World News Korner

New Republican report essentially agrees with the White House concerning Benghazi. Wait, a Republican report?

Courtesy of Think Progress:

In a new report released on Tuesday, the House Armed Services Committee concludes that there was no way for the U.S. military to have responded in time to the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya to save the four Americans killed that night. In doing so, the report debunks entirely a right-wing myth that says the White House ordered the military not to intervene.

For months after the attack that resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, conservative media was awash in reports that on the night of the assault the Obama administration at some point ordered the military not to take action that would have saved lives. This supposed “stand down order” led to a bevy of right-wing conspiracies about why the President and his administration had let the Americans die. “

Who told the SEALs to stand down?” Rep. Steve King asked in Nov. 2012, in just one of many interviews with Republicans referring to the response to Benghazi as “worse than Watergate.” As Media Matters reports, Fox News cited reports of a stand-down order no fewer than 85 times during prime-time segments as of June 2013. As the new report — which the Republican majority of the committee authored –makes very clear in its findings, however, no such order ever existed. “There was no ‘stand down’ order issued to U.S. military personnel in Tripoli who sought to join the fight in Benghazi,” the report says, noting that the military was not positioned to respond to the attack.

“Given the military’s preparations on September 11, 2012, majority members have not yet discerned any response alternatives that could have likely changed the outcome of the Benghazi attack,” the report concludes.

And another Right Wing talking point dies a lonely ignoble death.

Now while you are trying to digest the fact that his committee just took a giant dump all over the GOP strategy to smear Hillary Clinton in 2016, you might also like to know that even over at Fox News there are some breaking ranks with the "Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi" attacks.

Courtesy of Media Matters:

Without fanfare, Fox News host Megyn Kelly finally acknowledged that the network's campaign to sink Susan Rice's potential nomination to President Obama's cabinet was rooted in fundamental dishonesty.

During a discussion with Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) on the February 11 edition of her Fox News show, Kelly referenced a House committee report released that day, and admitted that Rice's talking points reflected CIA intelligence that "the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the embassy in Cairo":

Hey it just occurred to me that this cable news station does nothing but lie.

KELLY: Let me ask you about DOD [Department of Defense]. Because I know your report concludes that DOD officials believed nearly from the onset that this was a terrorist attack and not some sort of a protest gone awry. Now, I want to get specific, because so many people have said, 'So then why did Susan Rice go out and talk about protests? Why did she mention a video?' But the CIA talking points, the very first draft that went out and was circulated, that Susan Rice ultimately was provided, that top officials ultimately saw, talked about a protest. They did. The CIA actually came out, I want to look at it here, and said this is a draft from September 14th, 11:15 am, 'We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.' So, tell me, does that -- does it or does it not answer the question about how our officials started to come out and talk about protests and the video?

Kelly's admission that the administration's talking points were not manipulated for political reasons marks the devastation of yet another Benghazi myth hyped by the right-wing media

And just like that, the Right Wing attack machine realizes it is fresh out of ammunition.

Well hey, on the plus side the Republicans still have Monica Lewinsky.

Oh they are so screwed.

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