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Jon Stewart ripped into Fox "News" and their continued hyping of the trumped up Benghazi "scandal" which they've been promising over and over is about to "have the lid blown off a giant coverup" at any moment now since the attacks first happened.

Stewart took his viewers back through some of Fox's coverage for the last few months now, whether it was the Greta hyping the Petraeus testimony, or Hannity ranting about the Clinton testimony, to Lindsey Graham promising that the hearing this week was "going to make you mad" and if not, well, they'll just keep having more of them until you are.

Stewart reminded his viewers that this Congress has had nine full hearings on Benghazi, but during the Bush administration there were fifty four attacks on diplomatic targets that killed thirteen Americans, but Congress only held three hearings total on embassy security back then with zero of the outrage we're seeing from Republicans now.

After asking what made things different this time around, Stewart went through the recent list of items that the wingnuts on the right believe are "worse than Watergate" and crazy GOP Rep. Steve King's remarks that Benghazi is "Watergate and Iran Contra together" and "multiplied by ten." Stewart put into perspective just what King was comparing the so-called Benghazi "coverup" to and asked, just what did President Obama do that Republicans believe is worse than some of Nixon and Reagan's worst scandals combined.

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In a face to face confrontation that aired on Sunday, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) called out Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) for using "weasel words" to suggest that President Barack Obama knew about former CIA Director David Petraeus' sex scandal prior to the November election.

Hutchinson told CNN's Candy Crowley and a panel of lawmakers that she couldn't believe that an email threat that Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' mistress, allegedly made to another woman triggered a low-level FBI investigation that the president would not have known about.

"I'm very worried about this," she opined. "Did it really trigger an FBI investigation of the CIA director? At a low level? And it wasn't raised to a higher level? I mean, if anybody is investigating the director of the CIA, the president of the United States should know immediately. And I feel like, A, we don't know enough and, B, I have great concerns about a lot of this surrounding..."

"Nobody was investigating the director of the CIA," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) interrupted. "What they were inquiring into was whether or not somebody had unauthorized access or was taking advantage of access to the director."

"But at what level were these decisions being made?" Hutchinson insisted. "I just think there needs to be a whole lot more."

"Are you suggesting that there was some cover up, that the FBI was playing games, Kay?" Frank wondered. "I think we ought to be explicit about this. I'm troubled by the implication of your statement. Are you suggesting that something wasn't legitimate here? Because that would trouble me."

"I am suggesting that I have great concerns about the legitimacy of this," Hutchinson repeated.

"Using 'great concern' is kind of a weasel word," Frank shot back.

"No, I don't think it's a weasel word," Hutchinson replied. "A general in our military and the CIA director, to all of the sudden have this kind of upheaval when it appears that the president didn't know until two months later? Two months later?"

"It seems to me, frankly, that you're kind of hinting at something bad and I don't see what that could be," Frank pointed out. "I find those kind of implications very troubling. Do you distrust the FBI? Is [FBI Director Robert] Mueller lying? Who are you accusing of not having done the right thing?"

"I tell you what troubles me to some extent, Candy, if this was an investigation into David Petraeus' bank account instead of his sex life, all of us would be paying a lot less attention to it," the Massachusetts congressman added. "And I'm troubled by the prurience of some of this. And the prominence it's getting is -- privacy shouldn't totally disappear."

Earlier this month, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told reporters that the policy of not sharing facts about ongoing investigations with the White House had been followed because "there was not a threat to national security."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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Tara McKelvey, who writes about national security for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, told CNN on Sunday that former CIA Director David Petraeus flirted with both men in women in the media to get favorable press coverage.

Following his resignation earlier this month, McKelvey recalled her experience with Petraeus and his mistress, Paula Broadwell, in a piece for the The Atlantic.

"Like many successful people in Washington, Petraeus was a flirt, with both men and women," she wrote. "Ebullient, energetic, even bubbly, he had cultivated relationships with male journalists for years, selling them on controversial programs such as counterinsurgency, as well as on his own 'super-human, perfect-warrior image,' as one military officer puts it. ... In short, Petraeus was good at his job, as a military man, as head of the CIA, and as director of a media charm campaign in Washington."

The Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran explained to Kurtz on Sunday that the access Petraeus provided "could be intoxicating for journalists."

"You get to zip around the battlefield on a Black Hawk helicopter popping into frontline bases, it's a thrill traveling with a four star [general]," Chandrasekaran said, adding that "Petraeus was an assiduous emailer."

"At one point it did sort of prompt a thought in my head, 'Boy, don't you have a war to run here?'"

"He was really fun to be around," McKelvey agreed. "I met him at a party and he was just a lot of fun to talk to and I can see how intoxicating it would be. ... He was a total flirt, both with men and with women. You know, people respond to it. They like to be flattered and he was good at it."

McKelvey had also noted that "classified information is used as a pickup line" in Washington, but would not give Kurtz any specifics.

"I really can't reveal anything more than that," she chuckled.

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Last week, it was Barbara Walters on The View asking Callista Gingrich what she thought about Gen. David Petraeus resigning over his affair. I guess the network decided they hadn't embarrassed themselves enough already, because this Sunday, guess who was the first person asked about the Petraeus affair during the panel segment on This Week. You guessed it -- Newt Gingrich.

Why a professional "scam artist" like Gingrich is a regular guest on these shows in the first place is beyond me, but then, I could say the same thing about most of the guests that are chosen to go on these shows week after week and one George Will who is on this show almost every single week.

Although we did get a break from Will last week. Probably because he didn't want to be asked any questions about his brilliant prediction of a Mitt Romney electoral blowout.

RADDATZ: I think we've made that pretty clear right here. I think we've made that pretty clear. Let's move on to Dave Petraeus. You know he was in these hearings. We have -- we thought this might calm down this week; it has not.

Let me start with you, Speaker Gingrich. Is it a national security risk to have your CIA director involved in an extramarital affair?

GINGRICH: Well, I think Petraeus concluded -- and I think he's probably right -- that he couldn't be effective. I mean, I think what he did is he...

RADDATZ: You don't think it was because he got caught?

GINGRICH: Well, that's what made him ineffective. I mean, I think by definition, if something had remained secret, it would have been secret. He would have had no reason to confront it.

RADDATZ: But the president actually spent 24 hours thinking about it.

GINGRICH: But I think Petraeus, in offering his resignation, was communicating that he didn't think he could lead the CIA, he didn't think he could deal with the Congress, and that he would be consumed -- you're much better off to have people saying, "Gee, he's a great patriot. Isn't it a pity he's gone?", than to have people say, "Let me focus on this, why isn't he gone?"

And I think, from his perspective, he'd have been in a very, very difficult position, if he stayed in office.

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Of all the recent stupidity surrounding this drummed up conspiracy theory by the right wing that there's some massive coverup in regard to the attack on our embassy in Libya back in September, this has to be one of the more ridiculous ones I've heard. President Obama didn't want Amb. Susan Rice to admit the attacks were terrorism, because he doesn't want anyone to believe that radical Islamic terrorism exists.

I don't know what it's going to take to get the right wing politicians and the yappers over at Fox to back off of this story, but it's making my head hurt. Obviously facts don't seem to matter much to them, but then, when have they at Fox? These people just keep building up their own alternate reality apart from the rest of us and they've just gotten worse with looking like they've lost their damned minds since Romney lost the election.

Here was Rep. Dana Rohrabacher touting his conspiracy theories on Van Susteren's show on Fox this Thursday -- 'Breathtaking' lies and dishonesty by Obama and White House spark anger at Benghazi hearing:

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Conservative radio host Glenn Beck is accusing of President Barack Obama's administration of a manufacturing former CIA Director David Petraeus' sex scandal as a plot to "discredit the military."

"This is a set up," Beck said on his Tuesday broadcast. "This is spontaneous, they just found out? Bull crap. They have known. The White House knew during the vetting process that Petraeus was carrying on an inappropriate relationship. They knew it. They knew that he could be easily compromised, but they appointed him anyway."

"Because when you have the goods on someone -- you need a pressure point," he explained. "Just like this Jill [Kelley] lady. She's got $2 million in debt. She's in and out of court all the time. Pressure point. Same with the general. 'General Betray Us,' that's what the left used to call him. Now, he's put up to head the CIA? Really? Of course. They have a pressure point."

