Benghazi fever on the right

It is being said over and over again that the Obama Administration deliberately obfuscated what happened in the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.  Day by day a trickle of old e-mails, partial early reports and developing assessments are hailed as "proof' that something shameful happened and is happening in the US Government, something hidden.

The truth is that early reports and judgments of traumatic, sudden events like this are usually incorrect and need to be developed and "straightened out" with the passage of time and completed investigations.

Complicating the situation in Benghazi was the location there of a CIA base covered as other than that.  These people were working on the very problems that eventually resulted in the attack and the deaths.  Not surprisingly, the CIA has not been desirous of the revelation of the presence and status of its employees and so the declarations to the press have not been accurate in that regard.

None of this matters to the "Friends of Trump" 1% crowd who will build any kind of sandcastle that they can that might influence a few more cretins in the battleground states to act out their racism in the polling booth.

The media is cooperating in this psywar campaign.  Does this mean that they have decided Romney will win?  pl

 

Comments

[Lars]

Anyone considering what is posted on Facebook to be valid deserves what they get. The flogging of this is truly an act of desperation and a clear indication that Mr. Obama is making them so.

The "media" is in transition and the dinos are facing extinction. The good news is that eventually it will leave a lot of room for good reporting. It is the delivering of it that is currently a serious problem.

The reality of this political contest is that it is much easier for Mr. Obama to reach 270 electorial votes and much harder for Mr. Romney to do so.

[ked]

"Does this mean that they have decided Romney will win?"

Media hacks play for a % of the take, regardless of the outcome. So they manipulate rubedom in the laziest way possible, raising ratings ($$$!) & enhance self-image.

[mj]

They'll do their best, who do you think owns "the media"?

[Medicine Man]

All good questions. One theory: A good portion of the media are just credulous enough to be sucked in by the Romney campaign bluster. Johnathan Chait advances raises this idea in an article on nymag: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/romney-says-hes-winning-its-a-bluff.html

I'm personally not sure. The mainstream media is full of shallow people who are influenced by shallow ideas. They are also weakened further by their need for storytelling. Hard to tell if they are in the tank really.

[E L]

The media wants drama. A new administration would create drama and endless speculative narratives. Obama is the old "plane lands safely." Nothing personal. Just business.

[steve g]

The "Lamestream Media" answer first and
foremost to their corporate masters.
Have we evolved into one big game of
musical chairs? We all dance to the music
until it stops. How many of us are left
sitting as one by one the chairs are
removed. Whoever controls the song
determines our collective fate.

[JohnH]

The problem is that the President, whether Bush or Obama, has lied to the people so often and so regularly about foreign policy and operations that the default position is that "they must be lying again." First, it was Saddam's WMDs. Now it's Ahmadinejad's nukes.

So when Susan Rice goes to the UN to tell a tidy tale about a demonstration gone bad, then it turns out it was a violent flash mob from the outset, we have to say, "that's par for the course--more foreign policy BS from the government."

And it looks really, really bad, when it gets revealed that the state department was following the action live.

[Mark Logan]

Saw Anderson Cooper spend equal time between this and the "God willing" rape pregnancy's tonight. "In the tank" or lobotomized eunuchs? I can't tell.

[optimax]

The media beast is by nature drawn to blood, even if it's just fake Hollywood blood sprinkled on the ground by the Romney campaign--or, in this case, the camp pain of a grade B slasher movie.

The Republicans are better at manipulating the press and the people with fear and lies than their counterparts. And if that doesn't work, they own the voting machines, with proprietary software that cannot be properly investigated for irregularities.

[agin' cajun]

For the past decade or so I use two words to describe the majority of U.S. media, controlled and scripted. Whether Right or Left leaning, it matters not. Just my two cents.

[GregB]

It has really been amazing watching this story blossom.

First, before the bodies were cold, Mitt Romney's campaign took to Twitter to declare that President Obama was "apologizing" for the freedom of press because some Embassy staffers in Egypt were trying to head disastrous protests off at the pass.

Then Romney gave his presser the next morning to again dance on the corpses. It should be noted that Drudge was also literally waving the dead body of Ambassador Stevens on his front page for a long time. Romney never referred to the attack as terrorism when he gave that press conference.

Then the meme came about that President Obama waited 14 days to refer to the attack as terrorism. Romney was made the fool when it turned out that, indeed the next day President Obama referred to the attack as an act of terrorism.

Once that angle of attack was exhausted they turned to cover-up, cover-up, cover-up.

I am still witnessing friends declaring that President Obama wasn't talking about Benghazi when he mentioned acts of terror only moments before he talked of the tragic loss of the Ambassador and 3 others.

Never mind the fact that the Romney camp was the first out of the gate tying the Muhammed video to the attacks and to perceived appeasement by President Obama.

It is such bottom dwelling cynicism and the media always seems to be right there pushing along and beating the drums.

[Al Spafford]

Per an Elvis Costello song:

Jump up , hold on tight.
Can't trust a promise or a guarantee.
Candidate talking on the radio
from the cheaters jamboree.
It's a two horse race
and he charges two bits
like they were a pack of cigarettes.
The man around the curve
said he never heard of you and me.

