The Return of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy: Administration's/Democrats' Coordinated Response to Benghazi Email Is to Call All Inquiries and Doubts "Conspiracy Theories" and "Delusional"

It's worth remembering that in 1994 a Chris Lehane-drafted memo conjured up the menace of the "vast rightwing conspiracy" by essentially claiming that any and all derogatory reports on Bill and Hillary Clinton were "conspiracy theories."

There were indeed some claims made by conservatives on the internet that could be termed "conspiracy theories," such as the alleged cover-up of the Vince Foster suicide.

But the Lehane memo also categorized Gennifer Flowers' and Paula Jones' allegations as "conspiracy theories." And of course they were true.

The scandal-plagued Democrats now enact the same playbook, claiming that every true-but-damaging thing said against them constitutes a "conspiracy theory" that no reasonable person could possibly entertain.

Jay Carney:

“There is a problem when you have so many conspiracy theories that get knocked down by the facts and yet, the adherents to those theories only become more convinced that the facts aren’t what they so clearly are,” Carney said, calling the special committee “so partisan in nature.”

Carney went on to criticize the “information loop” on Benghazi saying that Republicans and “certain media outlets” were fueling a false narrative on the attack that killed four Americans.

David Plouffe calls any questions about Benghazi "delusional."

"There's a very loud, delusional minority that's driving our politics that's in control of the Republican Party. There's no conspiracy here at all."

Former Congresswoman (D) Jane Harman likewise claims that Republicans are engaging in "conspiracy theories" about Benghazi.

HARMAN: [L]et me make a couple comments on Benghazi. I know something about this. And the day after the Susan Rice appearances, I -- or the day after the event, I was meeting with some senior intelligence committee folks, because I still advise in some capacities on boards to some of our agencies. And I think there was legitimate confusion.

I agree about the point that the video was in Egypt and nobody really knew what the facts were. I'm reading from the Ben Rhodes memo which I've never seen before and it said, "We're not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent."

And I think that was accurate. So --

WALLACE: Because we didn't have actionable intelligence about 9/11. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.

HARMAN: No, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

WALLACE: It doesn't mean it wasn't a terror attack.

HARMAN: I would call that an intelligence failure. And, by the way, this was an intelligence failure. But it wasn't a conspiracy. And there aren't aliens in Area 51 and Vince Foster wasn't murdered.

And it's time to move on and focus on the real problems in Libya and other problems that affect the --

Sounds like the White House has crafted some new Talking Points about their discredited Benghazi Talking Points.

In the Obama Wonderland of endless dissembling, even the Talking Points have their own Talking Points.

Incidentally, Britt Hume let Jane Harman have it on her rote Talking Points Talking Points.

“You’re right, there wasn’t a conspiracy in the United States to mount the Benghazi attack,” Hume said. ”That’s not the question. The question was whether in the aftermath of the attack, when the administration sent its U.N. ambassador out to explain it to everybody, and she did so falsely, that there wasn’t a conspiracy to create the false talking points that she used. I’m not talking about the CIA talking points, I’m talking about the talking points used on that program that day, which were monumentally misleading, that since have been shown to be false, and based on no intelligence of any consequence that we know of.”

Hume pressed Harman to name a single person in the administration who credibly believed that the Benghazi attack was connected to an anti-Islam video. Predictably, she could not do so.

“Ben Rhodes talks about the video five times in this memo, five times,” host Chris Wallace interjected.

Sharyl Atkkisson notes that this is precisely what she means when she talks about the Administration's unending campaign to "controversialize" legitimate, factual reporting they don't like.

SHARYL ATTKISSON: Well, the key words they use such as conspiracy and delusional are in my opinion, clearly designed to try to controversialize a story, a legitimate news story, a legitimate area of journalistic inquiry. To some degree, that’s successful, but I think primarily among those that don’t want to look at this as a story in the first place. But I see that as a well-orchestrated strategy to controversialize a story they really don’t want to hear about.

The media, she means, by that bit.

The best lie is the one you never have to offer, because you've intimidated people from asking about it at all.

posted by Ace at 03:33 PM

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