As millions of Americans suffer from budget cuts, sequestration and unemployment, Fox's most important issue is promoting the House GOP Benghazi witch hunt hearing. Never mind that the matter has already been investigated. But for Heaven's sake, this isn't the Iraq war, where we invaded a country on false pretenses. Nor is it 9/11 where a sitting president somehow missed a warning of an imminent Al Qaeda attack. No, this is a firefight overseas that might be useful in derailing Hillary Clinton's future presidential candidacy and in Barack Obama's current one. Let's hope the Dems are coming with their A game to shoot this crap down once and for all. Video c/o CBS News.
Here we go. Share your thoughts and observations in our comments section.
2/15 18 update: Video no longer available.
Teach me, master!
But my favorite part was when Ellen called you ‘troll-slaver’.
An admirable endeavor! May you enslave them all! (better than most of them deserve, however)
Truthfully, you’re fun to watch!!
Ken, would you care to please respond to the questions I asked you?
That was actually her first death of credibility. She’s on a site that provided CBS’ footage, and she made that Fox News are the only people who aren’t ignoring this into a talking point?
Talk about an inability to process.
She must have gotten her info from Newsbusters, who admitted that CNN and MSNBC showed the hearings on tape, after airing the follow-ups to the Cleveland abductions:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2013/05/08/fox-news-carries-benghazi-hearing-wall-wall-cnn-joins-noon-and-msnbc
Of course, it didn’t stop them from posting this nice little lie six hours later:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2013/05/08/fox-viewers-get-see-108-minutes-live-benghazi-hearings-msnbc-nothing
Gee, what a shock- Newsbusters has enough restraint to wait six hours before lying. It’s almost as if they’re run by a Fox News contributor.
Other than that, it takes a hell of a lot of nerve for her to claim she sports a bi-partisan interest in fact, when even her her more seemingly neutral points seem to be the basic “echo/but” strategy.
I’m sorry, I’ve been all over every news source and noted media blog all day on this. I’m not in a good mood, and she’d be on my last nerve with this act if I was. Grow up, Louise- Just grow the hell up.
Kevin Koster, I just want to quickly step in here to say that I’ve really enjoyed reading your commentary on this thread. You have been very informative and civil. Thank you!
Ditto from me!
It’s called archiving, it’s part of my job and my blogging side gigs. the purpose is to have future reference for when I’m asked to back up my claims by people who wait until something’s ancient history to dredge it back up, hoping that me forgetting a minor detail somehow validates whatever attack they’ll use if I cross a wire. look into it. Oh, wait- That entails doing something other than flipping your cyber lip and pretending you’re some kind of a victim when your claims get called.
In case you (or obviously Ken, for that matter) didn’t notice is that Kevin, myself, and a couple others weren’t “going after you”- It’s called debate. You two both made a bunch of bullshit claims, ranging from that this is all about “truth,” whatever that means to you, to that only the left politicized it… allegedly by conducting an investigation before calling for hissy fits right before an election, to that there’s no bigotry in the coverage, to that you’re not defending the bigotry.
I’ve had enough to call bullshit on you. You want to talk about “non and ill-informed” readers? You two can’t even keep the story you came in here with straight. Not only that… but not once did you even try to engage our counterpoints.
Louise came in here just to spew contradicting talking points, and contradict herself further playing victim when someone responded.
Ken didn’t even have that much grace- he went straight for the insults.
Seriously, you two? Even some of Fox News’ guest hosts, contributors, regular guests and interviewees told them that all they’re doing with this dwelling on the fictional GOP version of Benghazi is making the Republicans look like a pack of frightened fanatics. Some of the same people broke out their best “Don’t learn, do ya?” faces when they politicized the Boston Bombing to bring it back… Doesn’t help that Fox News jumped the gun more than every other network combined, and dusted off the ol’ armchair for Boston in general.
Outside of Fox, the GOP had to assemble the most hyper-partisan squad possible for this hearing, and even they were wondering what the hell they’re doing. Why did they have to go so far askew? Because every other committee handed their balls to them on a plate. Did you see when Clinton testified? She destroyed them, she had them actually ashamed of themselves.