"And now he's being discredited. This whole scandal is doing what? How's your opinion of the military? Discredit the last-standing, honorable institution we have: the military."

Beck added: "These people in Washington are really bad people. And they will use anything, any pressure point. And you will fold. This, today, is all about discrediting the military while distracting the media."

A video of Beck's full 20-minute, conspiracy-filled rant can be viewed here.

(h/t Right Wing Watch)

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I would imagine that Piers Morgan and the producers at CNN were expecting BuzzFeed's Michael Hastings to be pretty harsh on the now scandal ridden Gen. David Petraeus, because I find it hard to believe they would have invited him on the air without reading his recent article here -- The Sins Of General David Petraeus.

What they probably didn't expect was for him to go after the other guest, their own Barbara Starr for taking dictation from the Pentagon and the media in general for their worship of Petraeus. Whatever the case, it was well worth the time watching the segment just to see Piers Morgan squirm in discomfort with his response to Hastings.

MORGAN: Paula Broadwell calling David Petraeus a role model. How things have changed. Joining me now is General Mark Kimmitt who has known General Petraeus for 25 years, also Michael Hastings, Buzzfeed reporter and writing for "Rolling Stone." He says America should have never trusted Petraeus in the first place. And Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, a former Defense Intelligence officer who also served with the CIA. Welcome to you all.

General Kimmitt, let me start with you. You've known General Petraeus for 25 years. Do you recognize the man that you've been reading about for the last 24 hours?

GEN. GEORGE KIMMITT, FMR. DIRECTOR, PLANS & STRATEGIES, CENTRAL COMMAND: Well, in many ways, I do, because with this one exception of this incident that he had with Paula Broadwell, I think the fact that this was a guy that stood up when the facts became known, did the honorable thing and resigned. That's the David Petraeus that I know.

MORGAN: Should a general in his position, who has moved on to run the CIA, have to resign his post over an affair, which is really what this seems to have been about?

KIMMITT: My opinion, yes. Any commander of an organization who is caught in that kind of compromising behavior, someone who is supposed to set the standards and enforce the standards for that organization, when he is caught in a compromising position, he's got to do the honorable thing and step down. I think Attorney General Mukasey mentioned that as well. And I stand behind those comments as well.

Any commander that has lost the trust and confidence of his unit has to stand down. MORGAN: Michael Hastings, in your Buzzfeed article, "The Sins of General David Petraeus," you argue that Petraeus was a master of deception. Do you think he should have resigned?

MICHAEL HASTINGS, "ROLLING STONE": I think there's many other reasons Petraeus should have resigned besides who he's sleeping with that's not his wife. But I just want to make a point here. The larger point that I've been making is that essentially the media has played a role in protecting David Petraeus and promoting David Petraeus and mythologizing David Petraeus.

We saw it here tonight. General Kimmitt, who was a spokesperson in Baghdad, who was a roommate of Petraeus, who was involved in one of the biggest debacles in recent foreign policy history, is on TV defending David Petraeus without actually addressing the real problems with David Petraeus' record.

Those are the fact that he manipulated the White House into escalating Afghanistan. He ran a campaign in Iraq that was brutally savage, included arming the worst of the worst, Shiite death squads, Sunni militiamen. And then you go back to the training of the Iraqi army program that also had similar problems.

So for me, all the while, he's going around the country talking about honor and integrity. So for me the questions of honor and integrity -- I was raising those earlier. A number of other journalists who were actually covering David Petraeus were raising those concerns. You might not get that from someone like Barbara Starr at CNN, who essentially is a spokesperson for the Pentagon in many ways.

So I think I just want to step back and have my piece, because this -- even the way the scandal is being covered is so different than how usual sex scandals are being covered, where they hammer the guy mercilessly. Now everyone is saying oh, my God, he just went to the CIA; how could he be -- you know, he was susceptible to being seduced by this woman.

Give me a break. Petraeus now has all his allies coming out to defend him, where Paula Broadwell is there yet again -- where are her protectors?

