{"id":8474,"date":"2012-11-19T09:33:22","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T17:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=8474"},"modified":"2012-11-19T09:33:22","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T17:33:22","slug":"fox-nation-vs-reality-the-white-house-did-not-edit-cia-talking-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=8474","title":{"rendered":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: The White House Did Not Edit CIA Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earning a place at the top of the Fox Nation web site this morning is story that complies perfectly with the non-existent journalistic standards of Fox News. The article cites the uber-conservative blog FreeBeacon and features the headline “White House Deleted Al Qaeda From CIA Talking Points.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Get the New eBook Fox Nation vs. Reality<\/a> from Amazon.com.
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As usual, the Fox Nationalists only got one thing wrong with their story: the whole story. As it turns out, there is no evidence that the White House deleted Al Qaeda from the CIA talking points. What’s more, there is nothing in the article that affirms the falsehood in the headline.<\/p>\n

This story hinges on the latest effort by the right and Fox News to malign President Obama and to politicize the tragic deaths of Americans in Benghazi, Libya. There has been a well coordinated smear campaign seeking to blame Obama not only for attacks perpetrated by terrorists, but also for a cover-up of information about those attacks. The GOP is also exploiting the affair to derail the possible appointment of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to be the next Secretary of State.<\/p>\n

However, the partisan outrage has been woefully short of any substance. The right has been clamoring for answers from the White House, but when they get the answers they pretend that they didn’t hear anything. The official White House response from Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor, stated clearly that…<\/p>\n

“This question came up as to whether the White House had edited Susan Rice\u2019s points and the points that were provided to Congress and the administration — the only edit that was made to those points by the White House, and was also made by the State Department, was to change the word \u201cconsulate\u201d<\/em> to \u201cdiplomatic facility\u201d<\/em> since the facility in Benghazi had not — was not formally a consulate. Other than that, we worked off of the points that were provided by the intelligence community.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n