There is no conspiracy here- There were riots over an offensive video, the assassins used that. Contrary to what Fox has told you, there have been arrests of conspirators, the US just hasn’t caught up to the actual men. It’s a non-issue until the men are caught, and I think I speak for everyone when I say let it go…
If it helps, pretend you’re reliving Bush’s ignored 9/11 memos. Or his lies about Iraq. Or his publicly blowing off Bin Laden. Or his illegal restaffing of the White House. Or and of his embassy bombings where the republicans “politicized” it by not calling for hearings, or upping security. Oh, and don’t forget that the GOP had been defunding Ambassador security since 2006- Including that the building Stevens was in was stripped of funding both right before and right after he died.
Because that’s just so patriotic… I bet we didn’t hear a squeak from either of you over that.
You seem to think I’m writing talking points. I’m not. I’m discussing facts that your opinions may be contradicting. And again, I’m not paid to do that. I do it out of an interest in keeping the record straight. Sorry that you may find me long winded. I’ve just never been good at the ten word soundbite.
You seem to be implying that the hearings revealed some major new information in them today. If that’s the case, would you care to actually say what it was? Because no outlet, including Fox News, has been able to do so.
I want to be specific here because you’re asserting that I’m not reading your statements. That’s simply not true. I’ve been very carefully reading your statements and I’m trying to directly answer the points you’ve been making. As a side note, I believe you are trying to underline some of your statements and they are displaying as strikeout instead.
When you discuss the Benghazi matter as one that the majority of Americans want to learn “the truth” about, and when you echo Fox News talking points about the situation, this indicates to me that you agree with Fox News about this story and that you are trying to convince people here of the correctness of Fox News’ position. I’m not disputing that you have the right to do so – I just don’t agree with that position and I’ve tried to directly answer your assertions, point for point.
I agree with you that we live in an extremely polarized political climate. I agree with you that most hearings in Washington get very little done these days, as a direct result of that polarization. I also agree with you that shots have been fired from both the Democrats and the Republicans. But after having watched the political back and forth very carefully over the past 30+ years, it’s very difficult for me to say that this has been an even conflict. Let me be specific on my own perspective here. I’m not a Democrat, nor am I a Democrat advocate. I’m a left wing person by nature and more of an independent voter. I did not vote Democrat in any election from 1998 until 2012, at which point I voted for one Democrat on the ballot. Over the past 30 years, I have watched an escalating level of anger and meanness on the part of the right wing of this country. Some serious things happened during the Reagan presidency, including outright criminal behavior. And I watched the Democrats fumble the investigation of that behavior. During the 1988 campaign, I watched the word “liberal” suddenly become an epithet to be used against Michael Dukakis. During the 90s, I watched Bill Clinton govern mostly from the right while the GOP mounted an increasingly nasty series of personal attacks on him. He didn’t help the situation with his own problems, including his infidelities. And those issues left him open for the bizarre spectacle of his impeachment, even while the country was actually doing better economically than at any other time in my life. During the George W. Bush presidency, I watched the Democracts repeatedly fold and cave as Bush’s people would launch more and more idealogical and partisan attacks, including some of the criminal behavior I have discussed here. And during the current presidency, I have watched as the GOP mounted a coordinated strategy to block anything and everything they could that this President and the Dems attempted to do.
You could correctly argue that there have been partisan antagonists on both sides of this equation, but history has repeatedly shown us that the GOP and their pundits have regularly been angrier, nastier and willing to go much farther in the quest to destroy a political opponent. Fox News was formed by Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch to be a very specific political tool for the GOP and the right wing. By having this network and AM radio regularly air GOP talking points, and by using the airwaves to repeat distortions about multiple subjects, the right wing has been able to create a counter narrative of our current history, complete with alternative polling, alternative analysis and even alternative facts. As I pointed out in an earlier post, it is extremely important to challenge this kind of thing, or we risk losing our history. And if people are being taught a clouded or sometimes blatantly false version of history, then they’ll fail to learn from it. I brought up the Rush Limbaugh story for a reason. It shows you someone blatantly lying about an important moment in history, presenting it in a light that is as close to fantasy as I could imagine. To allow a lie like that to stand is to close one’s eyes to history, and as a person of conscience, I cannot allow that to happen.
Let’s again take your statements here carefully. I’m going to skip what you’re addressing to Aria, as I don’t believe our discussion has been one of anger or of personal attacks. I’m glad to know you get your information from many news sources and that you see yourself as independent. I asked you a question earlier as to whether you consider yourself Libertarian. I meant that question seriously – the people I know who are Libertarian tend to be quite conservative, more so than a typical Republican. They also tend to self identify as independent, as they don’t wish to be labelled as such – in very much the same way that I self identify as independent for being several steps to the left of the Democrat party. So I ask again, are you coming at this from a Libertarian perspective? If so, it would explain why your perspective has tended to line up closely with that of Fox News.
