or common sense.

There's also been surprisingly little chatter in anticipation of the select committee's proceedings. After two years of dry holes, it's difficult to feign interest any more.
But at Fox News, the ratings-grabbing obsession remains strong. It's hard to even wrap your heads around some of these numbers from Fox's coverage in the 20 months following the attack:

* 1,098 total Fox News evening segments that included significant discussion of Benghazi - an average of about 13 segments per week.

* 144 interviews with GOP members of Congress versus only five interviews with Democratic members of Congress and Obama administration officials.

From the Associated Press, July 10:

'The testimony of nine military officers undermines contentions by Republican lawmakers that a "stand-down order" held back military assets that could have saved the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans killed at a diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya.'

The truth is, in the absences of any evidence supporting an alleged cover-up, Benghazi as a partisan pursuit has failed, propagated by the thousand-plus Fox News reports and endless Congressional investigations. Now it's time for the sponsors to admit defeat and go home so that an American tragedy can be remembered with the dignity it deserves. Not as a tarnished, political sideshow."

read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/from-tragedy-to-farce-how_b_5828586.html
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IMO: These are treasonous attacks on a tragedy that happened purely because the Issa Oversight Committee refused multiple times to provide funds for more security for Benghazi previous to the fateful attack. Many workers had made pleadings for funds for additional security to the Issa Oversight Committee and were turned down each time on purely partisan motives.

The only real scandal has always been the criminally negligent actions of the Oversight Committee and Darrell Issa's refusal to give taxpayers funds to provide more protection for the Benghazi workers. That is why the republicans want to portray anyone else as the cause of insufficient safety given to American workers despite the numerous appeals.

This is loathsome republican partisanship at it's worst that resulted in the deaths of 4 American workers and the republican party doesn't have the honesty or simple integrity to 'man up' to their treasonous handling of those requests on such hateful partisan reasons for denying the funds for their safety, which would have helped the workers in the attack that followed.

There should be a government investigation for criminal negligence of the Oversight Committee and Darrell Issa that caused the deaths of the 4 Americans.

 

Oh my lord..Another lie from Agent HuffPo?

 

great line!!!!!

 

They described it pretty well.

In two years, we have not learned a single thing that we didn't know three months after the event.

But there have been repeated claims of "Breaking News" and "bombshell revalations" and "whistlblowers", which have all sputtered into nothing.

The lastest was just last weekend, when the noise machine in the form of Sharyl Atkesen trotted out a disgrutled ex State department employee to repeat what he had already said.

But this was hype to build up the upcoming hearing.

This has been the normal pattern.

 

Here comes the HuffPo playing partisan defense for Team Clinton. Raymond Maxwell who was the "fall guy" and later totally exonerated walked in on Hillary's Chief of Staff and many other Hillary operative scrubbing the documents on Benghazi on a Sunday Afternoon in the basement of the building. It's time for leftists to throw dust in the air to distract from Hillary's dirty actions.

 

The right wing media echo chamber bubble merely give right wingers what they want to hear even though they know its bull (*)(*)(*)(*) it too. Years back, I read that Vampire Cheny would keep several TV's on in hotel suites when he traveled and all tuned into Fox and not much else. IMO, he knew better than anyone how much propaganda and lies they were dishing due to the fact that at the time, he was one of the jerks feeding it to them, but he liked the affrimations of his lies anyway. It probably gave him goosebumps to hear his distortions and lies ad nauseam. That is why Fox and its coverage of ALL of the fabricated conspiracy theories remains popular with their viewers.

 

I'd like to comment on this issue however for the good of the forum I have decided to take a stand against paid spam on our forun. I plead to all forum members to join me in boycotting any paid spam on our forun. Be it from the right or left. Remember thay when you click a link the website sees where that link came from that is how paid spam works.

 

You should be a seeker of the TRUTH, yet you KNOW that Obama and Clinton have LIED and seem to be perfectly ok with it. You are right, it is treasonous and you are so upset because you fear they WILL find out something, because way down, you know something is not right with the story.
1. We know that Stevens asked over and over for more protection as did his predecessor and nothing was done.
2. We know that the Benghazi consulate was a front for the CIA to arm Syrian rebels(knowing the ineptness probably the wrong ones).
3. We know that security was told not to go right away. Those minutes were crucial to saving those men.
4. We know that the video was a lie and it was not called terrorism. We also know it was a couple of months before the presidential election and Obama had bragged and bragged that bin laden was dead and terrorists were on the run.
5. We also know that Rice, Clinton and Obama repeatedly tried to sell the video lie to the American people. WHY?
6. We also know that Clinton carried that lie to an extreme, by actually telling the families that she would make sure the maker of the video(an innocent man) was punished.
7. We also know that when being questioned, she was so rattled that she lost her temper and uttered that infamous line.

