Today in anniversaries

The Fair 'n' Balanced Network isn't one to let an anniversary go to waste:

It was exactly two years ago that Islamic militants attacked a U.S. compound in Libya, killing four Americans -- including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens -- and touching off a major political controversy that divides Washington to this day.

... But controversy over what really prompted the attack and what the highest level of the U.S. government did or did not do in the face of it continues to swirl on Capitol Hill. The White House initially portrayed the attack, which came just two months before the 2012 presidential election, as a spontaneous event triggered by Muslim outrage over an obscure online video deemed insulting to Islam.

As long as we're digging into the files, let's see how things looked the next day at the Fox homepage:

As heds go, that seems a lot more definite than the White House response described by the Washington Times on the same date:

Top Obama administration officials said they were still struggling late Wednesday to ascertain a clear timeline of how the events unfolded in Cairo and Benghazi.

“We are still here today operating within the confusion of first reports,” said one senior administration official in reference to the Libya attack.

The Times even seems to have found the mystery protesters who have eluded Fox these past two years:

... But in telephone interviews with The Washington Times, several residents in Benghazi said there had been two distinctly different groups involved in the assault on the U.S. diplomatic post.

The residents described a scene that began as a relatively peaceful demonstration against a film produced in the United States that had been deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad.

The situation did not turn violent until a group of heavily armed militants showed up and “hijacked” the protest, the residents said. The original group of protesters was joined by a separate group of men armed with rocket-propelled-grenade launchers.

Calling BENGHAZI!!!!!!! a phony scandal isn't the same as calling it a phony disaster, which it isn't. The current round of investigations, though, isn't aimed at shedding light on the event; it's meant to trot out familiar (and, as above, sometimes fictional) stuff by way of stirring up fear and loathing. If your favorite media outlets shy from pointing out that it's a phony scandal, encourage them to see the light.