Benghazi? Nothing To See Here, the President Insists
by Marilyn Assenheim
Clash Daily Guest Contributor
Congressional hearings have begun into the atrocity that took place in Benghazi, Libya. The State Department, in an unheard-of turnabout, refused to go quietly under that big bus. Not only did they confirm that the incident was part of a coordinated attack but they stoutly insisted that the tale told by the administration, that the “riot” was caused by rage generated by a three month-old video trailer, was not information they had and that this pretext was “not the conclusion we came to”. They are going so far as to express distress about the “unprecedented level of violence” that took place (more on that in a moment).
Despite the best efforts of the president, Mrs. Clinton and a complicit media, the State Department doesn’t seem to want to take this one for the “team”. Yes, unhappily for the administration, try as they might they are meeting some stubborn resistance here. So, if not the State Department, where does this story come from? Why is this appalling cover-up still not being reported as such by a unified press?
There is no question that some media rats appear to be deserting the sinking ship of state as fast as their little legs will carry them. Television pundits, in particular, are expressing “outrage” over the lies they have been broadcasting to the nation for weeks now. And they are acting surprised and indignant.
Ironically, it seems that the radio arm of network broadcast and the mainstream print media haven’t gotten the memo yet; After Rush Limbaugh spent the first hour of his program going into the importance of this story on Wednesday, for example, WABC radio news led off with this life and death account: “Police have been called to a fight that took place between Lindsay Lohan and her mother; there was no information about what the fight was about”.
Mr. Limbaugh suggests that the media are infuriated that they have been lied to. He questioned “how stupid do they have to be” to have bought it in the first place. That may be the wrong question. Clearly, the information was available had the press done its job instead of being enthusiastic stenographers for the administration. Their “indignation” just doesn’t ring true.
So, the real question is not how stupid do they have to be; it’s “how stupid does the media think we are?”
FOX News broke the story of the real cause of the attacks weeks ago. Less than 24 hours after the attacks took place, in fact. Authorities, including the president of Libya, confirmed that there were no demonstrations prior to the attack and no one in Libya had ever heard of the video that was reputed by our president to have caused the violence. On Wednesday, in front of Congress, Susan Lamb of the State Department admitted that multiple requests for protection by Mr. Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were denied prior to the physical attack. The reasons for the denial? Mr. Stevens apparently didn’t make a good enough case for his request. Ms. Lamb also said that the State Department had “sufficient” assets in place. That must be a very hard sell to Mr. Stevens’ family and the families of the other three Americans who lost their lives that night.
The State Department claims that the video, insulting to Islam, was not their story. Yet the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, affirmed that the video was the cause of “copycat” violence in Libya. She was plastered all over the Sunday morning television shows, peddling the president’s take on the event to anyone who would give her the time. Everyone in the mainstream media gave her the time. The president addressed the United Nations to perpetuate what had already been exposed as a lie, blaming the video and its “disgusting” message, claiming that United States policy had nothing to do with it.
So, again, where did the video trailer canard come from? It becomes increasingly difficult to believe that the president had nothing to do with it. The president and a somnolent Mrs. Clinton issued an apology to Muslim nations, the day before September 11 and turned the Arab Spring into the Arabs Sprang. Never mind that the culpable video had been posted on You Tube since June and was never noticed by anyone, anywhere. The president spent seventy thousand taxpayer dollars on an apology commercial, to run in Pakistan, forcing his pretext that the anti-Islamic video was the catalyst for brutality and he was not responsible for it.
Authorities came for the producer of the video, not the video maker, in the middle of the night. He was treated like public enemy number one. He was yanked off to Federal prison for … a parole violation. Concerning finance fraud. Oh, not because he was exercising his first amendment rights, heaven forbid. Yet first amendment rights were described as “unfortunate” by our intrepid Secretary of State. That man is an American citizen. He is still in prison, still in solitary confinement.
The president persists in hawking the absurd video yarn and apologizing. He is still lying. Don’t take my word for it; ask the mother of one of the Benghazi dead, interviewed on CNN last night. Even the media willing to confront the story are now calling it a cover-up. The president has, since the uprisings in the Middle East and even as far as Asia, excused the terrorists because their “rage” is understandable.
Understandable? What a pity our president’s mendacity isn’t.
Image: courtesy of MNHS photograph collection; public domain
