Friday afternoon, at The Washington Post, media critic Erik Wemple ventured into choppy waters. The mistake he made was on Benghazi. Specifically, the mistake he made was in believing "the State Department" -- unnamed advisor.
His second mistake was in relying on prepared remarks to Congress to 'cover' a hearing.
Erik, it's not that easy.
And this issue on the footage of the attacks? You've missed the boat completely. Patrick Kennedy -- not Charlene Lamb -- was the one the press should have paid attention to. And the footage was addressed in the rounds of questions, not in the prepared remarks of witnesses.
Since you didn't attend the hearing that you now want to act like an expert on, you're going to need to get your fingers over to the House Oversight Committee website and stream the now archived hearing.
C.I., Ava, Wally and Kat don't have to stream it because they attended the hearing. And they reported on it in: "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "2 disgrace in the Committee hearing," "The White House's Jimmy Carter moment" and "What we learned at today's hearing."
It's interesting that Wemple has yet to report on the fact that the video that exists was not released to Congress at the time of the hearing or that the FBI had no objection to Congress viewing the video. Wemple might try reporting on who kept the video from Congress. He could ask his unnamed State Department source. Again, these are questions he would be asking if he'd attended the hearing.
