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Someone needs to tell Fox regular Charles Krauthammer that the picture he's demanding to see of President Obama on the night of the attack in Benghazi, Libya has been available on the White House Flickr page since at least January:

Via Media Matters: Krauthammer Still Hasn't Seen This Photo Of Obama From Night Of Benghazi Attack:

Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer continued to hype the right-wing myth that President Obama was missing on the night of the September 11, 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

During a May 14 panel discussion on the Benghazi investigation during Fox News' Special Report, Krauthammer requested photographic evidence of President Obama's whereabouts on the night of the Benghazi attack:

KRAUTHAMMER: And where was the president on that night? We've all seen the video and the pictures--well the picture of the situation room--of Obama on the night of the Osama raid. And everybody looks at that, oh yeah he was really involved in that. Show me a picture of where he was on the night of the attack in Libya.

The claim that Obama was absent the night of the Benghazi attack has been repeatedly debunked, both by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey.

Some of Krauthammer's other tales he was telling in the segment have been debunked here and here as well.



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Oh look! It's John McCain on a Sunday show pushing for the United States to start dropping more bombs on people's heads. What a rare treat it is that our corporate media allows McCain on for more warmongering. That never happens, does it?

Here he is with guest host Martha Raddatz on This Week, where he actually got a little bit of push back about the dangers of the United States escalating our involvement in Syria, but McCain just brushed it off.

So we might get the Russians involved if we go in there... or be arming terrorists. So what? What could possibly go wrong?

I guess you've got to give McCain credit for one thing. He is at least consistent in never being able to find a military conflict somewhere that he doesn't want to help escalate. Consistently wrong... but consistent. No amount of bad behavior ever goes unrewarded by our media if you're a Republican. I was shocked to see this is only his tenth appearance on a Sunday show this year. I guess it just feels like more since he's got his mug on Fox and CNN so often throughout the week as well.

RADDATZ: I -- I want to move on to Syria. It's been more than a week since Israeli jets hit targets in Syria. More than two weeks since the U.S. said that there was evidence of the use of chemical weapons. What should be happening now concerning, especially these chemical weapons, and the red line that the president talked about?

MCCAIN: Well, the president said he wants a U.N. investigation. The only problem with that is the U.N. can't get into -- into Syria.

RADDATZ: And we read this morning that Assad's forces are making incredible gains. You...

MCCAIN: Incredible gains?

RADDATZ: ...you talked about...

MCCAIN: Which...

RADDATZ: ...a no-fly zone, striking targets. What good does that do?

MCCAIN: Well first of all, engage their air assets. In that kind of terrain, and that kind of weather, air is a -- is a decisive factor in this kind of conflict, and...

RADDATZ: A -- a decisive factor in doing what? What's -- what's...

MCCAIN: Well, we take out the air. We establish a no-fly -- no boots on the ground, no American boots on the ground...

RADDATZ: That's still a lot of risk taking out that air. In fact -- in fact the Russians have said they would move in...

MCCAIN: Well, if they move in...

RADDATZ: ...anti-aircraft, very...

MCCAIN: ...if they move in...

RADDATZ: ...sophisticated.

MCCAIN: ...if they move that in, it's going to make it more complicated, and certainly maybe gives us a little bit of skepticism about a conference. But, we can provide them with a safe zone. We can provide them a place to organize inside Syria. We can give them the heavy weapons that they need...

RADDATZ: Who's -- who's them? Who's them?

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Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told CBS News that Republican lawmakers who are blasting President Barack Obama's administration for failing to take military action during last September's surprise attacks in Benghazi have a "cartoonish" view of the military.

"I listened to the testimony of [Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta] and [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey]," Gates explained to CBS host Bob Schieffer in an interview that aired on Sunday. "And, frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were."

"We don't have a ready force standing by in the Middle East -- despite all the turmoil that's going on -- with planes on strip alert, troops ready to deploy at a moment's notice. And so, getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible."

He continued: "And, frankly, I've heard, 'Why didn't you just fly a fighter jet over and try and scare them with the noise or something?' Well, given the number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libya dictator Muammar] Gaddafi's arsenals, I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft, over Benghazi under those circumstances."

