Where Was The Media When The Clinton Email Scandal Broke Three Years Ago?

As a contributor to the breaking of the Clinton email scandal story in March of 2013, I contend that these three-year-old facts should have raised serious questions about Hillary Clinton’s judgment and her credentials to serve as commander in chief. These questions were ignored by the mainstream media. If the media had done its job then, Hillary Clinton may not have become the Democratic Party’s nominee, or, if she had, the scandal would indeed have been “old business, nothing to see here.”


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The Benghazi Commercial That Can Cost Hillary the Presidency

Surely the Trump campaign or the RNC is teeing up the video contrasting the tearful testimony of the families of the fallen heroes with Hillary’s parsed denials. There is little doubt which side viewers will believe. Such a spot will eclipse the John Kerry swift boat campaign with its emotional impact. The American public will believe the fathers and mothers not, to use Donald Trumps’ words “Crooked Hillary.”

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Will Obama Follow Richard Nixon As An Asterisk President?

The notorious asterisk (*) is applied to discredited sports records. Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France victories have been followed by an * in the record books since his admission of doping. Richard Nixon is modern history’s only asterisk President. His * denotes the only President to resign from office. More generally, the asterisk applies to any achievement gained through questionable means.

Hence, the media elite will discredit any piece that has Barack Obama “Asterisk President” in its title as spiteful partisanship, sour grapes, and ignorance of “politics as usual.” Obama’s spin doctors and the media will retort: Do these conservative wing nuts not know that Obama won by a comfortable margin?  Our democratic underground has indeed put an asterisk next to George W, Bush, but that is only right. Bush did not really win in 2008 and lied about weapons of mass destruction, but our Barack won fair and square and by a comfortable margin.

Columnists James Taranto and Peggy Noonan  have broken the “asterisk taboo.” Taranto (President Asterisk) describes how the mainstream media has circled the wagons to protect Obama from the swirling scandals that threaten the legitimacy of his second term. The media chant in unison: “Barack did not know. It was only low level bureaucrats. Government is too complicated anyway. The Republicans will lose by overplaying their hand.”

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Russian Television (RT): Partial Release of Hacked Hillary Clinton Emails

Confidential emails purportedly from former political advisor Sydney Blumenthal to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been hacked and widely distributed to politicians and news sources. Included in the hacker “Gucifer’s” distribution list are Russian news services such as Pravda, Moscow Times, and RT.
We have no information about the authenticity of the hacked e mails. They will be tested over the next few hours or days.

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Susan Rice Disqualified Herself Under George Schultz’s Loftus’s Law

Susan Rice’s repetition of the “spontaneous mob, anti-Muslim video” story on the Sunday talk shows five days after the September 11 attacks is a big thing. Contrary to Democrat claims that the attacks on her are a political witch hunt, it is a big thing that our U.N. ambassador gave a false account of the Obama administration’s worst foreign policy disaster.  The failure to guard our  diplomatic personnel is, of course, a big thing as well, but decisions made in the fog of war are often wrong. Rice’s decision was not made in the fog of war but in the heat of a political campaign.

Rice did not appear to tell the true story, but to control the political fallout from Obama’s biggest foreign policy disaster, which threatened his “I killed Osama and al Qaeda is on the run” narrative on the very eve of the election.

The liberal press (see the New York Times,  Big Issues Are Lost in Focus on Libya Talking Points) characterizes the pursuit of Rice as raw partisanship. After all, “she accurately recited the talking points the intelligence agencies prepared.” But a conscientious public servant is not bound by talking points that are the equivalent of “the sun rose in the West today.”

Just a couple of media favorites  -- Maureen Dowd of the Times and “moderate” Republican Susan Collins – appear to understand the significance of Rice’s disseminating a false story to the public  (Make Up Turned Break Up). They ask, among other things, why Rice “promoted a story ‘with such certitude’ about a spontaneous demonstration over the anti-Muslim video that was so at odds with the classified information to which the ambassador had access. (It was also at odds with common sense…) … after  the F.B.I. interviewed survivors of the attack in Germany ….and established that there was no protest.”

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Obama Knew by 2PM on September 12 but Invented a False Narrative Nevertheless (and the media does not care)

The American people must believe in the veracity and forthrightness of their commander in chief. Barack Obama concurs (November 2, New York Times): “You do want to be able to trust your president.  You want to know that the president means what he says, and says what he means. And after four years as president, you know me.”

We’ll we may know more than we wish to.

Despite the media’s confusing Fog-of-War” coverage of the Benghazi tragedy, we know the President deliberately provided false and misleading information on the  most important security failure of his administration. He misled the American public for political advantage by asserting that the Benghazi attacks were caused by an anti-Muslim video and carried out by a spontaneous mob. He knew this narrative was false by 2PM September 12 at the latest, but he continued to spread it for personal political gain.
The Washington Post in its Security breakdown in Benghazi is not interested in whether Obama told the truth about the video and the spontaneous mob. Such questions raise what the Post calls a “political and mostly pointless issue.” Since when is the president’s veracity “pointless?”

Only Fox News, with its “aggressive reporting,” addresses Obama’s veracity, but Fox is automatically discredited “by the blustery and often scurrilous commentary” of Bill O’Reily and Shawn Hannity, among others. Serious media need pay no attention to such amateur rabble rousers, despite Fox’s Jennifer Griffin’s stellar investigative reporting.

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Paul’s recommendation: Read Good Intentions, By Bob Zeidman, before voting.

New York Times Mentions Benghazi For the First Time in Four Days

In its Libya Warnings Were Plentiful, but Unspecific, the New York Times broke its four day embargo on the use of the word “Benghazi.” Those expecting a discussion of a possible cover up by the administration and the curious sticking to the “video story” were due for a disappointment. The article was exclusively about security arrangements and the difficulty of gauging the security threat to our embassy facilities in Libya.