The statement that only Fox News covered the hearing today is not true. Other networks included material from it and discussed it – they just didn’t focus their day on it. I believe this is due to the fact that the hearing wasn’t particularly newsworthy. Darrell Issa conducting yet another partisan attack on the Obama Administration has become an unfortunately commonplace event over the last few years. You say that important new information came out of the hearing. I’d love to know what it was. I’ve been looking over the materials and all I see are three disgruntled officials, two of whom are repeating axe grinding claims they’ve already made. In Gregory Hicks’ case, he has previously made these claims. All the hearing has done is give him a platform from which to get a bigger audience for what’s already been stated.
When I ask what new information is here, I mean, specifically, is there anything that you learned today from this hearing that says that President Obama or Secretary Clinton deliberately and knowingly committed some kind of criminal act, whether that be one of deliberate intent or negligence? And as an example, I cite the Bush Administration’s deliberate outing of a CIA agent to punish her husband for publicly defying them. That was a criminal act, and it had real consequences for people in the real world. Do you see a criminal act like that in the current situation? Because I certainly haven’t. And I note that the people acting as attorneys for the three “whistleblowers” today are GOP operatives who distinguished themselves in prior years by trying to dismiss the criminal behavior of the Bush Administration in that CIA matter.
You say that Fox News’ coverage is not the issue here, and yet that’s the whole point of this website – to discuss Fox News’ coverage. The point is that Fox News is choosing to cover this story because they’re hoping to find something they can use politically in this matter. There’s plenty of news to cover, but they’re choosing to go with this story all the way – and it’s an openly political choice. They have every right to do so, but it’s this kind of thing that challenges their assertion of being “fair and balanced”, particularly when they repeatedly cut away from the questioning and testimony that doesn’t feature the politicians they’re trying to promote, like Darrell Issa, Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy. This was coverage in search of a soundbite, and I guarantee you the Fox News primetime shows will feature every bit of it that they can, showing the GOP questioners in the most moral, serious and self-important manner possible.
I should also note while you’re discussing the Fox News viewership that there’s a good reason that Fox News enjoys a higher rating level than the other networks. It’s because there are plenty of people who watch it who may not agree with what Fox News says, but who are trying to do what you’ve noted – they’re trying to hear what the right wing is saying. Granted, a good chunk of Fox News’ viewership is a committed right wing base, and they’ll always tune in. But there’s also a good chunk of the viewers who are left wingers who are trying to learn what the right wing perspectives are. I started doing this after getting into numerous conversations with right wing friends where they were citing bizarre situations I’d never heard about (Ramos and Compean, Churchill’s bust, Obama’s school records) and it helped to find out where these talking points were coming from. So if anything, Fox News owes some of its ratings points to people who disagree with it. But at the same time, you don’t see the right wingers tuning in to a liberal network like MSNBC or to left wing radio like the Pacifica Network. I ask you, have you ever listened to Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now radio show? Not whether you agree with it – just whether you’ve ever spent an hour listening to it. I’ll be happily surprised if you say that you have. That’s not a dig – I just honestly don’t expect that you would have.
Regarding your last statements, I differ with you on the notion that the Democrats politicized this hearing by not calling for it. It is extremely difficult for House Dems to call for much of anything in the current environment, and the last time they did try to convene a hearing of a political nature, it was the birth control discussion that resulted in Rush Limbaugh personally attacking one of the witnesses for expressing her opinions in public. I also repeat my position that I haven’t heard anything newsworthy here. I’m listening if you can show me some new, valid information that isn’t one official’s opinion about how the policy should have been handled, and isn’t something that’s a matter of one man’s opinion about what the military capabilities and priorities were at that moment. I asked you whether you had military expertise before for a specific reason – if you understand these issues better than the people who have been in charge of them, then you’d have grounds to criticize them on that basis. I’m not talking about the moral questions of whether to go to war, etc, but rather the tactical considerations of how to move people around in a region where you have riots breaking out all over the place.