Why is it treasonous to want to know the FACTS and not take the word of a lying administration as the gospel truth? Obama was re-elected and I guess he thought that the memory would fade as has what has happened in all his scandals. It't time to own up. If there is nothing to hide, why did they lie? Where was OBama that night? We know that he was in touch once earlier, but never called back to stay on top oft he situation. My opinion is that he had to fly to California the next day for campaign donations and he went to sleep. If that is the case, how heartless can he be? He lies, cheats and probably threatens people to keep his power and the hell with the American people.
Americans have the right to know how he "protects" the people who work for him and how this happened. Don't you think we deserve answers when it's so obvious they're hiding things and expunging information. Innocent people don't roll that way.

 

Bengahzi gets13 hearings, 25,000 pages of documents and 50 briefings and the GOP pandering circus troupe in Congress has turned up zero conspiracies, but on the other hand 13 Benghazis on Bush's watch and not so much as a peep from the right wing. Get real!

 

Fox News this, Fox News that. As if the Huffington Post is the gold standard of fair and unbiased reporting.

 

It's a joke that the HuffPo pays some poster here to put up nearly every political piece they generate and we are spammed with their nonsense. The mods seem fine with letting that happen. Can you imagine if each righty was assigned a Right Wing News Source no matter how biased and spammed these forums? It would be a trainwreck. Thank God we have no righties pulling this crap.

 

Since Agent always posts from Huff and Puff, you make a good point.

 

Benghazi has been so over politicized it's truly sickening. What a joke.

 

What a stupendous amount of liberal tripe.

obama and hillary have been lying and stonewalling since

the get go, why are we just now hearing from

a few who were on the ground and in the know?

It's Because your two Jack Booted thugs wouldn't let them speak.

If they don't have anything to hide, then why are they

being so uncooperative?

It's Easy to understand, it's because they are lying sacks of sheit.

Like the video had a fricking thing to do with any of it.

 

Proof? not hearsay but proof.

 

You're right. The Republicans are using this as another tool to use in a racially motivated attempt to tarnish the legacy of a black president. If Obama was a white man, no one in America would have ever heard of Benghazi.

 

Feel free to disprove every point the article listed.

 

Care to disprove the article while providing proof of your own claim?

 

Here is a dumb question,

If Issa refused to provide funds for additional security, which is the right of Congress, then why in the world did Obama and Hillary keep our people in a place that did not have adequate security?

Shouldn't they have pulled them out or found another way to get the proper amount of security?

This still falls on Hillary and Obama for keeping people in harms way.

 

It is a shame it has been so maliciously politicalized by the republicans. Embassy and Diplomatic post attacks have occurred for decades, and in fact far fewer have occurred and less people killed than under Reagan or Bush jr.

However, saying the republicans caused it by lack of funding is a small part of the picture. Unlimited funding would still have attacks and hindsight is 20/20, not just on the funding, but where forces should be located and how they are able to respond. But the same was true after attacks in Lebanon or Africa in the past. The crying shame is really how this has been turned from honoring those who died for their country, to trying to exploit their deaths for political gain.

 

Like you didn't do that with Iraq.

 

​

 

Precisely why God invented the ignore button.

 

This has been nothing more than a political move for the 2016 election. Its about Hillary and nothing more. All the while the tax payers are footing the bill for this circus

 

I don’t need Fox or the GOP to tell me what went down there. The facts are right in front of us:

• The consulate was attacked twice months before.
• The British consulate and the Red Cross were attacked and they left the country
• Stevens requested for additional security several times and was not only denied each time, but his security was reduced.
• During the 911 attack several requests from the consulate went out for air and ground support. Denied!
• We now have first-hand testimony from 3 CIA operatives, on the ground, only blocks away, that were told to stand down when asking to go in and help.
• In every instance where help was requested it was denied.
• Then the administration decides to make up a story about why the attack happened; the anti-Islam video.

These facts were not concocted by Fox. Major derelictions of duty occurred by the State Dept and the Whitehouse that resulted in the death of 4 Americans. They should’ve been pulled out of the country long before 911. Then, when all requests for additional help were denied, they were left there to die when help could have been sent in. And all the left has on this is to claim Fox and the GOP are on a witch hunt. Well, I believe a witch hunt is in tall order. Someone’s head needs to roll for allowing 4 Americans to senselessly be butchered by terrorists. Fair and honest Americans need to demand people high in our government be held accountable so this doesn’t happen again.