Another Benghazi Fizzle

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Another month, another Benghazi fizzle.

It seems that the Raging Republican Right is trying once again to create an administration-destroying scandal by politicizing the tragic deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, during an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

Problem is, every new “bombshell revelation” they come up with turns out to be a dud.

The most famous one was the “60 Minutes” story by correspondent Lara Logan, in which a supposed eyewitness with a tale of personal derring-do and betrayal on that night was revealed within days to have been a fraud who’d told an entirely different story to his employers.

After that, you’d think the Benghazi Cult would be too embarrassed to even bring it up again. But that would assume that these people have the capacity for embarrassment. Caught spreading a lie, their reflex is to just yell the lie louder and look for a new one to spread.

They thought they’d found another “smoking gun” in the testimony of retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Lovell, who testified before Rep. Darrell Issa’s Kangaroo Court (aka the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee) that we “should have done more” to rescue the embattled ambassador and his staffers.

When questioned about what forces exactly were in place that could have reached the scene in time to save lives, Lovell took the Way of the Weasel: “The discussion is not in the ‘could or could not’ in relation to time, space and capability; the point is we should have tried.”

In other words, we should have tried something, even if we knew it wouldn’t work.

Nevertheless, Fox News immediately touted Lovell’s testimony as “incredibly damning.” At least until later in the day, when Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, specifically asked if Lovell was saying that “we could have, should have done a lot more than we did because we had capabilities we simply didn’t utilize.”

“That is not my testimony,” Lovell replied.

At that point, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, a California Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, had to try to save the “Obama left them to die” narrative by throwing Lovell under the bus and impeaching the Republicans’ own witness.

“General Lovell did not serve in a capacity that gave him reliable insight into operational options available to commanders during the attack, nor did he offer specific courses of action not taken,” McKeon said. 

On the heels of that failure came another supposed bombshell, an email released by the White House from Ben Rhodes (no relation), whose job title is “deputy national security adviser for strategic communication.” In other words, he’s a spin doctor.

His job, like the job of such PR guys in every single administration, is to try to put the most positive face on things for the president he works for. So his email suggested doing just that. He suggested several goals for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s upcoming appearances on Sunday morning talk shows, one of which was “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”

We now know that this assessment of the attacker’s motivations was incorrect, or at least incomplete. But we also know that the “attack as a reaction to the video” theory was based on actual assessments the CIA had sent the White House nine hours before the Rhodes memo. It wasn’t just made up out of whole cloth. It was wrong, but that’s the information they had at the time.

If your idea of a Great Scandal That Will Bring Down the Mighty is the revelation that a mid-level White House PR guy tried to do PR for Sunday morning shows that almost nobody watches anymore, using the information available at the time that came from the CIA — well, then, scandals just ain’t what they used to be.

What’s truly baffling and infuriating about all this that there’s plenty to criticize about what led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. There are legitimate criticisms about our lack of preparation and our failure to have more assets within striking distance to deal with a sudden attack in a volatile region. There’s also the excellent question of whether we should have even been in Libya in the first place (something, you may remember, that I wasn’t in favor of).

But that’s not sexy or dramatic enough for the Benghazi Cult. They’re twisting themselves in knots trying to find some kind of base betrayal on the night of the attacks themselves or some kind of cover-up afterward.

Once again, their Obama Derangement Syndrome blinds them to a legitimate problem, which is why their Benghazi narrative never gains any traction outside the right-wing bubble.

The Big Benghazi Fizzle

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In his classic work “Democracy in America,” French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “the job of the journalist in America is to attack coarsely, without preparation and without art, to set aside principles in order to grab men.”

That was in 1835. Looks like things haven’t changed much, judging by the recent “60 Minutes” debacle, in which the venerable CBS program recently ended up with egg on its face over its sloppy reporting about last year’s deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Correspondent Lara Logan introduced us to “Morgan Jones,” who, we were told, was using an alias to protect his safety. “Jones” told a tale of derring-do and high-level betrayal that night that was suitable for a thriller novel or a blockbuster movie.

He’d rushed to the compound upon learning it was under attack and gone over the wall. He’d knocked out a terrorist with his rifle butt. He’d sneaked into an al-Qaida-controlled hospital where he’d seen the dead and burned body of Ambassador Chris Stevens (cue big dramatic music). “Jones” recounted how the ambassador himself had told him he was worried about security, but that his pleas for help had fallen on deaf ears.

The right wing went insane (I mean, even more than usual) with joy. Finally, they had something they could really use to turn the tragedy into political gain again. After all, it had worked so well for Mitt Romney.

They even had a sad-eyed hero who’d only been doing his job when he was betrayed by those in power. Twitter exploded with the right-wing war cry of “BENGHAZIIIIIII!” Lindsey Graham stomped his dainty little feet and said he was going to hold up every Obama nomination until he got some answers.