I too have heard the families of dead soldiers and civilians in these situations continually ask for more information about how they died. In most cases, the questions are never fully answered, at least not to a level that would ever adequately tell someone why their husband, son or father is never coming home. That was my point to you before. Of course you’ve heard the families say this – but you should be aware they’ve already heard how their family member died, and they’ve already heard what the response was. What they’re asking now is why did they die and could it have been prevented. And this is something that was answered in the ARB report in the most pedestrian black and white. It was answered when both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama publicly took responsibility last fall. What we’re hearing now is the minute details of how some people in the information chain are disputing the way things were handled. And again, that’s not news.
You say that the GOP couldn’t impeach President Obama “even if they really wanted to.” I need to directly challenge that. Fox News has repeatedly called for President Obama’s impeachment, on grounds ranging from the current matter to the campaign of Joe Sestak. The GOP would very much like to impeach this President – the political rancor is really that bad these days. You should remember that this is a group of people who disregarded the polling last fall and convinced themselves that Mitt Romney was going to win in a landslide, only to get one heck of a rude surprise on Election Night. Of course that group would be happy to see a President they personally despise impeached. They’ve done it once before with Bill Clinton, and they’d be happy to do it again. And Fox News would be delighted to have that as prime time material for themselves.
I appreciate that you’re trying not to assume anything. But when you take the Fox News views without question, as you have done when you’ve echoed their talking points here, that is in itself an act of assumption. And it is for that reason that I’ve challenged your statements here.
c.f. “Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a God, you say YES!!!”
BTW, Kevin: Are you a God?
I have whole CDs burned full of nothing but this talk, and it’s rearing it’s ugly head in their undisguised zeal for an Obama impreachment. Watters is the Chief Editor of Fox Nation, and one of the top brass of the foxnews.com site, and he not only allows this… he contributes when he gets personally involved. He’s a racist.
Oh, and here’s the link to my article about how much he loves permitting the N-Word when he can get away with allowing it. Some people who were counting said they broke 6,000 comments using it, I donno. I had to stop at 150. These are just the ones that made the article’s cut out of that:
http://www.newshounds.us/n_word_galore_on_foxnews_com_comments_05072012
But nice move thinking all everything in there was about you, when I clearly said “Go spend some time on Fox Nation’s threads about this,” in response to some of your comments about how all the Fox viewers want is the truth. So, are you just that offended that I told you to look something up, that offended that you did and I was right, or should I be asking you to say hello to Jesse for me?
If you want to debate this more, there’s an article for how Fox News and Nation are covering it now. See ya there. Unless you feel like feeding us some more tunnel vision about the subject at hand.
I’m not sure how the Dems are trying to politicize this matter. They didn’t call for this hearing. Darrell Issa, who has dedicated his career to partisan attacks like this, is the one who initiated the latest feint. Like his tantrums about Fast & Furious, this one will fade in the public consciousness in short order. It is unfortunate that Issa’s only claim to political history will be these periodic witch hunts. One would think that he might have had a more noble aspiration. On the other hand, he did make a mess out of California politics when he masterminded the downfall of Gray Davis only to watch Schwarzenegger steal his thunder. (Issa had wanted to make himself the Governor and instead wound up publicly humiliated.)
I’m glad you’ve finally taken the time to read the ARB. Which shows that your question about where an investigation was documented was unfortunately ill-informed.
As for “Innocence of Muslims”, you can’t possibly be trying to play the Fox News meme that the video had little or nothing to do with the rioting that happened all across the Middle East. That’s in direct contradiction to the facts. The video was the instigator of the riots. It doesn’t matter that it hit the internet earlier – it matters when it was noticed in a big way and acted upon. This was a mass reaction, very similar to the one we saw to the “Mohammed” cartoons earlier. Only this time, there was a really nasty intent going on, and we saw the results – 75 people killed and hundreds wounded.
I agree Fox is calling these officials “whistleblowers” to stir the pot. They are also doing so to create a false comparison to the real whistleblowers who risked everything during the Bush presidency. And the whistleblowers during that time actually faced real harm that went beyond suppression. In one case, we still don’t know how many people were potentially killed or harmed as a result of the Bush Admin’s backlash against whistleblowers. You seem to assume that there is a cover-up here. We have seen no evidence of that. What we see is a situation where the State Department was caught unprepared during a mass riot, and then a partisan attempt to blame people for the casualties. You also seem to assume that the families were not given accurate information. I don’t know that this is the case. My point is that for any family where their son or father or husband died, there usually is no adequate explanation. The facts themselves are quickly told, as they were in this case. The families, however, will always and understandably ask the question “Why?” And I don’t know that this question can ever get an adequate answer for a child who has lost their parent or vice versa.
