Obama Administration Directs Active Cover-Up Of Benghazi Terrorist Attack; Media Enables and Joins

From Steven Hayes, the Obama's previous spin -- no, not spin; direct, to-your-face lies for political gain-- has come undone.

I don't think I can ad much to this and will not try. I will note this, though: Steve Hayes' article uses as its starting point a timeline of statements by the administration -- heavy on "spontaneous" incident due to "that film" until the past few days -- which was put together by the Washington Post's "Fact Checker," Glenn Kessler.

In fact, it runs under his "Fact Checker" byline.

He refuses to check the facts, though:

Kessler writes: “We will leave it to readers to reach their own conclusions on whether this is merely the result of the fog of war and diplomacy — or a deliberate effort to steer the storyline away from more politically damaging questions. After all, in a competitive election, two weeks is a lifetime.”

The entire point of his "Fact Checker" gig is to test the truthfulness of statements offered by high political officials, but in this case -- where the Obama administration has plainly said untrue things for two weeks (by their own sudden admission) he says the reader can pass judgment on their own, and helpfully offers Obama an "out" -- "fog of war."

But it wasn't fog of war. They know from almost the first hours that this was a planned attack, which included attacks from indirect-fire mortars which require a fair amount of skill to aim.

Further, they were not tentative in their conclusions as a "fog of war" situation would suggest they should be -- instead, they were very certain that this was not a planned attack (despite occurring on September 11th and having the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda attack). They said so repeatedly.

What they said, again and again, with perfect confidence, was:

1. This was spontaneous attack no one could possibly have seen coming (so it's not our fault).

2. There was no actionable intelligence whatsoever suggesting a September 11th attack (so it's not our fault).

3. The consulate had the right amount of security, despite everyone inside it being massacred (so it's not our fault).

And Glenn Kessler's "Fact Check"? Readers will have to make of this what they will.

So when you wonder why these "Fact Checkers" rate Democratic claims as absolutely true twice as often as Republican ones, and Republican claims absolutely false twice as often as Democratic ones, keep this in mind: When Glenn Kessler has a series of Administration statements which were quite clearly false, by their own admission, he does not render a Fact Check at all, but invites the reader to conduct his own, but always keeping "fog of war" in mind.

Or as Fact Check might call it, if it bothered with a fact check: Entirely false, but see, it's not their fault!

Which is the overall message they're selling: Not our fault.

These are the same fact checkers which will call a Romney statement -- like the fact that gas prices have doubled since Obama took over -- false, because, even while literally true, they don't think the implication is fair.

Here, the Administration's statements were both literally false (it was not spontaneous) and false in implication (it was, then, not unforeseeable, and steps could and should have been taken), and Glenn Kessler says "No comment."

posted by Ace at 04:45 PM

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