Liberal Panic Now That Benghazi Fiasco Finally Getting Real Coverage?

NewsBusters.org ^ | May 12, 2013 | Howard Portnoy

[Kaslin]

here is no escaping the fact that, where Benghazi is concerned, there is blood in the water and the mainstream media has (at long last) picked up the scent. Yesterday, the sharks representing the three major TV networks circled Press Secretary Jay Carney, bombarding him with questions that were uncharacteristically tough.

ABC’s Jonathan Karl, who broke the story that the talking points underwent twelve revisions, had the aspect and attitude of a man scorned and determined to set the record straight as much to clear his own name as to ascertain the truth. When Carney attempted to weasel out of his claim earlier in the week that the White House had merely made minor “stylistic” changes to the talking points, Karl was adamant and unrelenting.

While there are now premature suggestions that impeachment may be in the president’s future, there is no dismissing the fact that this is a major cover-up whose potential for harming administration members present and past (that means you, Hillary!) should not be underestimated. As Mark Steyn reminds us, in January, Clinton “denied ever seeing Ambassador Stevens’s warnings about deteriorating security in Libya on the grounds that ‘1.43 million cables come to my office’ — and she can’t be expected to see all of them, or any,” adding:

Once Ambassador Stevens was in his flag-draped coffin listening to her eulogy for him at Andrews Air Force Base, he was her bestest friend in the world — it was all ‘Chris this’ and ‘Chris that,’ as if they’d known each other since third grade. But up till that point he was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends of Hillary trying in vain to get her ear.

Now we know that at 8 p.m. Eastern time on the last night of Stevens’s life, his deputy in Libya spoke to Secretary Clinton and informed her of the attack in Benghazi and the fact that the ambassador was now missing. An hour later, Gregory Hicks received a call from the then–Libyan prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, informing him that Stevens was dead. Hicks immediately called Washington. It was 9 p.m. Eastern time, or 3 a.m. in Libya. Remember the Clinton presidential team’s most famous campaign ad? About how Hillary would be ready to take that 3 a.m.call? Four years later, the phone rings, and Secretary Clinton’s not there. She doesn’t call Hicks back that evening. Or the following day.

Are murdered ambassadors like those 1.43 million cables she doesn’t read? Just too many of them to keep track of? No. Only six had been killed in the history of the republic — seven, if you include Arnold Raphel, who perished in General Zia’s somewhat mysterious plane crash in Pakistan in 1988. Before that you have to go back to Adolph Dubs, who died during a kidnapping attempt in Kabul in 1979. So we have here a once-in-a-third-of-a-century event. And at 3 a.m. Libyan time on September 12 it’s still unfolding, with its outcome unclear. Hicks is now America’s head man in the country, and the cabinet secretary to whom he reports says, ‘Leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you before the end of the week.’ Just to underline the difference here: Libya’s head of government calls Hicks, but nobody who matters in his own government can be bothered to.

That includes Obama, who was off to a big campaign fundraiser in Las Vegas.

Yet, the view from the liberal blogosphere is still “Nothing to see here.” The expectation that the testimony before the House Oversight Committee by three whistleblowers on Wednesday would “break the dam that would lead to President Obama’s eventual downfall?” Pure fantasy. That was how Hayes Brown of ThinkProgress summarized the hearings. If anything, Brown wrote, “these witness [sic] actually served to debunk several theories that the right-wing has pushed on Benghazi, leaving the hearing a fizzle for the GOP.”

Much of his post was devoted to the testimony provided by Gregory Hicks, a Foreign Service Officer and the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya. Most analysts after the fact found Hicks’s testimony to be among the most riveting and politically toxic to the administration. But not Brown. In his view, Hicks’s account was but a feeble attempt to connect the dots between the White House and the deaths of four Americans in Libya last Sept. 11 collapsed altogether under a withering cross-examination by ranking committee member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).

You’d think with Hicks’s evisceration at the hands of an experienced statesman, there would be no need for a follow-up column. Yet on Friday, Brown delivered a second post-mortem, quoting a former staffer under Hicks who called him “the worst manager I’ve ever seen in the Foreign Service.” Another of Hicks’s former underlings is reported to have said, “Literally every single one of us begged for him to be removed from post.”

The question is why bother devoting column inches to defaming a man who has already been discredited — whose testimony, if anything, vindicates the president and his successor, Hillary Clinton? Could all the president’s acolytes have lapsed into denial, the first of the five stages of grief? Or is this just a case of shooting the messenger? We will learn the answer in the weeks and months to come. The Benghazi cover-up is not going away.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

look to see “Wag the Dog” war this week to cover this up, and cover it up fast. Some drone strikes, dramatic actions, and maybe some revelations about Republicans too. They plans are in the works now, I believe, and we will see what happens next week. Lots more folks are going to die to keep the Progs in Power.

[urbanpovertylawcenter]

Look for the Middle East to boil over more.

[Bon mots]

The Benghazi Timeline

After months of begging for better security, Ambassador
Stevens calls for help...