I agree that there is plenty of divisiveness going on in Washington. But we need to remember where it’s coming from and put it in perspective. The current divisiveness comes from angry GOP politicians and pundits who have resented Obama from the moment he began running for high office. They predicted he would lose in 2008 and they were wrong. They then pledged to oppose him at every possible turn. They instinctively thought they could use this tactic to beat him in 2012, and again, they were wrong. At this point, their obstructiveness has passed to an epic level. There are piles of judicial vacancies that GOP senators refuse to name potential appointees for, simply because they don’t want Obama appointing more judges. Nearly any and every current event becomes another reason for GOP pundits to attack the President. Contrast this with the Dems under Bush. They debated his positions, but they still approved his cabinet and they still approved his Supreme Court nominations and they still approved his wars. The GOP has voted almost completely in lockstep against anything the Dems have been doing since 2009, as part of a coordinated strategy. That’s not just divisive – it’s destructive. And pointing out that fact is not cheerleading – it is noting the behavior in the hope that the GOP will learn its lesson and stop engaging in it.
Now, you’ve repeatedly stated that you don’t think the Bush Administration’s record in these areas is relevant, but you’re ignoring the point I was making. The issue isn’t just that the Bush Administration had a record of multiple attacks being waged against US Embassies and Consulates. The issue is that Fox News didn’t think it was an issue for Congressional Inquiry then. In fact, if anyone asked questions about the way the Bush people were conducting foreign policy, Bush spokespeople and Fox News pundits would call them unpatriotic at best and treasonous at worst. Remember Bill O’Reilly telling people to “shut up” about public dissent during the Iraq war? Remember Ari Fleischer telling Americans they needed to watch what they do, watch what they say? It’s interesting that this rule no longer applies now that Obama is the President.
As far as the political witch hunts conducted by Darrell Issa, he’s been fairly open about his intentions. He said right away as soon as the GOP got the majority in the House that he was going to be convening hearings about anything he could going on in the Obama Administration. Issa spent two years personally attacking Eric Holder in the hope that he could drive him from office, only to be humiliated again when Holder batted those attempts away. I do agree with you that nothing substantial is likely to come from hearings like this, and not just because nobody is held accountable. It’s because the purpose of the hearing isn’t to accomplish anything – the purpose is to provide Darrell Issa and several angry GOP congressmen some face time on the news as they make portentous statements about their opinions of the Obama Administration.
Finally, if you seriously believe that the people holding this hearing and the officials who have agreed to participate in it, are not trying to politicize this situation, then we’re looking at two completely different realities. The WHOLE POINT of the hearing is to politicize this situation. The intent is clearly to provide Fox News and AM Radio with more soundbites and talking points with which to attack President Obama and to try to cut Hillary Clinton off before she can run for the Oval Office again in 2016. This is why you have various right wing pundits once again trying to talk about impeachment. This is why Fox Nation is ablaze over the hearing. And this is why it is necessary to have people correct the record. Otherwise people would think the entire Clinton presidency was about Monica Lewinsky, just as right wing pundits would have you believe.
I’ll give one great example of the historical rewrite – just yesterday, Rush Limbaugh had a caller on who brought him back to his earlier days in radio, specifically in the late 1988. Limbaugh described an Iraqi airplane being shot down in the Persian Gulf and how the Iraqis had put a bunch of dead bodies in the water to make it look like the US had murdered the passengers! Now, this was a right wing talking point that was totally discredited years ago, and here’s Limbaugh repeating it as though it was true. It’s completely false – Iranian Airbus 655 was indeed shot down by the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf in 1988 and all 290 people onboard were killed, including 16 children. It is extremely important that we remember the actual facts in these cases, lest pundits tell us a totally different version of reality and history.
One other thing – I agree that President Obama’s legacy will indeed speak for itself. Just as George W. Bush’s legacy does now, as does Bill Clinton’s and the presidents before them. But it’s crucial that we don’t let the pundits rewrite the history as I just noted above, and it’s crucial that we remember the actual facts so that we will know what that legacy really is.
Ken, your response assumes that there was never an ARB report nor any hearings or discussions on this matter, and that’s simply not true. Please actually research and study this matter carefully, as I have, and you may learn a few more things about it than you’re hearing in the right wing talking points.