American voters know about the changing administration accounts in the month following the Benghazi attacks and are curious. They must look elsewhere from the Times to get answers.

Now Benghazi Is the Intelligence Community's Fault?

The administration is now releasing top secret intelligence memos to demonstrate that Ambassador Rice’s  September 16 talk show statements were the result of bad intelligence (Early Uncertainty on Libya Account, WSJ, October 19). 

If our intelligence community could not debrief consulate personnel, interview eye witnesses, examine the surveillance camera and drone satellite tapes, talk with Libyan officials within five days after the attack, this in itself is a national scandal of huge proportions. 

The New York Times October 16 Election-Year Stakes Overshadow Nuances of Libya Investigation had already completed this work within a day of the attack (but chose not to share its results with its readers). 
We must ask why exculpatory secret intelligence information is being released now to aid the President’s campaign and why our intelligence community purports to have been asleep at the wheel, especially after one of their top officials had already testified under oath that this was clearly a terrorist attack. 

Why is the intelligence community falling on its sword to help the President get reelected?

Candy Clearly Wrong on Benghazi, But No Instant Replay for Referee Error

During his September 12 comments on the killing of Ambassador Stevens the night before, President Obama spoke of “brutal killings,” praised the work of our diplomats, and called for religious tolerance. He ended on a general note that “no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation.”
Ignoring mounting evidence that the attack was planned, the Obama administration launched a full scale campaign to peddle a spontaneous-mob-incited-by-the video narrative on the next day. The most notable operation was Ambassador Rice’s September 16 statement on the Sunday talk shows: “Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo….”

The spontaneous-mob-video narrative continued until September 20, when the press secretary announced that it is “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”

As Romney explained this sequence of events at last night’s debate, Obama interrupted and told him to “get the transcript” of his remarks. When Romney persisted, Crowley interjected:  “He did in fact call it an ‘act of terror.” Crowley continued: “It did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea of there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.” On both counts, Crowley was outright wrong.

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The Times Knew and Kept Silent

The New York Times deafening thirty-five-day silence on the developing Benghazi scandal ended today with its Election-Year Stakes Overshadow Nuances of Libya Investigation.

The article reveals that the Times knew almost immediately that the assault was carried out by an organized militant group and that there was no spontaneous demonstration of sparked by the anti-Muslim video. According to the Times:  a 20-year-old neighbor described the brigade he saw leading the attack. “There was no protest or anything of that sort.” Libyan guards at the Benghazi compound and other witnesses told Times journalists as early as Sept. 12 that the streets outside the mission were quiet in the moments before the attack without any prior protests.

The attack was planned and carried out by a local militant group, which may or may not have ties with al Qaeda, but U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they intercepted boastful phone calls after the fact from the attackers to individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. In June the group staged a similar attack against the Tunisian Consulate over a different film, according to the Congressional testimony of the American security chief at the time.

During the onslaught, most of the attackers made no effort to hide their faces or identities, and during the assault some acknowledged to a Libyan journalist working for the Times that they belonged to the group. The Times reporter interviewed militants who claimed they heard of the video that day from the Cairo protests earlier in the day. Other Benghazi militia leaders said the militant group had boasted back in June that it could destroy the American Mission. The Times notes, however, that “in the days after the attack the Obama administration’s surrogates said it grew out of a peaceful protest against the video.”

The Times remained silent as the Obama administration peddled the spontaneous mob incited by the video to the media. It knew the truth but said nothing.

And there are those who deny the existence of media bias.

Obama on Benghazi: Believe Me or Your Lying Eyes (Or At Least Wait Until After the Election)

In Duck Soup, Groucho Marx pleads his innocence to his wealthy matronly fiancé, who catches him smooching with a show girl: “Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

Since September 12, the Obama administration has been asking us to believe him, his press secretary, and his proxies that our Libyan ambassador and three other consulate officials were killed by a spontaneous mob driven into frenzy by an anti-Muslim film produced by an unknown Christian film maker.  He asks that we not believe his state department or top intelligence officials who testify that this narrative is false. Nor should we notice the coincidence of the attack taking place on 9/11 or that this was revenge for the fifteen top al Qaeda leaders killed by drones under Obama. Of course, Obama spiking the “I-killed-Osama” football at the Democrat convention had nothing to do with this either. Nor did the Libyan President warn of impending violence three days earlier.

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Why Obama/Biden Cannot Possibly Win the Presidential Debates

If we cut through the surface images of the two presidential debates – aggressive confident Romney, subdued and passive Obama, jeering Biden, and polite Ryan – the Obama/Biden team has little chance of winning any of the four debates.  Despite recent improvements in survey numbers, the vast majority of Americans think the country “is headed in the wrong direction” and almost eighty percent are “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States.”

Reduced to fundamentals, Obama and Biden must defend the status quo, which voters believe is a disaster. They cannot offer major makeovers because that would amount to admitting policy mistakes, and they must somehow make voters believe that they have done a good job or that the sorry state of the country is not their fault.  It goes without saying that this is a tough and almost impossible sell after three and a half years in office.

Romney and Ryan have their hands free to blast the status quo, focus on the policy errors of the past three and a half years, and explain what they would do to fix the mess we are in.

When the current team manager is having a losing season, fans decide it is time for a new one. Romney and Ryan can play the role of the new manager with new ideas which can turn the season around if given the chance. Obama and Biden are left with explaining why, due to weather, injuries, and other things beyond their control, they have lost so many games. Fans don’t want excuses. They want wins.

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