DOWNLOADS: (253)

PLAYS: (3955)

Embed

Here's something you don't see every day -- someone in our corporate media actually calling out Republicans for feeding them lies. Good for CBS and Major Garrett.

Via TPM: Wow, This is Pretty Epic:

Generally, once partisan, tendentious sources leak information that turns out to be wrong, nothing’s ever done about it. That’s for many reasons, some good or somewhat understandable, mostly bad. But on CBS Evening News tonight, Major Garrett did something I don’t feel like I’ve seen in a really long time or maybe ever on a network news cast. He basically said straight out: Republicans told us these were the quotes, that wasn’t true. Quick transcript after the jump …

SCOTT PELLEY: Also at his news conference today the president called for tighter security for U.S. diplomatic facilities to prevent an attack like the one in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (143)

PLAYS: (602)

Embed

This ain't ever going away as long as the Republicans think there's a snowball's chance in hell that Hillary Clinton is going to run for president. Sen. John McCain appeared on Neil Cavuto's show this Wednesday, after calling for a select committee on Benghazi, because lord knows they haven't quite beaten this horse to death yet: GOP senators want Obama to release Benghazi names:

A trio of Republican senators are calling on President Obama to release the names of Benghazi survivors to Congress after the White House said it was unaware anyone was blocked from testifying.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) wrote to Obama on Wednesday asking that names be released of the survivors of last year’s attack at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, for interviews with Congress.

“In light of your comments yesterday about the Benghazi attacks, we again request your administration immediately provide the names of the Benghazi survivors to Congress so we can conduct interviews to gain a clearer understanding of what happened before, during, and after the attack,” the senators wrote. [...]

The Obama administration has pushed back this week against allegations that a State Department employee has been prevented from testifying about the terrorist attack, in which four Americans were killed.

Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official and one-time Republican counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Fox News earlier this week that a State Department employee she represented was threatened by superiors if he cooperated with the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Benghazi.

If anyone thinks those names sound familiar, here's a reminder of who they are from Media Matters: Who Are The Right-Wing Media's Benghazi Lawyers Victoria Toensing And Joseph diGenova?.

And I highly recommend reading both Digby and Charlie Pierce's take on this debacle, which you can read here:

What's really going on with this Benghazi obsession?

and here:

Getting The Band Back Together and I'll share a bit from Pierce's article:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (72)

PLAYS: (260)

Embed

It seems David Gregory didn't think the media has spent quite enough time beating the dead horse on the embassy attack in Benghazi. I'm not sure what else he thought Obama advisor David Plouffe was going to tell him that he hasn't already read about elsewhere in the media, but he decided to give Fox a hand and ask him about it anyway.

Plouffe to his credit, pushed back and pointed out the fact that the incident has been nothing more than a political punching bag used by Republicans:

GREGORY: Before you go, I want to ask you about what is still a-- both a highly politicized but very important question about this raid in Libya on our consulate in Benghazi that killed our ambassador Chris Stevens. A lot of misinformation about this and a politicization of this in the final days but still important questions that seem to boil down to this, why was security at our consulate so inadequate, particularly when there had been warnings in advance about an attack on the consulate? Why was there such little force nearby to respond to the kind of attack that ultimately took place?

PLOUFFE: Well, David, that’s exactly why the State Department has an accountability review board that’s going to-- right now is undertaking a very thorough investigation. Obviously, as facts come out, those have been released. But, you know, Admiral Mullen and Mr. Pickering, these are-- are respected leaders who are going to see what happened, what lessons can we learn from this?

GREGORY: Why not put out the facts before the election? Are you deliberately waiting until after Election Day before you respond to these questions in a detailed fashion?