I don’t know to what you refer about the Obama Administration being “layered and isolated”. Your response to Hillary Clinton’s testimony would seem to indicate you didn’t see any more of it than the quick soundbites Fox News aired. And even in those soundbites, it was clear she was responding to a GOP Senator who was trying to bait her. I don’t know anyone outside of the Fox News/AM Radio fanbase that agrees with your assessment about how the nation perceives the Benghazi attack. Most people feel this matter has been dealt with, and they’d like to move on to more pressing things, like the economy.
As far as your account of Gregory Hicks’ discussion with Jason Chaffetz, you’re leaving out some information. You assume some nefarious intent about having counsel present when in fact this is normal procedure when one branch of the government talks to another. There are areas that Mr. Chaffetz would not be privy to hearing. Further, it is important to have an impartial legal observer, in the event that Mr. Chaffetz and Mr. Hicks have different recollections. But you knew that, didn’t you?
As for your account of the Obama Administration’s behavior being “disgusting”, you may want to rethink that position. They’ve been more than patient with numerous GOP witchhunts and partisan attacks since they got started in 2009. They’ve repeatedly complied with Darrell Issa’s petulant requests (and subsequent tantrums), only to face angry statements like the one you just made.
What we’re seeing here is a discussion of policy differences. It’s not a question of criminality. It’s a matter of one official wanting to pursue matters in one direction, while another official has another idea about it. I would further ask if you had the same issues with the George W. Bush Administration, when there was real criminality going on at multiple levels.
Dammit, now I need to take a nostalgia trip down that road this weekend!
Back on subject, replying to Louise:
Fox News went out of their way to talk about how the White House threatened them… Then I saw who they were, and I was literally rolling on the floor laughing. Half these people are just sore losers from 2008, who can’t let it go. They’ve been public about that since day one.
Not only that, but I swear I’ve seen a few of them on Fox News before, and in full capacity. If the White House and the CIA had a problem with them talking, they’d have had what was getting done to them done a long time ago.
BTW, I mentioned this on another thread, but go spend some time on Fox Nation’s threads about this- their readers couldn’t care less about “Truth and Justice,” they’re so busy wringing their hands over impeachment (and prison time for Clinton) that only two of them so far have remembered to even put those words into their comments.
If you dig down, some of them aren’t even hiding their racism towards the beginning. I seriously hope Watters is smart enough to his his admins remove those ones, but this is the same Jesse Watters that allowed the N-Word to be used over 6,000 times in one day.
But I think we’re in agreement on the basic principles. My point re Fox News discussing the “Innocence of Muslims” video was just that they were very sly about it. They made sure never to endorse the video itself and they usually had the onscreen pundit say it was an offensive video. But then they’d take the position that it was a matter of free speech and why were we persecuting the guy who made it, etc.? And the reality is it wasn’t free speech. It was hate speech – hate speech specifically designed to cause the kind of reaction we then saw – riots, violence and death.
Fox News initially covered the riots as a way of attacking President Obama for being “too soft” in his foreign policy. This was one of their various feints at him in this area, particularly after they were left without a leg to stand on with the killing of bin Laden. When more details about the Benghazi attack came out, Fox switched up its focus and began dismissing the video and the riots. By doing so, they could make the Benghazi attack appear to be an isolated incident that anyone could have predicted and prevented, rather than part of one of a series of brush fires breaking out over the entire region. This is presumably Fox News’ method of responding to the criticism of Bush’s disregarding of the intelligence reports that predicted the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Except that Bush was not dealing with an entire region in the midst of a riot – he had plenty of time to dismiss the reports in hand, and his failure in that area had a dire consequence. The right wing has never been able to accept his responsibility in that area, but they continue to make desperate swings along the same lines at the Dems, whether or not the comparison makes any sense.
Christians and Hebrews- Bleh It’s been a loooong week. I just want to head up to the mountains and sleep for a month. It’s been that long.
Nobody is disputing that Gregory Hicks was the next guy down the food chain under Ambassador Stevens. Yes, he knew a lot about what was going on at the Consulate. Yes, he was on the phone with Stevens during the attack. And yes, I’m sure he was as frustrated as everyone else that help didn’t come sooner. None of that is in dispute, nor was it when Hicks discussed this months ago. What is in dispute is whether Hicks or any of these other guys could really be called “whistleblowers” when all they’re doing is publicly airing their policy disputes with the Obama Administration. And even Fox News has acknowledged on Greta’s program that Hicks has an axe to grind here.