MORGAN: Barbara is not a spokesperson for him, obviously. Let's move to --

HASTINGS: Not too obviously. I have followed her coverage pretty closely as she has covered my work before, too.

MORGAN: Just because she's written naughty things about you doesn't make her a spokesperson.

HASTINGS: No. What makes her a spokesperson is repeating without question a lot of Pentagon claims.

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This is one of those on-air goofs you figure when you hear about them someone was pulling your leg but this happened. Now, I'm already sick of this story of Petraeus's dalliances as anyone but as a comeuppance for the media obsession this is pretty damn funny.

From their website apology:

A mistake that aired on Denver's 7 has gone viral on the internet.

On 7NEWS at 5 p.m. on Monday, the station reported on ex-CIA director David Petraeus' relationship with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.

Broadwell earned a master's degree at the University of Denver and had given a speech at an alumni event several weeks ago that may have provided insight into the early stages of their relationship.

During the broadcast, 7NEWS showed an image of Broadwell's biography of Petraeus that is called, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus."

However, when the 7NEWS reporter went on the Internet to get an image of the book cover, the reporter mistakenly grabbed a Photoshopped image that said, "All Up In My Snatch."

"It was a mistake," said KMGH-TV News Director Jeff Harris.

h/t John Aravosis, AmericaBlog

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After watching the media obsess over this story all day long, all I can say is thank you Jon Stewart for bringing a little humor and sanity to the matter. Stewart dismantles the Gen. David Petraeus, Paula Broadwell scandal as only he can. Thankfully Eric Cantor was not spared and neither were the conspiracy theorists in the media and over at Fox.

After bemoaning the fact that it was “Captain America” who was found to be having an affair, Stewart went through a portion of his interview from earlier this year with Broadwell and said this about not realizing at the time the affair was going on:

STEWART: The whole thing was like innuendo after innuendo and the whole time, I was like... daaaahhh! I didn't pick up at... I had her right there talking about how thick of a coat of awesome sauce Petraeus is bathed in. The thing never crossed my f**king mind! The whole time, I was just staring at how defined her arms were and trying to think of another version of one of my classic “I'm an asthmatic old Jew” jokes. I am the worst journalist in the world! For God's sake, the title of her book was All In!

Stewart then moved on to the media and the way they covered the story, starting with The Today Show deciding that serial adulterer Newt Gingrich should be the one they turn to for an interview on the the topic. He then moved onto the various conspiracy theories being bantered about.

STEWART: Conspiracy number one: The FBI held back the Petraeus story to prevent Obama from losing the election. […] If only a Republican had known about this on election day.

Cue failure number one and Eric Cantor being informed about the scandal before President Obama. Conspiracy number two, the timing is suspicious and now Petraeus is not going to testify about Benghazi. Or maybe not.

STEWART: They jacked him. Right before he was about to testify on Benghazi. Conspiracy number two: Now we'll never know what Petraeus knew... unless quitting is different from dying and has no bearing on whether Petraeus will have to testify. […] Or will he? Oh, he will. […]

Conspiracy number three: Either the President of the United States blackmailed the head of the CIA, forcing him to agree with the administration's lie, or that theory is stupid. Can't be both!

Cue clueless Peggy Noonan comparing the scandal to Homeland and Stewart rightfully pointing out that the details right now look a lot more like an episode of Melrose Place.

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Conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Monday blasted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for what he said was a "fishing expedition" to take down former CIA Director David Petraeus.

Petraeus, a retired four-star general, resigned on Friday after admitting an extramarital affair that had been uncovered when the FBI began investigating threatening emails that were sent from his mistress to another woman.

"You know what I'm going to do today?" Scarborough snarked on Monday. "I'm going to go through my emails that are far more abusive and far more threatening than the ones that this lady probably got, and I'm going to call the FBI. I'm going to demand that they launch an investigation. I want everybody at home to do that as well. This is absolutely ludicrous."

"This is what bothers me," he continued. "They go on this fishing expedition, it ends up that they continue the fishing expedition under the auspices -- by the way, the FBI despises the CIA. The interagency rivalry here is the most heated in government."

"And so you have the FBI taking Petraeus down, a rising star in the intelligence community. The whole thing stinks."

(h/t: Washington Examiner)