PLOUFFE: Absolutely not. You know, all the information, obviously that-- that has been commented on has been, you know, because we’ve released it. The-- an investigation like this is very important. We have to get it right so we can learn lessons here. And-- and I think the president has been very clear. He wants to understand-- make sure the country understands fully what happened, what lessons do we learn from that and hold folks accountable. I will speak for one minute, David, on the politics. It is remarkable. You look back at the 2000 in October. The USS Cole bombing took place in the weeks before that presidential election. Seventeen of our sailors were died or killed tragically. And what president, then Governor Bush said was, we need to speak as one voice. And-- and really for that entire campaign, President Bush then-- then Dick Cheney said we need to speak with one voice. We need to find out what happened here. And I do think the politicization of this has been unprecedented. But the important thing here is we have to fully understand what happened here and take those lessons forward so that we can protect these diplomats who are doing such heroic work.

DOWNLOADS: (162)

PLAYS: (678)

Embed

Who needs Fox when you've got CBS doing double duty for them with interviews like this one with Sen. John McCain on Face the Nation? The Republicans have been foaming at the mouth since the embassy attack over a month and a half ago in Libya and now we can add McCain's name to the long list of Republicans who have compared "Benghazi-Gate" to Watergate or called for impeaching President Obama for how the matter has been handled.

I'm sure there are others I missed, but here's at least a partial list of those who have been making the same hyperbolic attacks:

Rush Limbaugh: RUSH: Benghazi cover-up "This dwarfs Watergate'

Ron Christie: Worse than Watergate??!! WTF

Sean Hannity and Donald Rumsfeld: Hannity Trots Out Donald Rumsfeld To Help Turn Benghazi Into Watergate

Newt Gingrich: Gingrich: Libya Cover-up Worse Than Watergate

Mike Huckabee: Huckabee Suggests Impeaching Obama Over Libya Embassy Attack

Col. David Hunt: Col. David Hunt Tells Jerry Doyle: Benghazi Coverup Worse Than Watergate

And Rep. Marsha Blackburn: Marsha Blackburn Calls 'Benghazi-Gate' 'Worse Than Watergate'

They've all got their talking points aligned perfectly, don't they? And last but not least, here's Grampy McCain from this Sunday: McCain: Libya either a "cover up" or "incompetence":

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (73)

PLAYS: (230)

Embed

As Fox has continued to politicize the Benghazi embassy attack in Libya on September 11th, day, after day, after day, naturally we got more of the same from Chris Wallace and the Republican guests on this week's Fox News Sunday. Sen. Mark Udall was there for a little push back this time around on the fact that Republicans have turned this into a witch hunt.

He brought up the way the country acted after the attacks on 9/11/01 and the difference in the way those events were treated. After watching the Republicans today and them shamelessly being willing to politicize this attack in Libya, I'm sure if 9/11/01 had been on a Democrat's watch, they'd have been calling for them to be impeached. It's just shameless, but that's the way they roll. They have no shame and there is nothing too low that they won't stoop to if they think it will benefit them politically.

Now the new line of attack is they should have brought drones in to strike those who attacked the embassy. What could have possibly gone wrong with that scenario?

Sen. Udall: Libya a ‘legitimate issue,’ but GOP politicized probe:

Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said that last month’s attack in Libya had been politicized, and said officials and candidates should come together like they did after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Udall, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said that “any impartial observer” would say that the response to the assault that left four Americans dead at the consulate in Benghazi had been politicized.

“It is a legitimate issue,” Udall said. “But every story leads to political commentary and trying to point fingers. After 9/11, we came together. There were a lot of questions that had to be answered. Let’s operate in that same spirit.”

The Colorado Democrat also said he thought Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee, would agree with his assessment.

Romney and congressional Republicans have criticized the administration’s handling of the attacks, arguing that officials waited too long to characterize them as a terrorist attack and questioning if security at the compound had been downgraded prior to the assault.

Romney, though, also faced controversy for his initial criticism of the administration response, when he suggested that the White House’s first reaction was to “sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Romney’s statement was based on a message from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo not approved by Washington and made before he learned that four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, had died.

