Fox News Airs Live Flop Of Their Benghazi Wannabe Scandal – Stephen Colbert Gets Mad

The events of September 12, 2013, in Benghazi, Libya, were unambiguously tragic. However, while most Americans would hold the band of terrorists at the scene responsible for the attacks on our diplomatic facility and CIA post, Fox News and Republicans in congress have been fiercely battling to find any excuse to blame President Obama and/or Hillary Clinton.

With the circus sideshow offered today by GOP Representative Darrell Issa’s House committee, the effort to politicize the affair hit a new low. Although much was promised prior to the hearing, there was nothing illuminating that came from it. This was even after Fox pundits repeatedly vowed that the information they knew was going to be unveiled would be shocking and devastating to the administration. Their previews were so emphatic that Stephen Colbert made a point of launching a “Benghazi – Something That Will Make You Mad Clock.”

Stephen Colbert

It’s fair to say that Colbert is furious today. And so are some of the right-wing media fluffers who are appalled that these unproductive hearings were ignored by much of the television press. NewsBusters went to the trouble of compiling the aggregate minutes that each of the cable news networks allotted to the hearings. To no one’s surprise, Fox dominated their competition. But that’s because the Benghazi Show was a Fox News Presentation from get-go. The other networks might have devoted more airtime to the story if there were anything actually newsworthy emanating from it.

What NewsBusters didn’t bother to report to their deluded audience was that all the extra time that Fox spent airing the live hearings was focused largely on Republican members of the committee. Media Matters did their own compilation and discovered that 71% of the 65 minutes they monitored featured GOP members making statements and questioning the witnesses. And that was even after anchor Megyn Kelly announced that their coverage had been unfairly weighted toward Democrats. That, of course, was not true, yet Kelly kept her promise to feature even more Republicans.

Now that the hearings have concluded with no smoking gun – not even a gently glowing ember – we can expect Fox and the GOP to set aside these spurious allegations and pursue some other fabricated scandal. And if you believe that, you haven’t been watching Fox the past 17 years.

Glenn Beck Revokes His Own Honor Badge

In the past week Glenn Beck has made news of sorts by declaring his conviction that America is such an affront to God that He must destroy it, by presenting an image of the Jewish mayor of New York in a Nazi salute, and by portraying Jesus as a pistol-packin’ Messiah. But these are just common examples of the dementia that Beck endures on a daily basis.

Right Wing Watch has captured another example of Beck’s deranged incoherence that was revealed this week (video below). On May 3, 2013, Beck proudly discussed his role as a journalist while speculating wildly about the man who committed suicide in the Houston airport.

“As a journalist and somebody who runs a journalistic organization, here’s what I want you to look for.”

A mere three days later Beck was spinning yarns about Benghazi when he said this:

“I have always said that I am not a journalist. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a thinker. But I wear it as a badge of honor that I am not a journalist.”

Let’s not even venture into the lunacy that Beck thinks he is a thinker, except to say that Jim Jones also had “thoughts.” However, Beck has obviously not always said that he isn’t a journalist, because he said he was one a few days earlier. And if not being a journalist earned him a “badge of honor,” then I suppose he will be returning that badge to whatever imaginary institution issued it.

Glenn Beck

Benghazi-Gate: The Feverish Fixation Of Fox News On Finishing Off Obama

The compulsive, gnawing yearning is palpable. Fox News is so obsessed with terminating the presidency of Barack Obama that they are veritably bursting at the seams of their shrunken skulls. They are dripping with flop-sweat over the self-manufactured prospect of evicting from the White House the man they failed twice to defeat democratically.

Fox News

It is truly an embarrassing demonstration of puerile covetousness as Fox’s leading mouthpieces gush inane and irrelevant comparisons that only serve to advance their deepest desires for political payback. Having realized that the American people refused to go along with their electoral smear campaigns, Fox is now throwing a tantrum as a desperate tactic to get what they crave so furiously.

The daft predictions served up by Fox are not only ludicrous and unfounded, they are as far removed from the comparable historical associations they are trying to jam into the public mind as is imaginable. The tragedies that took place in Benghazi are not impeachable, and they are not remotely similar to the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Nevertheless, Fox has been pushing this theme, without success, since nearly the day after Benghazi erupted.

Fox Nation

As I wrote last September, after Fox had embarked on a massive campaign of propaganda and lies (something that Fox Nation lives for), there is nothing analogous about Benghazi and Watergate.

Ever since the mid-1970’s scandal that drove Richard Nixon from office, partisans have been attempting to slap a “gate” at the end of any controversy. But it should be remembered that Watergate was not simply some government gaffe. It was an intentionally criminal act that included breaking into Democratic headquarters, paying off accomplices for their silence, and lying to investigators from law enforcement and congress. All of that unlawfulness was in pursuit of personal political benefits to the Nixon White House and reelection effort.

What occurred in Libya was tragic, but it was certainly not the result of someone in the White House pursuing personal gain. Nor was there any hint of corruption or clandestine plots to sabotage a political foe. Nor were there any attempts to covertly mask unlawful activity. In other words, there is nothing in this story that remotely resembles Watergate.

Nothing has changed since then. There has been no new evidence. There have been no new revelations. Even the hearings being held today offer nothing censurable. The affair was exhaustively reviewed by an independent board led by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, career public servants who worked in the administrations of both Republicans and Democrats. And the myths proffered by right-wing pundits and politicians have been repeatedly debunked. Consequently, all of the hubbub produced by Fox and their congressional comrades is a conspicuous waste of time when the country has critical issues to resolve.

So all of this yammering about driving Obama from office is just the wishful thinking of whiny Republicans who couldn’t get what they wanted at the ballot box. The American people rejected them forthrightly, so now they are whimpering about it and demanding that their cries be heeded. They want an impeachment and, damn it, they will hold their breath until they turn red to get it.

Like so many other things in the GOP run House, their motives are purely political. They will hold the nation hostage to defend tax breaks for billionaires. They will harm the economy, even resulting in a downgrade of the nation’s credit rating, in order to make points with Teabaggers. They will filibuster executive appointments and judges and even bills they previously sponsored, if it will hurt the President. And now they are making irresponsible calls for impeachment that are not based on any credible facts.

This is the sort detachment from reality, and the American public, that has cost them two elections and lost them seats in both houses of congress. And it comes at a time when there are more urgent and pressing matters of importance to the American people. The Republican Party and their PR division at Fox News are betraying the people. It is interesting to note that no one would celebrate the downfall of Obama more than Al Qaeda. Obama is the man who terminated their leader. If it were possible to impeach Obama, which is highly unlikely, the GOP and Al Qaeda could save considerable expense by pooling their resources and throwing a joint party to commemorate the realization of their fondest shared dreams.