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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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Another day on Fox, another day in GOP upside down land. On this Monday's edition of America's Newsroom, their so-called "national security analyst" KT McFarland gave their viewers a big dose of revisionist history, and continued their distortions and conspiracy theories over the attacks on our compound in Benghazi -- only this time with a new twist -- if President Obama had just acted more like George W. Bush with our Middle East policy, maybe he'd be having less problems there -- because we all know how well that worked out for everyone.

McFarland was pushing some of these same lies on Benghazi a month ago, as Media Matters documented here: Fox's McFarland Invents Facts To Accuse Obama Admin. Of Abandoning Americans In Benghazi:

Fox's K.T. McFarland claimed that no additional forces were sent to help Americans at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, while it was attacked and claimed that this was "probably a political decision." But before McFarland made her claims on Fox, State Department officials had already said that when agents in the compound requested aid during the attack, additional forces from both Benghazi and Tripoli responded. Read on...

Of course, coming on Fox and lying is nothing new for McFarland. She was more than happy to play along and feign ignorance on the Romney 47 percent recordings with Greta Van Susteren back in September. She was heaping praise on Romney despite his lack of foreign policy experience and comparing him to St. Ronnie back in August. And she was giving wingnut Michele Bachmann cover for her part in the anti-Clinton protests in Egypt back in July.

Rough transcript of the exchange on Fox below the fold.

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As we've already discussed here, even though Susan Rice has been vindicated and John McCain has been made to look like a fool for attacking her, he's still out there acting as though he's the foreign policy "expert" for the Republican party, along with his other two "amigos," Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte, who were out making more waves over the Gaza ceasefire this Wednesday.

Susan Rice defended her initial comments on Benghazi and called McCain's criticism "unfounded" and was much more gracious to him than he deserves after the way he's acted. In the segment above, after noting that McCain's primary complaint about Susan Rice has been that she "said something wrong on a Sunday show," Rachel Maddow walked her viewers though the many, many times that John McCain -- who has made some twenty Sunday show appearances just this year, with another one coming up on Fox this Sunday -- has said something wrong on a Sunday show.

If your career has to come to an end for that transgression, when is McCain going to be held responsible for all of the remarks he made about the invasion of Iraq, or his election loss in 2008?

If it's Sunday, it's John McCain getting something else wrong on one of the bobble head shows. Too bad someone doesn't ask David Gregory's producers to quit putting him on the air week after week.



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Following the final presidential debate on foreign policy this Monday evening, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart went after Mitt Romney for doing his best to pretend he agrees with all of President Obama's policies in order to keep from offending any of the so-called "swing voters" out there and for flip flopping on everything he said during the Republican primary race, where he constantly criticized the President and did a lot of chest thumping to make it through that contest.

It was nice to see Romney called out once again for his pandering and willingness to say anything to get elected and neither candidate was spared when it came to our continuing aggression overseas and these ill advised and illegal drone wars, which sadly they both agree on as well.



Papantonio: Romney is a Foreign Policy Disaster

From Go Left TV's Ring of Fire, Mike Papantonio with a reminder after this Monday's final presidential debate, about just who Mitt Romney is surrounding himself with as foreign policy advisers. It's George W. Bush/Dick Cheney all over again.

Mike Papantonio talks about how Mitt Romney's pitiful performance in the foreign policy debate, and why it should scare American voters.



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With the final presidential debate on foreign policy coming up this Monday, Rachel Maddow again reminded us of the fact that Mitt Romney, with no real experience of his own, is just reassembling George Bush's foreign policy team and hoped that this is a topic that is finally discussed during the debate on Monday evening.

Maddow again featured too wrong to fail, Dan Senor, who's been traveling around working with vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan on the campaign trail for now. And she took the viewers through the long list of other Bushies who Mitt Romney has hired.

For more on that, here's some recommended reading.