Gates pointed out that others had suggested that the military could have sent in Special Forces or some other small group.

"Based on everything I've read, people really didn't know what was going on in Benghazi contemporaneously, and to send some small number of Special Forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, I think, would have been very dangerous," the former defense secretary observed. "And personally, I would not have approved that."

"It's sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces. The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way. And there just wasn't time to do that."



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South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham can't seem to make up his mind on whether the United States ought to be sending ground troops into Syria, since he just contradicted himself from the statements he made to Foreign Policy last month during an interview with Bob Schieffer on CBS this Sunday. He has, however, been consistent with beating the war drums and giving dire warnings about the consequences of the United States failing to insert ourselves into the middle of their civil war.

Graham continued the fearmongering on this Sunday's Face the Nation, telling the audience they should be concerned about everything from more terrorist attacks in the United States, to extremists taking over the country and getting a hold of weapons of mass destruction.

Graham also claimed he's really worried about "all hell breaking loose" in the region if the United States fails to intervene. I hate to break it to you Lindsey, but you're a whole lot of years and a dollar short on that one. That ship sailed a long time ago.

I've got a proposal for Graham and his fellow warmongering buddy John McCain -- you first. If the two of you want to lead the charge inserting yourselves into another country's civil war without the support of the international community, you go lead the troops over there and take a spot on the front lines of the battlefield. Let us know how that works out for you.

Full transcript below the fold via CBS.

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Here we go again. Another Sunday, another week with Bloody Bill Kristol pushing for more military intervention: Fox News Sunday Beats Syria War Drums:

Subhed: Fox Analysts Urge "Irresponsible" Obama To Do "Something," But Won't Say What

William Kristol wants to go to war in Syria, but he won't say what that war should look like. Appearing on Fox News Sunday to discuss reports of chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the Weekly Standard editor (and noted Iraq war hawk) attacked President Obama as "totally irresponsible" for indicating that he doesn't want "to start another war," saying: "You've got to do what you've got to do."

When host Chris Wallace pointed out to him that there are "no good choices" for intervening in the Syrian conflict and asked, "so what do you do?," Kristol brushed it off without indicating how he thought the president should respond: "You do what you think is best. You're commander in chief, you've got an awful lot of options."

They were all happy to use this as en excuse to amp up the rhetoric on Iran as well. Kristol didn't want to give specifics himself, but the one thing you can be sure of is, it won't matter how President Obama responds, they'll attack him later if things don't go well. Never mind that Wallace admitted there are no good options.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) on Sunday warned that current U.S. foreign policy could have negative consequences for years because the Syrian people would "take revenge" if the United States decided not to take military action to oust President Bashar Hafez al-Assad.

During an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, McCain suggested that the U.S. should respond to reports that the Assad regime used chemical weapons by creating a "safe zone" with aerial attacks and arming rebel forces.

"Be prepared with an international force to secure these stocks of chemical and perhaps biological weapons," the Arizona Republican advised. "There are a number of caches of these chemical weapons, they cannot fall into the hands of the jihadists, otherwise we will end up seeing those weapons used in other places in the Middle East. It's a very dangerous situation."

McCain added that both he and the American people did not want to see "boots on the ground," but he did want to give the rebels the assistance needed to shift the balance of power.

"We have to as an international group, plan and be ready operationally -- not just plan, but be ready operationally -- to go in and secure those areas," he explained. "But the worst thing the United States could do right now is put boots on the ground in Syria because it would turn the people against us."

"And just let me say, the Syrian people are angry and bitter at the United States. I was in a refugee camp in Jordan, and there are thousands of people and kids. And this woman who's a school teacher said, 'Sen. McCain, you see these people here? They're going to take revenge on those people who refuse to help them.' They're angry and bitter. And that legacy could last for a long time too unless we assist them."



Thom Hartmann: How the Media Fueled the War in Iraq

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Thom Hartmann takes our corporate media and the cheerleaders for war with Iraq to task and ten years after our invasion, asks 'Where are the apologies?'

