Benghazi: No mere 'October surprise

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

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Benghazi: No mere 'October surprise

If you want to understand why conservatives have lost faith in the so-called mainstream media, you need to ponder the question: Where is the Benghazi feeding frenzy?

Unlike some of my colleagues on the right, I don't think there's a conspiracy at work. Rather, I think journalists tend to act on their instincts (some even brag about this; you could look it up). And, collectively, the mainstream media's instincts run liberal, making groupthink inevitabl

In 2000, a Democratic operative orchestrated an "October surprise" attack on George W. Bush, revealing that 24 years earlier, he'd been arrested for drunk driving. The media went into a feeding frenzy.

"Is all the 24-hour coverage of Bush's 24-year-old DUI arrest the product of a liberal media almost drunk on the idea of sinking him, or is it a legitimate, indeed unavoidable news story?" asked Howard Kurtz in a segment for his CNN show "Reliable Sources."

The consensus among the guests: It wasn't a legitimate news story. But the media kept going with it.

One could go on and on. In September 2004, former CBS titan Dan Rather gambled his entire career on a story about Bush's service in the National Guard. His instincts were so powerful, he didn't thoroughly check the documents he relied on, which were forgeries.

In 2008, the media feeding frenzy over John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, was so ludicrous it belonged in a Tom Wolfe novel.

Over the last couple of years, the mainstream media have generally treated Occupy Wall Street as idealistic, the "tea parties" as racist and terrifying.

To be sure, there have been conservative feeding frenzies: about Barack Obama's pastor, John Kerry's embellishments of his war record, etc. But the mainstream media usually have tasked themselves with the duty of debunking and dispelling such "hysteria."

Last week, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that sources on the ground in Libya say they pleaded for support during the attack on the Benghazi consulate that led to the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. They were allegedly told twice to "stand down." Worse, there are suggestions that there were significant military resources available to counterattack, but requests for help were denied.

If true, the White House's concerted effort to blame the attack on a video crumbles, as do several other fraudulent claims. Yet, last Friday, the president boasted that "the minute I found out what was happening" in Benghazi, he ordered that everything possible be done to protect our personnel.

That is either untrue, or he's being disobeyed on grave matters.

This isn't an "October surprise" foisted on the media by opposition research; it's news.

This story raises precisely the sort of "big issues" the media routinely claim elections should be about. For instance, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that the "basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on, without having some real-time information about what's taking place."

If real-time video of the attack and communications with Americans on the ground begging for assistance don't constitute "real-time information," what does

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

You keep peddling this - even hiding the right wing author - and yet, this ###### ain't getting no damn legs. Face it, your boy flip flopped one too many.