Well, he got some, but probably not the ones he wanted, as the story began to unravel. It turns out that “Morgan Jones” was actually Dylan Davies, a security contractor (i.e., a mercenary). He’d given written reports to both his employer, the British company Blue Mountain, and to the FBI. Those reports contradicted what he’d told “60 Minutes.”

For instance, he’d told both his employer and the FBI that roadblocks had prevented him from even getting to the consulate compound. Like the general in the old soldier’s song (the one who got the Croix de Guerre), “the son of a gun was never there.”

“60 Minutes” first said that it stood by its story. Then, when the FBI report was revealed by The New York Times, Logan finally went on-air with an apology.

How could this happen? What would motivate a TV news institution like “60 Minutes” to be so sloppy that it wouldn’t fact-check or do any vetting on this guy and what he’d said to other people before dropping his bombshells on the air? Well, it’s exactly the motivation described by de Tocqueville: “to grab men” (and, since this is the modern world, women).

This was a big story. It was dramatic. It would inspire editorials, tweets, and the usual yelling on the usual on-air yell-fests. Both “Benghazi” and “60 Minutes” would be on everyone’s lips for weeks. They’d probably even be cited in congressional investigations. And “60 Minutes” wouldn’t just be reporting big news, it would BE big news.

It’s the same motivation that once led the same program, in its now-defunct Wednesday edition, to run a story on the premature departure of George W. Bush from the Texas Air National Guard that featured alleged “official memos” that later turned out to be fakes. A lot of liberals fell for that one, because they wanted to.

Just as there are inconvenient truths, there are convenient falsehoods, and the “Jones” story was a very convenient one for CBS and its ratings, as well as for the right-wing rubes for whom no snake oil is too dubious to swallow if they think it might be the magic potion that makes the man they love to hate go away.

However, it’s the job of entertainment to show us what we want to see, and thus make money for the producers. Journalism should show us what we need to see, whether or not it’s popular or profitable. Like so many other news outlets these days, “60 Minutes” set aside principles “in order to grab men” and went for entertainment and ratings over actual reporting of the truth.

In the process, CBS, and the wingnuts who suddenly loved it (if only for one night), got snookered by a glib con man. Both managed to damage their brand even further than it already was.

Wingnuts Punk'd Again

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You know, I've never really been a huge fan of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel. I don't dislike him, mind you; he's just never been someone who excited me all that much.

He does get a lot of respect from me for being one of the first Republicans to buck his party and point out that George Dubbya's Wacky Iraqi Adventure was turning into another Vietnam. But when I found out that President Obama was nominating him for defense secretary, my reaction was, and I quote: "Meh."

What I saw of his confirmation hearings didn't stir up any more excitement. But, as so often happens with politicians in the Washington monkey house, I find myself rising to defend him, not because of his own merits, but because of the people attacking him and, more importantly, the way they go about it.

First, the Israel Lobby tried to paint Hagel as anti-Semitic for pointing out that there actually is such a thing as an Israel Lobby. Then Lindsey Graham announced that he intended to filibuster Mr. Hagel's nomination - the first time this had ever been done to a secretary of defense nominee - in a snit over the fact that, after hours upon hours of hearings, the only result of Republican attempts to create a "Benghazi-Gate" scandal has been to make former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the most popular politician in the country, according to the Quinnipiac University Poll taken afterward.

Of course, Hagel had nothing to do with the Benghazi killings or the State Department, but let's not let that get in the way if Lindsay Graham's got some tantrumin' to do!

But for true crack-brained right-wing attacks, you've got to go to the Internet loony bin known as Breitbart.com.

After the death at an early age of its founder, Andrew Breitbart, some wondered if the muckrakers at Breitbart.com (who became famous for shamelessly doctored and deceptively edited "expose" videos of ACORN and Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod), would fade away. Sadly, it seems that the perpetually apoplectic Mr. Breitbart may have actually been a moderating influence, which should give you an idea of the level of crazy we're dealing with here.

On Feb. 7, a headline at Breitbart.com blared, "SECRET HAGEL DONOR?" The story, written by "editor at large" Ben Shapiro, claimed that the administration was refusing to turn over documents about possible foreign sources of funding for Hagel because one of those was a group called "Friends of Hamas."

Given the mainstream media's penchant for taking any unsourced and sketchy Breitbart.com story and running with it without bothering to check it out (See "Sherrod, Shirley," above), it's probably a miracle that this didn't blow up into another one of those scandals where the accusations turned out to be hollow, but not before they nearly destroyed people's lives and careers.

In fact, reporters began asking people like Mike Huckabee what they thought about the story, while never actually bothering to ask whether the story they were asking for comment on was true. But what does that matter? Friends of Hamas "has a ring to it," in the words of Lou Dobbs.

Well, the name may have a ring to it, but once again, there's no bell. No one - not the State Department, not the Treasury Department, not any reporter who stirred himself or herself long enough to do a simple Google or Lexis search - could find any record of any such group ever existing.