Our military is ready to rescue the Ambassador and his
staff, but are given the order to "Stand Down" by Obama.

The Blame Games Begin

Team Obama/Hillary race into action within 24 hours
blaming, naming and arresting an innocent filmmaker
while apologizing to violent Muslims.

The coverup, whitewash and media blackout begin when
their lie falls apart.

In stark contrast to her rush to blame and pass the buck,
Hillary fakes illness, flees the country and drags her feet
for months.
Supporters squeal "It was so looonnngg ago".

"But what difference does it make?!?!"

How it should end...

[wayoverontheright]

Perhaps the change we are witnessing in the legacy media has to do with the fact that they’ve begun to realize they cannot continue to defend him and maintain their relevance.

The other factor now in play is that, with so many missteps and misdeeds coming together at the same time, certainly the Democrat Party, and possibly even liberalism itself, could be damaged irreparably. That’s the conundrum the media faces, but worse for the left is that the monied interests behind Obama have an even clearer choice-he is simply no longer a good investment.

If I were a Dem I would want Obama escorted off the stage. An illness would be oh, so convenient, now wouldn’t it?

[monocle]

As far as Hillary is concerned if she can’t protect her charges having had prior warnings, it is clear that she is not fit to be commander-in-chief.

[wontbackdown]

Carney’s press conference supposedly had tough questions. All I saw was incessant nitpicking on points that he was successfully dancing around. The really tough questions would be what was the president’s timeline on the night of the attack, what time did he go to bed, did he give orders not to send help, etc.

[jazzlite]

...”Only six had been killed in the history of the republic”..

This was back when we had people running the country who saw protection of our citizens as their priority. Now we have people who see worth only in their own political future..I suppose any American is expendable for that cause.

[Former Proud Canadian]

"...African communist..."

Surely you meant "moslem, African, communist, homosexual".

[jazzlite]

...”My concern is that the MSM has been told to join in the coverage, then take control, and then squash the issue”...

You could be right about this..On the other hand, some reporters may be getting nervous about what they have wrought through becoming the hidden campaign headquarters for the Obama administration. Some of them may be going rogue..When big truths come out regarding government wrong doing, it is often big insiders in the press who decide not to be on the band wagon anymore.

[Former Proud Canadian]

Nice sentiment, but, ultimately, what crime did they commit?

They were grossly incompetent. The CIA operation in Benghazi went up in flames and their response was to piss their pants and do nothing. Is that a crime? Is lying about it a crime?

I'm certain you will find some procedural "crimes" in this fiasco. Tampering with witnesses and evidence. But nothing that rises to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors". We can hope, but I don't see it.

Using the ATF to flood Mexico with guns is a crime. Using the IRS to intimidate your political opposition is a crime. How about not enforcing laws you don't like (DOMA, immigration laws)? Is that a crime?

The real crime in this case was perpetrated by the American people upon themselves. That would be the election and re-election of a communist, moslem, anti-American, non-American, racist as president. These other events are simply the result.

[ripley]

“I’M not getting my hopes up over any of this.”

That makes two of us.

Slippery, slimy Progressives are very difficult to corral.

IMHO

[petercooper]

bttt

[Jimmy Valentine]

Yes, but in spite of the censoring, information keeps leaking out and every leak makes the whole thing worse.

The main stream media can deny and delay but when the water reaches their knees even they will have to admit that the Titanic is going down.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

ABC’s Jonathan Karl...determined to set the record straight as much to clear his own name

RATagandist! Thy name is mud.

[driftless2]

The facts of the matter: Hillary and Obama screwed up big time. This is one of the most incompetent handlings of any major crisis in our history. Maybe the most incompetent. Most of the scribblers at the major lib media outlets know that. They’re just in a cover Barack’s and Hillary’s keisters mode. They shed their integrity, or whatever integrity they had, a long time ago.

[widdle_wabbit]

Cheryl Atkinson on C-Span now.

[YepYep]

True journalism died in 2008.

Is it trying to revive?

Highly questionable...We will see...

[ripley]

“...it is clear she is not fit to be commander-in-chief.”

Try telling that to her ardent supporters. (and they are many)

IMHO

[RedMDer]

Lying to Congress is a crime for starters.
It is called perjury.
Obstructruction of justice is a crime.

[piasa]

Note to Hayes Brown.

It comes down to this, Brownnoser:

Only the President has the authority to grant CBA.

No CBA was granted.

The President decided for whatever reason that the people at Benghazi were not worth the risk of rescue.

Go ahead, try to spin that. No conspiracy theory there to be debunked- Obama either issued CBA or he didn't.

And he is TOO GUTLESS and TOO SELFISH to tell us why HE and HE ALONE chose to withhold CBA.

You can't debunk that, so instead you want to trot out the straw man arguments about conspiracies- some of which the left invented and fed to Obama critics to begin with, to make them look as silly as the typical leftist. You want to trick people into dismissing the real issue as yet another convoluted conspiracy theory.

Which is why no one on the left side of the aisle or in the "progressive" press wants to talk about CBA.

It's that simple.