Via Truthout: How the Media Fueled the War in Iraq:

Yesterday, the U.S. marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. And, over the course of the past ten years, we've learned more and more about how the war with Iraq actually started.

It's incredibly easy to blame the Bush administration for its lies that led us into Iraq. But Cheney, Rumsfeld and company weren't the only ones who played an integral role in convincing this nation that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that WMD's were a forgone conclusion.

In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, corporate media – and even NPR and PBS - were abuzz with the talking points of the Bush Administration, echoing claims that Iraq had its hands on "yellow cake uranium" and that it had a massive arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction."

Thanks to the media's repeated claims that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were immediate threats to our nation, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, nearly three-quarters of Americans believed the lie promoted by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks of 9/11.

One of the biggest proponents of the Iraq War was Bill O'Reilly.

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On the ten year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, there has been an awful lot of naval gazing by our media, sadly with most of it being revisionist history on what happened during the run up to that invasion and occupation, with a lot of glossing over just how complicit the media was in helping the neocons beat the war drums. And as Jeremy Scahill noted during this interview on Martin Bashir's show, there's still a lot to answer for by our politicians on both sides of the aisles -- but in particular, the neocons and Bush administration.

It's too bad there wasn't any accountability for his fellow guest on the program, Michael O'Hanlon, who supported the invasion and who was as guilty as the rest of them with enabling the neocons. Scahill sadly didn't go after O'Hanlon, but I appreciate what he was given a chance to say during the segment.

SCAHILL: People like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith should not be able to show their faces in public in this country without being confronted with what they did to Iraq. I mean, the reality is... having spent time in Iraq throughout the '90's... many of the Iraqis I knew are dead. Many of the Iraqis that survived the war are displaced and with the millions of others that have been displaced.

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Last month, Fox's KT McFarland was attacking President Obama's policy in the Middle East and calling it a failure because he did the opposite of George Bush. This Saturday, she was back, going after Hillary Clinton and telling more lies about their drummed up fake scandal, Benghazi-gate and making the absurd claim that the Middle East was pro-American and stable until President Obama was elected and these uprising we've seen with the Arab Spring.

I'm not sure just how much more revisionist history someone could manage to pack into a four or five minute interview as we had here, but McFarland was doing her best to set a record with the amount of b.s. she was shoveling. Never mind anything that happened under Republican presidents. Everything was perfect until the Kenyan usurper came along and got himself elected.

JARRETT: What do we expect to hear from Secretary Clinton? Joining me now to talk about it KT McFarland, Fox News national security analysts. And, one takes her letter word when she and her spokespersons say she's been ill but she has certainly managed to dodge a lot of this event since September 11.

MCFARLANE: Yeah, you know Gregg, she says she takes full responsibility, but so far she's managed to avoid taking any blame. One thing though I think with these hearings, this will probably be the last opportunity these lawmakers have to question Secretary Clinton as Secretary of State and I hope instead of looking back and saying well “What did you now when did you now it?” and “Why did you talk about the video?” I hope instead they focus forward.

Which is “Why have you not responded?” Why has the American government not responded to these attacks? Why have we not gone after the people who killed our own? Because we know that ten years ago or in the late 1980's... '90's... 1998 East Africa bombings US embassies were bombed. 2000 and the USS Cole was bombed. We did not retaliate. We beefed up security. We changed the rules of engagement, but we never went after al-Qaeda and we knew al-Qaeda had done those attacks.

What happened as a result? Bin Laden said, let's go get them again and my concern, and I hope these lawmakers ask Secretary Clinton why has the United States not gotten those people who killed ours? We know where those people are. We could do a drone strike against them.

And then I think Gregg the second point they ought to ask her is why in two years have we gone from a Middle East which was stable and secure and pro-American to a Middle East which is in political and economic chaos, and and governments that are anti-American and increasingly turned over to Islamist radicals.

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Mandy Patinkin sat down with Stephen Colbert to discuss the his character in the Showtime series, Homeland, and what followed was a righteous rant and debate with Colbert -- with Colbert in full character -- on terrorism, whether we bear any personal responsibility for it here in the United States and the fact that words and not weapons are going to be the solution to our problems.