There's a reason for that: It was a joke.

On Feb. 19, New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman wrote in an op-ed that the "Friends of Hamas" reference came from a mildly sarcastic hypothetical question he'd asked an anonymous Republican staffer on Capitol Hill.

"I asked my source," Friedman wrote, "had Hagel given a speech to, say, the 'Junior League of Hezbollah, in France'? What about 'Friends of Hamas'?"

He had no idea that anyone would take the names seriously. They were "so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear he was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed."

No one, that is, except a pack of right-wing pseudo-journalists with axes to grind and not enough journalistic ethics to even pretend to try to find corroboration, so long as the story has a "ring" to it.

Worse, they don't have the sense to recognize sarcasm when they hear it. That's why the right, once again, has egg on its face.

It's been said (either by Joseph Conrad or Doctor Who) that you can judge a man by the quality of his enemies. Given the sorry state of Mr. Hagel's enemies, I hope he does get confirmed.

Benghazi: No Magic Bullet

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You know, there are a lot of legitimate concerns that could be raised about what happened on Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya, when our popular ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were killed by a group that attacked and sacked the U.S. consulate there.

Was it a mistake to have so much of the consulate's security provided by local forces and a nearby group of CIA employees, rather than, say, the U.S. Marines? Should we have had a military response force located close enough to get there more quickly?

Republicans, however, seem to be determined to ignore these very real questions. This may be because "since gaining the majority in 2011, House Republicans have voted to reduce embassy security funding by approximately half a billion dollars below the amounts requested by the Obama administration."

That language comes from a report issued by the very committee investigating the attacks and the U.S. response to them. "You have to prioritize things," shrugged Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz, one of the lawmakers who voted to cut funds for embassy security - and who's now helping to lead the committee.

Well, that's true, and it's become crystal clear what the Republican priorities are: not getting at the truth, but desperately trying to find their "magic bullet," the scandal that will bring down the man they love to hate.

All of their previous attempts - Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the DOJ's settlement of a Bush-era civil action against the New Black Panther Party - none of these have managed to gain any traction. But this! This, they thought, was going to be the one.

Mitt Romney got the ball rolling. Before the bodies were cold, he was releasing critical statements in the mendacious and fact-free style that characterized the entire campaign. He accused Obama of expressing "sympathy" for the attackers and for responding to the attacks by "apologizing for our values." The fact that the president had done no such thing didn't matter to Lord Romney, whose disdain for the President was only exceeded by his disdain for the truth.

In the days leading up to the election, Benghazi became the right-wing obsession. Mention anything, anything at all, and they'd start yelling at the top of their lungs that "Obama lied about Benghazi."

"Obama is leading in the swing states ..."

"HE'S LYING ABOUT BENGHAZI!"

"The heads of the car companies say Romney's lying about moving auto jobs to China ..."

"THAT'S NOT AS BAD AS OBAMA LYING ABOUT BENGHAZI!"

"Would you like another piece of toast?"

"I BET OUR AMBASSADOR IN BENGHAZI WOULD HAVE LIKED TOAST, BUT OBAMA MURDERED HIM, THEN LIED TO COVER IT UP!"

And so on.

But as hearings ramped up and people who actually knew things began to speak, it became more and more obvious that there really was no scandal there. No one, as the conspiracy theorists claimed at first, had told U.S. forces to "stand down" rather than help the beleaguered ambassador. President Obama had immediately referred to the attacks as an act of terror, despite Romney's brazen attempt to lie about it at the second debate.

Then things just got silly. Sen. John McCain skipped a closed-door briefing about Benghazi to hold a press conference demanding more information about Benghazi. He threatened to hold up a hypothetical nomination for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, because, he said, Rice "lied" about the motives behind the attack.

As it turns out, however, the "lies" Ambassador Rice were supposedly telling were actually information given to her by the CIA and vetted by "seven, eight, nine different agencies" before being approved in final form, again by the CIA. At least that's what Rep. Peter King described as the testimony from scandal-plagued former CIA director Gen. David Petraeus.

This led to some rumblings that Petraeus' recent sex scandal arose out of some attempt by the administration to blackmail him. That line of attack went nowhere, probably because it made no sense. Then there was a claim that the White House had changed the ambassador's "talking points" to take out references to al-Qaida and make themselves look better.

This was immediately shot down by the office of the director of national intelligence in an interview with CNN, leaving poor Honorable John nothing left to gripe about but the fact that he had to see his hoped-for scandal shot to pieces on CNN.

As this scandal-that-isn't fades away, to become just another one of the Zombie Lies the right trots out again and again no matter how many times it's debunked, what's next?

Will President Obama be blamed for the death of the Twinkie? Will some small detail of the White House Christmas tree lead to outraged calls for his impeachment?

Stay tuned.