[haldlock]

As long as we're quoting song lyrics, how about a little Paul Simon:

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Ev'ry way you look at it, you lose

[twv]

Obama just scares me.
His voters TERRIFY me.

[Rd.]

The media is cooperating in this psywar campaign.  Does this mean that they have decided Romney will win?  pl

The campaign is a marketing campaign for the election itself. Not much difference between the O and the R. They both represent the Kleptocrats . The gas prices are falling like a rock! We'll more than likely be under $3/G just prior to the election. Funny the diesel is still above $4/G, which is a byproduct and cheaper than gas.

The cheap gas prices are to sell the consumer mind sets, the economy is good, stay the course. However, they have to sell the elections to the populace. You can see how the corp media on daily basis and in recent times are promoting the idea of a dead even race!!!! like it was a horse race!! Every one, lets get excited, you are free while the bankers loot ...

[LeaNder]

"The media is cooperating in this psywar campaign. Does this mean that they have decided Romney will win? pl"

We had a US election analyst on our public channel in the daily stock market news slot. It was after the last debate. This expert told us curious Germans that the whole US business world with the exception of IT backs with or sides with Romney.

I discovered a new type of PR specialist over here searching for the exact term for the public opinion specialists in the field of politics, especially elections. I know there is a term, since I once knew it. Maybe it's not widely used, maybe not even desirable people realize it exists, thus it drives me nuts that in spite of the Internet age I seem to be unable to find the term.

What I found instead is a new type called, at least over here, Gating Agency (Gatingagentur). One of the latest newcomers on the German party scene the Pirates, I read in the most important IT magazine, IT by the way is important in Pirate circles too, have just hired this type of PR specialist.

What does Gating agency mean? Telepolis says it means: We are young and we need a gate.

What exactly is a gating agency doing? Well, they work with the attention deficit the Internet supposedly creates. They develop scandals.

Obviously it is completely the other way round over here, than what you have in mind, and I have registered that.

Now if our expert is correct, the vast majority of US economy supports Romney, all the way from agriculture to the military complex, the only ones Obama has on his side seems information technology.

Not sure what to think about this piece of the larger Israel and elections connection my "Internet friend" Phil Weiss struggles with, but maybe you have a clearer view what some of the arguments could mean:

http://tinyurl.com/c8dludk

[E L]

Right on schedule, here's the lede on October 25 from Politico drooling all over what a Romney administration would look like: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82854.html?hp=t1_3

[mbrenner]

I see this as just another sign of the media's addiction to anything that titilates. In part that's a commercial calculation; in part that's the immature way the individuals involved live their lives.

Colonel

Could you give us a professional assessment of the mission and aims of that substantial operational Base. Did we just barge in or should we assume that we had tacit approval from some authority in the Libyan "govenment?" How realistic is it to track 20,000 anti-aircraft missiles in a place where we have little if any network, no established local security service to rely on, and the likely dispersion of the weapons? Were we planning to track down the weapons and groups one by one in an alien environment?
Was there cover or just hiding? It didn't seem very hard for them to identify the base? Who vets these kinds of things - does State or the White House have anything to say?

[William R. Cumming]

The MSM is largely now a mouthpiece for the corporate socialists hoping desperately that Romney will win and reduce the forces of "good versus evil" specifically those who are paid to regulate the abusers of the populace by defying the various statutes and regulations of the administrative state largely founded by James Landis and others during the New Deal.

As FDR would say if alive "the economic royalists are winning!"

[turcopolier]

mbrenner

"Could you give us a professional assessment of the mission and aims of that substantial operational Base." With the caveat that I don't actually know anything about this base, I would guess that whatever there is of a government was consulted by CIA for the purpose of soliciting their cooperation at the very least. A bi-lateral operation would likely result using assistance from the "government" to find and buy/seize as many loose weapons as could be managed. Such efforts are much more art than science and extremely dangerus since too many people know who and where you are. pl

[Medicine Man]

You're probably right. They are well compensated for their stenography after all.

[mj]

Good.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

Anent the Romney foreign policy apparat:

"Dan Senor is not the Romney campaign’s highest-ranking senior national security advisor–Alex Wong holds that distinction–but he has become its most prominent. Senor is a regular presence on cable news and was the subject of a New York Times profile that focused on his elevated stature on Team Romney. He was Romney’s most visible aide during his summer trip to Britain, Israel, and Poland—the campaign’s most important foreign-policy showcase before last night. In August, he was staffed to Paul Ryan, in part to coach the congressman on international affairs. This month, he helped prep Romney for last night.

And if Romney wins, it’s likely Senor will get a job in the foreign policy apparatus commensurate to his powerful campaign rank: Politico reported in August that he may be national security adviser. That would be an extraordinary ascent, considering Senor’s experience lies almost exclusively as a political operator rather than a policy practitioner. Or perhaps it’s not so extraordinary, since so much of the Romney campaign’s foreign policy is nothing but messaging.
..."
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/108980/why-dan-senor-considered-serious-foreign-policy-thinker#

More of W? Obama as W light and Romney as W Jr?

[Joseph Moroco]

Of course, if we had never gotten involved in the Libyan uprising, there would be no need to discuss this.

[Al Spafford]

Romney just scares me
His voters TERRIFY me

JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE!