Bringing skepticism and perspective to the segment was Robert Siegel and we'll get to that but first let's crack some skulls.
We don't know what all the 'experts' were doing while we were attending Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi but we do know that most of the people weighing in weren't present at the Rayburn House Office. We reported on the hearing in "Iraq snapshot," "2 disgrace in the Committee hearing," "Iraq snapshot," "The Post Debate Debate (Ava and C.I.)" and "Iraq snapshot" and that post debate debate piece found us expressing our shock about the vast difference between what took place at the hearing and what these 'experts' were telling people happened.
As Ruth noted, the problems started immediately with The NewsHour (PBS) reducing the hearing to drama of Democrats and Republicans and avoiding reporting on the news supplied by the witnesses. They wasted over five minutes of airtime informing the viewers of nothing.
Let's remember that The NewsHour spent weeks 'forgetting' to call the attack a "terrorist attack" -- even after the White House did. In fact, The NewsHour has run from this topic repeatedly and badly covered it when forced to.
As the 'commerical free' evening news and the only national broadcast evening news that lasts a full hour, The NewsHour has more time -- to cover the news or to waste. More and more, it appears to be focused on wasting time.
Not everyone was intent on wasting time. The hearing was Wednesday. Thursday ABC News' Martha Raddatz moderated the debate between US House Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden. At the start of the debate, she declared, "I would like to begin with Libya. On a rather somber note, one month ago tonight, on the anniversary of 9-11, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans were killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi. The State Department has now made clear there were no protesters there. It was a pre-planned assault by heavily armed men. Wasn't this a massive intelligence failure, Vice President Joe Biden?"
Joe blew off the question. He gave three generic, glancing sentences on Libya and then switched the topic to what the administration was going to do, to Iraq, then to Afghanistan. It was dismissive and it was rude on Joe's part -- not to Martha Raddatz but to a very serious issue. Those who would criticize his behavior as dismissive and rude throughout the debate may have formed that impression when he refused to honestly address that terrorist attack.
By Paul Ryan seriously addressed the issue.
US House Rep. Paul Ryan: We mourn the loss of these four Americans who were murdered. When you take a look at what has happened just in the last few weeks, they sent the UN Ambassador [Susan Rice] out to say that this was because of a protest and a YouTube video. It took the president two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack. He went to the UN and, in his speech at the UN, he said six times -- He talked about the YouTube video. Look, if we are hit by terrorists, we're going to call it for what it is, a terrorist attack. Our Ambassador in Paris has a Marine detachment guarding him. Shouldn't we have a Marine detachment guarding our ambassador in Benghazi, a place where we knew that there was an al Qaeda cell with arms? This is becoming more troubling by the day. They first blamed the YouTube video. Now they're trying to blame the Romney-Ryan ticket for making this an issue.
Others were minature Joe Bidens, dismissing the topic, making stuff up. By Friday, we were in shock over how the Wednesday hearing was being described.
WUSA felt the need to include some of the above from Ryan before beginning their lying passed off as a 'fact check.'. In fairness, Anita Brikman and Paul Singer may be not lying, they just may be incredibly ignorant (which would make them ignorant and unattractive, so get 'em off TV already).
Anita Brickman: Did it take the president two weeks to acknowledge this was a terror attack on our consulate?
Paul Singer: No. Uh, immediately after the even in fact he did say this was an act of terror. However, the explanation of what's been happening there has been evolving. And in the initial descriptions from the White House it was that there had been a protest which had organically arisen which was then taken over by terror groups to do this attack. In fact, it now appears there was no such protest at all, this was entirely an orchestrated attack.
What morons. The attack was September 11th. The White House noted it was a terrorist attack for the first time on September 20th. That's why it was news on September 20th. Andrea Mitchell led the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams broadcast with her report, "Good evening, Brian. And tonight the White House confirmed that the attack was an act of terror -- officials say by al Qaeda sympathizers. But big questions remain about when it was planned and why initial reports were wrong?"