“Gov. Romney himself realizes that his actions and his reaction was unbecoming for a potential commander-in-chief,” Udall said on Sunday.

DOWNLOADS: (151)

PLAYS: (167)

Embed

From CNN -- Clinton: I'm responsible for diplomats' security:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday tried to douse a political firestorm over the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, saying she's responsible for the security of American diplomatic outposts.

"I take responsibility," Clinton said during a visit to Peru. "I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision."

But she said an investigation now under way will ultimately determine what happened at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed on September 11.

"I take this very personally," Clinton said. "So we're going to get to the bottom of it, and then we're going to do everything we can to work to prevent it from happening again, and then we're going to work to bring whoever did this to us to justice."

The attack took place in the eastern Libyan city that was the cradle of that country's 2011 revolution. Obama administration officials initially blamed a mob inflamed by a U.S.-produced movie that mocked Islam and its Prophet Mohammed, but later said the storming of the consulate appears to have been a terrorist attack. With criticism growing, Vice President Joe Biden said during last week's vice presidential debate that the White House did not know of requests to enhance security at Benghazi, contradicting testimony by State Department employees that requests had been made and rejected. After the debate, the White House said the vice president did not know of the requests because they were handled, as is the practice, by the State Department.

"In the wake of an attack like this, in the fog of war, there's always going to be confusion," Clinton said. "And I think it is absolutely fair to say that everyone had the same intelligence. Everyone who spoke tried to give the information that they had. As time has gone on, that information has changed. We've gotten more detail, but that's not surprising. That always happens."

She added, "What I want to avoid is some kind of political gotcha or blame game."

Good luck with that. They're already on the attack over at Fox -- Fox's Ingraham Misrepresents Clinton Comments On Benghazi .

And right on cue, here's neocon Willard fan-girl Jennifer Rubin going on the attack as well -- Washington Post Columnist Launches Sexist Diatribe Against Hillary Clinton On Twitter.

DOWNLOADS: (206)

PLAYS: (757)

Embed

Last week, it was Mike Huckabee comparing the latest trumped up non-scandal to Watergate and suggesting that President Obama should be impeached over the handling of the embassy attack in Libya. Now we've got flamethrower Rep. Marsh Blackburn making the same comparison -- Republican Lawmaker: Obama’s Handling Of Libya Is ‘Worse Than Watergate’:

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined the chorus of Republicans criticizing President Obama’s response to the violence in Libya on Monday, going so far as to suggest that the administration’s handling of the situation is worse than Watergate — the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon:

BLACKBURN: I think this is an issue — Benghazi-gate is the right term for this. This is very, very serious, probably more serious than Watergate. And to call this a response to a video when it was obviously a terrorist attack — and when you read some of the documentation on this, and you know that there has been other sites and locations that have bind attack in Libya, when you know that the Libyan government felt there was something getting ready to transpire.

Fox News, Republican lawmakers, and conservative pundits have for weeks criticized U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice for initially characterizing the attack as a “spontaneous reaction” to a movie trailer disparaging the Prophet Muhammed. Since then, however, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and even White House Spokesperson Jay Carney have all used the word “terrorist” to describe the attack. Obama himself attributed the violence to terrorism during a September 12 address at the Rose Garden.

Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly has more on how this is part of the Romney campaign's new strategy that they think is going to turn the election around for them -- Benghazi Truthers:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (72)

PLAYS: (213)

Embed

Fox News host Steve Doocy on Monday likened the latest Occupy Wall Street protests to the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Libya that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

During a segment on Fox & Friends, Doocy asked Fox News contributor (and conservative "comedian") Steven Crowder to comment on protests in New York City that mark the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street.

"But a new report from the AP says the group is in total disarray, it's completely fallen apart," Doocy told Crowder. "Would you agree with that assessment? You know what, they just don't know what they're doing these days?"