From Ari Berman at The Nation: Mitt Romney's Neocon War Cabinet:

Romney is loath to mention Bush on the campaign trail, for obvious reasons, but today they sound like ideological soul mates on foreign policy. Listening to Romney, you’d never know that Bush left office bogged down by two unpopular wars that cost America dearly in blood and treasure. Of Romney’s forty identified foreign policy advisers, more than 70 percent worked for Bush. Many hail from the neoconservative wing of the party, were enthusiastic backers of the Iraq War and are proponents of a US or Israeli attack on Iran. Christopher Preble, a foreign policy expert at the Cato Institute, says, “Romney’s likely to be in the mold of George W. Bush when it comes to foreign policy if he were elected.” On some key issues, like Iran, Romney and his team are to the right of Bush. Romney’s embrace of the neoconservative cause—even if done cynically to woo the right—could turn into a policy nightmare if he becomes president. [...]

Romney knew little about foreign policy when he ran for president in 2008. An internal dossier of John McCain’s presidential campaign said at the time that “Romney’s foreign affairs resume is extremely thin, leading to credibility problems.” After being branded as too liberal by conservative GOP activists four years ago, Romney aligned himself with Bolton and other neocons in 2012 to protect his right flank. Today there’s little daylight between the candidate and his most militant advisers. “When you read the op-eds and listen to the speeches, it sounds like Romney’s listening to the John Bolton types more than anyone else,” says Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for national security at the Center for American Progress. (The Romney campaign’s openly gay foreign policy spokesman, Richard Grenell, who had been an indefatigable defender of Bolton as the latter’s PR flack in the Bush years, was forced to resign after harsh attacks by anti-gay conservatives.)

Bolton is one of eight Romney advisers who signed letters drafted by the Project for a New American Century, an influential neoconservative advocacy group founded in the 1990s, urging the Clinton and Bush administrations to attack Iraq. PNAC founding member Paula Dobriansky, leading advocate of Bush’s ill-fated “freedom agenda” as an official in the State Department, recently joined the Romney campaign full time. Another PNAC founder, Eliot Cohen, counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2007 to 2009, wrote the foreword to the Romney campaign’s foreign policy white paper, which was titled, perhaps not coincidentally, “An American Century.” Cohen was a tutor to Bush administration neocons. Following 9/11, he dubbed the war on terror “World War IV,” arguing that Iraq, being an “obvious candidate, having not only helped Al Qaeda, but…developed weapons of mass destruction,” should be its center. In 2009 Cohen urged the Obama administration to “actively seek the overthrow” of Iran’s government. Read on...

From Kimball at Daily KOS: The vital narrative of the next debate:

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In the words of Bill Clinton... "it takes some brass." In what world should the war mongers of the world like Lindsey Graham, who has never met a conflict he didn't want the United States go get involved in, have an ounce of legitimacy when it comes to criticizing our foreign policy? But here he was on television again this Sunday, continuing to politicize the attack on our embassy in Libya.

If Democrats had done this sort of thing with a Republican president, the wingnuts would be out there calling them un-American traitors who don't love their country. But a Democrat gets in office and it's acceptable to basically accuse his administration of inviting the attacks and claim they were caused because we just haven't been aggressive enough with other nations around the world. Never mind how that worked out for us under the Bush administration.

And if anyone was wondering what we're going to be treated to in the final presidential debate, I'd say we just got a preview here. Schieffer is moderating and the topic is foreign policy. I can hardly wait.

Sen. Graham: Obama ‘Misleading’ On Libya, Region ‘About To Explode’:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) alleged that the Obama administration has been "misleading" the American people on what occurred during the attacks in Libya last month during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday. Graham said this is because the attacks in Libya contradicted the administration's "false narrative" that al Qaeda is on the wane in the Middle East.

"They're trying to sell a narrative, quite frankly, that the Mideast, the wars are receding and al Qaeda's been dismantled. And to admit that our embassy was attacked by al Qaeda operatives and Libya, leading from behind, didn't work, I think undercuts that narrative."

Graham went on to say that the administration was misleading because they thought they could get away with it: "They never believed the media would investigate. Congress was out of session. And this caught up with them. I think they have been misleading us but it finally caught up with them."