As for hearing the truth, why did you not read the ARB report I referenced below? It was a pretty solid account of what happened and where the breakdowns happened. If that’s a cover-up, then we need to rethink the definition.
By the same line of thinking, calling these three guys “whistleblowers” is more than an exaggeration, particularly when they’re being fronted by someone as lacking in credibility as Victoria Toensing. Because when Toensing was dealing with real whistleblowers during the George W. Bush presidency, she regularly attacked and belittled them.
You say that Fox News is the only one covering these hearings, but you forget that Fox News is cutting away from the Dems on the committee whenever they possibly can. So it would be more accurate to say that Fox News is covering the GOP side of the hearings. If you’re wondering why the other networks aren’t covering a matter that was investigated last year, it’s probably because they understand all too well that this is not a pursuit of “the truth” but instead a partisan witchhunt. And Darrell Issa has already tried to grab enough headlines with this act over the last two years. For most newscasters, Issa’s 15 minutes are long over.
Yeah, it caused riots in Europe, Austrailia, and I think there were a couple riots over it in the Americas, as well. And all of them for the same reason- Because Christians and Muslims in their own countries were using it as hate propaganda. The widespread middle eastern rioting was caused when the movie was allowed to be shown on TV.
Oh, wait- Fox News didn’t cover that part. My bad, you didn’t know.
This is just a witch hunt- They clearly just dredged up people with credentials that don’t like Obama. It doesn’t help their case that Fox News and Conservative talk radio cut away any and every time evidence or testimony against the agenda hits the floor.
Let’s see. We don’t know that the military personnel scenario you describe is what happened. That version of the situation was disputed by the ARB, by Leon Panetta and by General Dempsey. If you’re challenging how the military response was handled, I need to ask if you have more expertise in this matter than Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering.
Further, your scenario ignores that the entire Middle East region was rioting as a result of the offensive “Innocence of Muslims” video. Resources were being called on everywhere, including in Cairo, where our Embassy had been overrun as seen on the various news networks that day.
What happened during Bush’s Administration is very much relevant to this discussion, simply because we’re talking about Fox News suddenly discovering an “outrage” with the current Administration where they ignored identical events with the prior one. The point is that if this was a significant issue, it would be so whenever it happens, not just when Fox News wants to smear a Democrat presidency.
You say you are of neither party. Does that mean you are truly independent or are you simply “libertarian”, meaning that you’ll tend to vote right wing? You say that you don’t take sides, but then you take sides within your own statement.
It’s odd that you don’t know that an Accountability Review Board (ARB) report was released regarding Benghazi. It is easily found on the internet at www.state.gov, and I found it in 2 seconds with a google search of “Benghazi ARB”. You may find that it helps your credibility if you actually take the time to study your subjects before making incorrect proclamations that reports like this don’t exist.
As for the family members, the whole country grieves with them. And almost no answer is going to be enough to be substantial when someone’s son or father or husband has been killed. Just ask Cindy Sheehan, who desperately tried to get answers from George W. Bush when he was at one of his many vacations at his Crawford ranch. She didn’t get anywhere either, and neither did many family members of soldiers killed during Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I agree that it’s sad that the country has become so polarized. Perhaps a good step toward overcoming this problem would be for the GOP to stop the obstruction and arm-folding and actually try to participate in government. Maybe it would be a good idea for the GOP to actually try to help get things done, such as naming judges for appointment rather than trying to delay until 2017. Maybe the GOP should actually try to work with the President and the Dems as the Dems did with Bush rather than following the “Just say NO” approach. If they can act like adults and take that step, maybe we really can improve this situation.
Attacks on U.S. Diplomatic Facilities from 2002 – 2008:
Calcutta, India (5 deaths)
Karachi, Pakistan (12 deaths)
Denpasar, Indonesia
Islamabad, Pakistan (2 deaths)
Tashkent, Uzbekistan (2 deaths)
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (9 deaths)
Karachi, Pakistan (2 deaths)
Damascus, Syria (4 deaths)
Athens, Greece
Sana’a, Yemen (2 deaths)
Istanbul, Turkey (6 deaths)
Sana’a, Yemen (16 deaths)
Attacks after 2008:
Peshawar, Pakistan (8 deaths)
Benghazi, Libya (along with Cairo and Sana’a – all unrest on same day) (4 deaths)
Ankara, Turkey