Grasp it. Andrea wouldn't have been reporting "tonight the White House confirmed that the attack was an act of terror" if it hadn't been news on the 20th. That was 9 days after the attack. A week is 7 days. If it's over seven days, you're talking two weeks.
It's not that complicated unless you're a whore, a liar or an idiot -- or possibly all three.
And 'fact checkers' need to know facts. Hey, remember September 24th when Barack and Michelle taped their appearance on ABC's The View? Barack was asked that question directly and didn't call it terrorism. As was pointed out to White House spokesperson Jay Carney in a September 26th press briefing.
Seems 'fact checkers' at USA Today aren't even qualified to be coat checkers. NPR also tried to do a Libya fact check repeatedly on Friday. Their best attempt came during Morning Edition when they utilized Michele Kelemen:
Well, he's right that security officials who had served in Libya in the months leading up to this said they wanted beefed up security and were told by their superiors at the State Department that they wouldn't get it. And Biden was wrong when he said we didn't know they wanted more security. There were cables sent back to Washington. But, you know, these security officials weren't asking for a big Marine detachment. They wanted just to keep the extra guards that they had in place a little bit longer. And even one of the whistleblowers who testified at a House hearing this week said that the assault on September 11th was like nothing he had seen while he was in Libya and a few extra guards in that sort of situation may not have been enough.
Problems with the above? We've quoted Paul Ryan already. Where does he say that the late Ambassador Chris Stevens requested a Marine detail? He doesn't. He's pointing out that that's done in the much more tranquil city of Paris, so why wasn't something similar done for Benghazi? If there had been a Marine detail, this was in the hearing as well, members of it would have gone with Stevens to Benghazi. As for how much was being asked for, the whistle blower she mentions is the State Dept.'s Eric Nordstrom. He made clear that possible numbers were made at a level higher than him, back in the US at the State Department.
The Diane Rehm Show is a two-hour program which meant Diane had twice as many opportunities to screw up what took place in the hearing. In the first hour Friday, the domestic hour, NPR's Ron Elving was the big whore of the first hour declaring, "Well Darrell Issa, who is the Republican chairman of the committee, made sure that they had witnesses who were going to question the government's version of facts and who are going to suggest that the government was repeatedly warned, that Benghazi was vulnerable and so on."
Where to begin? How about Darrell Issa is a Republican and he is Chair of the House Oversight Committee? He is not the Republican chair. That wording implies that there is a Republican chair of the committee and a Democratic one.
Second "made sure that they had witnesses who were going to question the government's version of facts"? There were four witnesses. Three were State Dept. employees. (The fourth was a member of the military.)
Ron dismissed the whole thing and apparently doesn't know (or maybe just doesn't care) about the September 11, 2012 cable that Stevens wrote. Despite having nothing to offer on the issue, Diane wasn't done with the topic and returned in her second hour (international) to it. By sheer coincidence, she wanted Abderrahim Foukara to weigh in -- Abderrahim being most infamous on the program for the time he talked how wonderful Barack Obama was. Any chance he might be vested in the topic?
In fairness to Foukara, he's also infamous for lying about Al Jazeera's coverage of the assault on CBS News reporter Lara Logan in Egypt and for lying again about it and for calling her "Laura Logan." We're sure Foukara's has got to have had at least one good journalism moment in all the years somewhere, we've just never been able to find it.
And it wasn't to be found on Friday.
"Well, unfortunately, for me personally," insisted Foukara -- vain enough to turn the topic of a terrorist attack into his own personal drama, "what I've learned -- I'm strongly reminded that the United States is in the throes of an election. Because an investigation that was supposed to look into the conditions that led to the attack on the consult in Benghazi and to the killing of four Americans including Ambassador Stevens, has turned into an election issue."
What a load of crap. But more was to come because Foukara had more 'wisdom' to share including, "All the signs during that debate in Congress yesterday . . ." What? The hearing wasn't Thursday. The hearing was on Wednesday.
Diane soon went to The Wall Street Journal's Nathan Guttman who wanted to mention that the State Department was accused of not providing enough security and that "one of the replies is that they just didn't have enough and that they've been undergoing cuts, budget cuts, led by Republicans in Congress and for this diplomatic security mission."
First off, that spin is Democratic spin and it was established in the hearing that more Democrats voted for the House measure on funding the State Dept than Republicans. The Chair corrected the record and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings and others present didn't object to the interpretation. Consider that they objected to everything else, we'll assume that means Issa was correct and more Democrats in the House voted for it than Republicans.
Second, if the State Dept didn't get everything they wanted, maybe they shouldn't have been so damn greedy. Yeah, we're back to those (wasted) billions State 'needed' for Iraq for Fiscal Year 2012. If State hadn't spread themselves so thin, they wouldn't have been asking for so much money. Maybe before all the 'training' funds they request next fiscal year, they should nail down what they're going to need for security first?
NBC's Courtney Kube wanted to pipe up as well and she insisted that a military group being extended, well, "they may not have been in Benghazi during the attack to help anyway." Was she at the hearing? A portion, at the every least, a portion of such a team would have accompanied the ambassador to Benghazi. This was established in the hearing.
More annoying was realizing what they weren't talking about.
For example, the State Dept. knew it was a terrorist attack. When and how and when the 'protest' nonsense was dropped from the narrative Patrick Kennedy didn't want to speculate on, he said. He would need to review some documents -- it was pointed out to Kennedy that the topic of the hearing was known ahead of time so he should have already reviewed documents for this hearing.
What he did allow was that on September 12th, the day after the attack, he was telling Congressional aides that it was a terrorist attack.
This was known for a variety of reasons including that the attack was on camera.
Video exists of the attack. Kennedy kept trying to say a law enforcement agency had it. Issa told him to stop saying that, that they both knew the Justice Dept. didn't have it and a segment of government had the video and was refusing to allow Congress to see it.
The video makes clear it was a terrorist attack -- this from the statements of Kennedy and the State Dept.'s Charlene Lamb -- neither of whom was a 'whistle blower' at the hearing.
Here's what else you could learn from what the State Dept said and what a member objected to. There was a CIA operation in Beghazi. The 'safe house' was a CIA house. When the attack started, CIA agents were running for cover.
Wanting to try that lie about bad intel again? CIA agents were wounded in the attack.
Are we still going to play the bad intel nonsense?
Repeating, (A) video exists of the assault, (B) Patrick Kennedy was telling Congressional staffers September 12th that it was a terrorist attack and (C) CIA agents were wounded in the attack. How does the White House not immediately know it was a terrorist attack? CIA agents running to the safe house knew it was a terrorist attack when it was happening.
So the attack and the 9 day cover up of it by the White House is news and is an issue.
Unless you're paid gas bag David Brooks of The New York Times appearing on NPR's All Things Considered. E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post brought up Benghazi all by himself and insisted "it will not be a voting issue." Robert Siegel attempted to get an answer from Brooks who wanted to joke around. Siegel reset the discussion and both Brooks and Dionne became a lot less dismissive.
Again, good for Siegel. It's something Melissa Bloch failed to do with the two the week before. Siegel seemed to grasp that giggles over a terrorist act wasn't going to pass as professional and he pressed the topic to make the Brooks and Dionne actually explore it.
And maybe Seigel's journalistic approach left some sort of an impression because Brooks provided a much more coherent answer when he appeared later that same day on The NewsHour (this time book-ending with Mark Shields). He brought the topic up on his own.
David Brooks: The Benghazi thing, that hurt Biden a little.
Judy Woodruff: This is Libya.
David Brooks: The Libya thing. I think a lot of things actually in retrospect, as I think about the debate, were not explored as much as they should have been.
No kidding.
But in what world is the White House either not knowing or lying about what happened in Benghazi not an issue?
In what world does this not go to character and competence?
We seem to remember when the media would have you believe that a blow job went to character. Suddenly dishonesty or incompetence in your official duties and role isn't an issue?