Graham painted a grim picture of stability and al Qaeda movements in the region: "The Mideast is falling apart and they're trying to spin what happened in Libya cause the truth of the matter is al Qaeda is alive and well and counter-attacking…this whole region is about to explode…"



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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:

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It would really be nice to turn on the television one of these days and know that I'm not going to be subjected to another one of these Bush, neocon warmongers being allowed to come on the air and pretend they have an ounce of credibility on the issue of foreign policy. Sadly, I assume that day is never going to come until they all die off from old age. Here we go again with another anchor on MSNBC giving Dan Senor, the world's worst salesman of Bush's failed invasion and occupation of Iraq, face time to beat the war drums and complain that the Obama administration isn't being sufficiently hawkish with threatening Iran.

Romney adviser: 'Nothing new' in Obama's UN speech:

A senior adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign said Tuesday there was "nothing new" in President Obama's address to the United Nations, where he called for an end to the "violence and intolerance" surrounding attacks on American diplomatic missions and said the United States will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

"It's a version of what he said before," said Romney adviser Dan Senor, adding there was "nothing new" in the president's remarks. [...]

"There is no progress. There is a sense that there's an unraveling going on abroad, and the president citing these doesn't mean we're making progress," Senor added.

The Romney adviser also defended the Republican nominee from those who questioned his statements critical of the Obama administration response to the violent protests at American diplomatic missions in the Middle East.

"I think the reaction to his reaction was disproportionate," Senor said. "At the end of the day he criticized a statement that came out of the administration, that the White House ultimately distanced themselves from."

The Obama administration has pushed back on Romney challenges to the president's foreign policy, accusing the Republican of bluster, especially in regard to Iran. Obama has previously challenged Romney to say explicitly if he believes war should be waged against Iran, a point on which Senor was challenged.

"Gov. Romney has not advocated military action and any suggestion that he has by the president or his surrogates is a mischaracterization," Senor said. "What Gov. Romney's concern is, is a weak posture in the region makes war more likely."

Yeah, as opposed to Mitt Romney listening to the likes of Dan Senor should he be elected president. Senor, and MSNBC's producers for that matter, who keep booking him on these shows, apparently believe the American people are completely incapable of recalling anything that happened more than four years ago. They're sure doing their best to pretend that the Bush administration and their disastrous invasion of Iraq never happened during segments like this one.



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It seems Fox regular Angela McGlowan's comments yesterday weren't just a one off. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has apparently been repeating the same line out on the campaign trail. He just managed to do it without the same Palin-like word salad we got from McGlowan on Saturday.

Here's the clown crew at Fox & Friends from this Sunday, doing their best to carry water for Ryan. Ryan's got his Orwellian spin down painfully well.

MORRIS: And yesterday out on the campaign trail, this subject was not lost on the candidate Paul Ryan making the point yesterday that we need to change our strategy as it relates to our foreign policies. Strength, showing strength and resolve. President Obama has tried a more moderating approach in his outreach to the Middle East in talking about having a hand open, not a clenched fist – recall that from the 2008 election. How has that worked?

Paul Ryan in Florida had a take on it. Have a listen.

RYAN: We're seeing pictures of our President being burned, We're seeing our flags being burned in these foreign capitols all over the world and what we're doing as a result of the Obama foreign policy, by gutting defense, by showing we want to cut defense, by being equivocal, by not speaking up forcefully and clearly for American values of freedom and individual dignity and individual rights and religious freedom, we are projecting weakness abroad.

And if you project weakness abroad a vacuum occurs and it gets filed by people who do not like us. For the sake of our own peace and for the sake of our own security and prosperity, we need peace through strength. That means a strong military. That means a military that is indisputably the strongest in the world. And that is not what we're getting from the Obama doctrine.

The Fox & Friends panel went on to express their dismay over the fact that much of the world doesn't like us and that they're still burning American flags in the streets and to pretty much ignore that our foreign policy has been pissing off people in that region of the world for decades now. They also tried to pretend that any backing away from, rather than a continuation of some of Bush's policies is what has many so angry. Par for the course, it's always upside down land at Fox. Whatever promotes Republicans and neocons talking points is good and whatever supports Democrats is bad. And all of our problems started when President Obama got elected.