On the same day that Mitt Romney lit into President Obama over foreign policy (despite a noticeable lack of credentials of his own), former Romney advisor Richard Grenell just happened to appear in a Hannity show discussion about the missing Malaysian airplane. There, Grenell focused on finding creative ways to use the situation to smear President Obama.
When asked for his thoughts on the situation, Grenell’s only thoughts seemed to be about Obama:
10 days into this, Sean, it’s really troubling to see the Malaysians completely messing this up. And the White House – earlier today, we had Jay Carney very comfortable with saying the Malaysians are in charge. Now, I don’t understand a White House that’s not curious about what’s going on. Because we don’t know the answers. But let’s just assume for the sake of an argument that it could be terrorist related. And if it is, do you know who the target of that terrorism is gonna be? It’s gonna be the United States of America. So our president has to get curious…
You know an Obama attack is off the wall when Hannity interrupts a guest mid-attack to challenge it. He interrupted to ask why Grenell thought the U.S. was the target when there was only one American on board the plane and most passengers were Chinese, going to Beijing.
Grenell did not answer the question, just reiterated his attack:
Look, Sean, we have the best technology in the world. The Malaysians don’t. We’ve waited for way too long for the Malaysian technology to catch up and give us information. We know how to lead these investigations. We should have been there in the beginning. We don’t wait for the Malaysians to invite us in. If it happens to be a possible terrorist attack – if it wasn’t a terrorist attack, then I think it would be a different story. But because, precisely, we would be the target and we have the technology, we need to get to the bottom of this and we need to not wait for the Malaysians to invite us in.
Hannity moved on to the other guest, former CIA and FBI official, Philip Mudd. Mudd said, “We don’t know what happened here and we’re coming up with stories to explain it.”
Grenell agreed, despite having just come up with his own terrorism story. But he quickly went back to attacking Obama. “(W)e don’t have a country that’s leading this. We do have the United States, in the White House, that’s willing to let the Malaysians lead and they’re messing it up. We don’t have a leader."
In a later segment (the second video below), former White House spokeswoman Dana Perino inadvertently shot down Grenell's attack. Even though Hannity opened her discussion with, “Should the U.S. be leading more? Every day that passes I get more concerned that we’re not getting anything.” That’s code, of course, for “Time to blame Obama!”
But to her credit, Perino didn’t. She said:
Yes, I think that the United States has a huge role to play. But they also, and in some ways, they might actually be doing more than they’re letting on because they have to let the Malaysians take the lead and it’s important for them to save face.
…One of the things you have to balance …as the president is the public’s right to know versus the integrity of the investigation. So it could be that the United States knows more and that they’re chasing down intelligence threads. And we will eventually find out everything.
I’ll bet dollars to donuts, as my mother used to say, that the U.S. is doing plenty behind the scenes. But if and when it does come out, don’t expect much, if any, credit from Fox News. Even if the U.S. actually finds the plane, solves the mystery, Fox will find fault over something. And that's what will get all the attention on the "fair and balanced" network.