"Here's the thing, the movement is entirely based on selfish motives," Crowder explained. "So, it has to implode under its own weight. I talked with Tucker Carlson about this yesterday. You know, the tea party -- because it's the most comparable movement in the last decade -- is inextricably tied to conservatism. It's attached to an ism. The ism of life, freedom, pursuit of happiness, constitutionally limited government. The Occupy movement is based on wanting more free crap. It's like herding cats, and that's why you see the biggest mark the Occupy movement has made, Steve, really over the last year has been a mark of crime."

"Sure," Doocy agreed. "And we're looking at some of the video next to our faces right now and that almost looks like what happened last week in Libya and in Cairo, and we're talking about the Occupy forces moving out. In the last year, 7,000 arrests in 119 different cities."

"The tea party leveraged their ideology into really political influence of keeping conservative candidates accountable to the platform they publicly professed," Crowder insisted. "Occupiers were able to do none of that because -- Steve, you can say it with me -- they just want more free crap. We'll make it a sing-song for them. Exactly, they can follow the dancing crack pipe."

(h/t: Media Mattters)

DOWNLOADS: (240)

PLAYS: (2159)

Embed

Fox News contributor Liz Cheney on Sunday blasted President Barack Obama with the false claim that he had apologized to enemies of the United States and had abandoned Czechoslovakia, which has not existed since 1992.

During a panel on ABC's This Week, host Jake Tapper asked the daughter of the former vice president if she agreed with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's assertion that Obama was "sympathizing" with the people who attacked the U.S. embassy in Libya and killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans.

"I think he did get it right," Cheney insisted. "We've now had three and a half years of Obama policy and it looks an awful lot like -- whether you're talking about the Mexico City speech in 2009, the Cairo Speech in 2009, the extent to which he's been apologizing for America, he's abandoned some of our key allies like Israel, Poland, Czechoslovakia. He's attempted to appease our enemies, the Iranians, for example, the Russians. ... The president himself has got a terrible record on national security, and it's clearly something that Gov. Romney ought rightly to be pushing."

"I think the governor handled it exactly right when he went out and condemned the embassy statement," she later added. "I think, frankly, it would be a tragedy for the nation if President Obama is allowed to effectively claim that he's been a successful national security president. And it would be a tragedy for the nation if the Romney campaign doesn't push this issue very hard."

Cheney concluded: "But there's no question but that we're weaker than we were when Barack Obama took office. And if he has four more years, we may well be unrecognizable."

An Associated Press fact check last week determined that President Obama never apologized for the United States or expressed sympathy for the people who attacked the U.S. embassy in Libya.

"The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts, especially if his full quotes are viewed in context," Washington Post fact checkers wrote in 2011. "Note to GOP speechwriters and campaign ad makers: The apology tour never happened."

As for the claim that Obama "abandoned" Czechoslovakia, that country was dissolved in 1992 -- over 16 years before he took office.

DOWNLOADS: (47)

PLAYS: (228)

Embed

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume on Sunday praised Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for using the death of the top U.S. diplomat in Libya for political gain by claiming President Barack Obama was "sympathizing" with America's enemies.

"I think what he said was correct, but it was clumsy," Hume told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "And it opened him up to charges that he made a terrible mistake. We had an almost ludicrous overreaction in a lot of the media about it, in which what he did became the big story rather than what was happening over there, which was not a great moment for our national media, I'm sad to say."

"My sense is that he was on the mark," Hume added. "He might have timed it better or said it better."

On Tuesday, U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and at least three members of his staff had been killed during protests over a film that mocked that the Prophet Muhammad and was promoted by Terry Jones, a U.S. pastor who had previously sparked deadly riots threatening to burn Qurans.

Romney on Wednesday had used the death of Stevens to score political points by accusing Obama of “sympathizing” with the enemy after the U.S. embassy in Cairo released a statement condemning the anti-Muslim film.

“It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks,” Romney said.

That initial statement from the former Massachusetts governor and his press conference later in the day were both panned as “irresponsible” and “craven.”