Today in lying

The afternoon's top story at the Formerly Fair 'n' Balanced Network certainly rips the mask off one of the chief miscreants of the 0blamer administration, dunnit? I mean, daring to play the race and gender card when Unmaskinggate is closing in:

Susan Rice, the Obama national security adviser under fire over her alleged involvement in the “unmasking” of Trump associates during the 2016 presidential election, suggested in a fresh interview that race and gender might be playing a role in the scrutiny she’s faced.

Sounds serious! I wonder if it's true.

In an interview with journalist Michael Tomasky for New York Magazine, Rice reportedly questioned the criticism she’s faced dating back to the Benghazi controversy.

Funny, lots of adults do that. What's the problem here?

“Why me? Why not Jay Carney, for example, who was then our press secretary, who stood up more?” she asked.

Tomasky noted in the piece that Carney “isn’t an African-American woman, of course” and apparently asked Rice whether that is the key factor. Rice, in response, left the door open:

“I don’t know… I do not leap to the simple explanation that it’s only about race and gender. I’m trying to keep my theories to myself until I’m ready to come out with them. It’s not because I don’t have any.”

In other words, Susan Rice "links" race and gender to "the 'unmasking' backlash" by ... declining the opportunity to link them to BENGHAZI!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can see why -- other than the marginally literate prose its staff produces -- Fox doesn't want you to read past the headline. It doesn't just lie about the evidence; it lies about what it's lying about.
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Today in BENGHAZI !!!!!!!!!!!

Skulduggery, jiggery-pokery, applesauce; the Fair 'n' Balanced Network is on the case!

New documents released by a federal court show President Obama called then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the night of the 2012 Benghazi attack -- but the contents are being withheld by the State Department.

It had previously been disclosed that Clinton and Obama spoke the night of the terror attacks.

Well, that takes some of the fun out of your exclusive.

But the documents offer additional information about the timing of the call -- after the initial attack on the U.S. consulate, but before the second wave where mortars hit the nearby CIA annex and killed former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty. 

It's going to take a while, but eventually the importance of the timing becomes clear:

... Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement: "It is little wonder that Mrs. Clinton and the entire Obama administration have fought so hard to keep these documents from the American people -- they shine a spotlight on the administration's incompetence and indifference. All evidence now points to Hillary Clinton, with the approval of the White House, as being the source* the Internet video lie." 

In other words, it's time to bring out our favorite Fox lead story from -- could it be Sept. 12, 2012?

Here's the small type, should you be having trouble:

URGENT: Unconfirmed reports of US envoy, three others killed in attack on American embassy in Libya as Muslims angered by online film ridiculing prophet Muhammed launch violent and deadly protests in Libya and Egypt.

It's going to be a long campaign season if we have to bring this up every few weeks, you guys.


* The missing preposition is Fox's, not mine.

Today in BENGHAZI !!1!!!1!1!!11!!!!!

And what blend of garlic and silver is going to drive the she-demon back to her lair today, The Daily Caller?

Left-wing writer Max Blumenthal helped inspire Hillary Clinton’s debunked talking point that an obscure YouTube movie called “Innocence of Muslims” was responsible for the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.

And that's important because ...?

The son of Clinton’s longtime political adviser and informal Libya consultant, Max Blumenthal pushed his conspiratorial theories onto the secretary of state in the hours after Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were killed.

And that's important because ... ?

The Daily Caller reported in December that Hillary Clinton received the “Youtube video” talking points before the rest of the Obama administration. Clinton was the first administration official to suggest that the violence in Benghazi was caused by spontaneous reaction to the anti-Muslim video, rather than by a terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaida.

Clinton first mentioned the video publicly on the morning of Sept. 13, 2012. Obama’s White House speechwriter Ben Rhodes, an NYU-educated fiction writer who was initially blamed for crafting the talking points, didn’t mention the video until Sept. 14, when he sent around a memo preparing Susan Rice and others for Sunday-show appearances to discuss the attack.

And that's important because ... timelines!!?!!?!

Now we know that Hillary became aware of the video on Sept. 12, the day after the attack, through her political adviser Sidney Blumenthal — Max Blumenthal’s father.

Let's stop the tape for a second here. Can we suggest that if Clinton actually "became aware of the video" on Sept. 12, one reason might be that she had tuned in to -- what was the top story on the Fox homepage the morning of Sept. 12, 2012?

Several things bear repeating: 

1) The world is a dangerous and often scary place. It was before the Kenyan usurper was elected, and it will be after the White House is pried from his fell clutch. Get used to it.
2) Lead stories aren't ordained by God and handed down at Sinai, nor do they get to be lead stories by accident. If the "debunked talking point" made sense at Fox, there's probably a reason for it. (Hint: How would Edward Said describe a narrative like "Bloodthirsty savages driven to unreasoning fury by obscure video"?)
3) If the vigilant newshounds of Fox and The Daily Caller really have trouble with the idea that competing explanations aren't always mutually exclusive -- that a plan to cause damage and mayhem can get an opportunistic boost from nonrelated events, or that an event can count as "terrorism" even if it doesn't have a signed and dated Qaida stamp of approval -- maybe they aren't the right people to be explaining terrorism and other forms of political violence.

Just a thought. But BENGHAZI!!!!!! is likely to crop up again over the ensuing months, and it'd be nice if the Fair 'n' Balanced side was reminded every now and then of its own preferred narrative at the time.

Another day on Planet Fox

Hey, kids! What do you suppose was the takeaway point of Friday afternoon's report from the House Intelligence Committee?

Washington Post: An investigation by the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee has concluded that the CIA and U.S. military responded appropriately to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, dismissing allegations that the Obama administration blocked rescue attempts during the assault or sought to mislead the public afterward.

AP: ... Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.

Fair 'n' Balanced Network: A leading Republican wants to expand the House investigation into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack by adding a Senate probe, as a new House Intelligence Committee report Friday concluded that the initial CIA assessment found no demonstrations prior to the assault and a primary purpose of the CIA operation in eastern Libya was to track the movement of weapons to Syria.
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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.
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What was it smoking?

Well, that certainly took long enough. A story that started out as the Thursday evening lede (that's the second image below) and held the top spot again on Friday (below that) didn't finally become the "smoking gun" until Saturday -- but was apparently still strong enough to rate the No. 2 spot Sunday evening. Must have been some gun:

A U.S. security team in Benghazi was held back from immediately responding to the attack on the American diplomatic mission on orders of the top CIA officer there, three of those involved told Fox News’ Bret Baier.

Their account gives a dramatic new turn to what the Obama administration and its allies would like to dismiss as an “old story” – the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

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