Squirrel!

Laser-like focus on jobs.

Oh man, let me just take this opportunity to vent: I go to a gym where they have lots of TVs, hanging from the ceiling and tuned to different stations - as you run on a treadmill you can kind of survey the daily TV landscape, which is neat. So, yesterday I'm on the treadmill and I see that one of the TVs is showing footage of what looks like some sort of fiery disaster; my immediate thought is something along the lines of 'Oh no, did something terrible just happen somewhere? Is this network just the first to cover it? Is that why it's only being shown on this one channel.' I quickly figure out that this is the dedicated Fox News TV, and while the other news shows are busy with the Donald Sterling racism controversy, the recent botched execution in Oklahoma, speculation on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, and how-tos for making tasty low-fat meals, good old Fox is showing footage of the Benghazi embassy from September 11, 2012. As I write this it's May 2, 2014. Yeah.

Democrats have to use this and the RNC/Tea Party refusing to have a debate on raising the minimum wage. There's no time for immigration reform, education, minimum wage, climate change, Ukraine, prison reform, death penalty etc, but there is time for ACA and Benghazi.

The single purpose here is to cause trouble for H. Clinton. Republicans couldn't care less about American lives or "freedom of information."

They want to keep this issue alive, because they think it touches Hillary in some way.

The entire function of this "investigation" is anti-Hillary propaganda

What I wish more people would take away from this is how Roger Ailes is Minister of Propaganda for the Republican Party. Was the yellowness of Hearst's yellow journalism any yellower when pushing for the Spanish-American War than Fox is today?

It's the sheer coordination of right-wing propaganda that I find so troubling. Daily talking points are actually distributed to participants working in radio and Newscorp outlets, in coordination with elected officials who are going to hammer the same points.

Collusion between elements of the press, elected officials, and the interests of plutocrats is nothing new. Adding in nearly-scripted talk radio, and paid shills to work the blogs and online comments sections to amplify the impact, though, is new.

The Press is supposed to be the 4th branch of our government. Starting with Agnew, Republicans have bullied most of it into submission, and outright perverted chunks of it. Discourse in America is supposed to be free and honest and a bit chaotic. Using shills and stooges to seed public thought just seems diabolical.

@5 And the most pathetic part of that is that they aren't even helping themselves vis-a-vis HRC. They'd be better off just saying "she was responsible for one room and she blew it, so why give her the keys to the whole house." Simple narrative, should win a few points here and there.

Instead they feel the need to concoct this grand conspiracy about talking points and Sunday talk shows, which is never going to get any traction. What voter is going to say "well, I was going to vote for Clinton, but then I found out that a White House advisor (who wasn't Clinton) told another White House advisor (who wasn't Clinton) to tell the Ambassador to the United Nations (who wasn't Clinton) to tell Bob Schieffer (who definitely wasn't Clinton) that the attack was caused by a video, even though that White House advisor had strong reason to believe that the attack may not have been caused by that video."

They are looking for Monica Lewinsky, but unfortunately Obama may be the rare Man Who doesn't sleep around.

It's not just Fox, did anyone else see Jonathan Carl get into over it with Jay Carney?
The fact remain that the White House was desperate to make this look like the sole result of an internet video. At least own up to that and admit that they overplayed that would easily quell this story.

It's not news to anyone here so why wastes our time with Republican manufactured crises when there are so many real crises to attend to like the TPP for example that is almost entirely absent from corporate news media coverage.

Hey, don't forget to give the GOP credit for our amazing 1.5% unemployment rate! They said in 2008 that jobs would be their #1 priority, and by-gosh-and-by-golly, they stuck to it!

First, those clowns have to find on a map.

Articles about "Benghazi" in the NYT and the Wa.Post? a combined 618 pieces! Articles about the TPP in the NYT and Wa.Post? a combined 18 pieces (2:1 pro-TPP). Also, 444 stories about the "IRS/conservative groups scandals" by the NYT and Wa.Post. The newspapers of record show how manufacturing consent is properly done.

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/le…

@10: no, that "fact" does not "remain".

when the bad black-rice-woman-who-is-not-condi said it was the video that prompted it, facts were in flux and they made a statement that later proved inaccurate. at the time, the entire Muslim world was enraged and in the streets over what AN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN had said about their prophet in his shit movie) there was no intent to deceive.

plus, the job of the state department is to be diplomatic (in this case to save face for our new Libyan militia allies), so they have to fucking lie.

conservatives don't seem to have any problem with this when the GOP is in the white house.

Vince Foster was the first casualty of Benghazi.

@14 There was an actual news story before the right wingers devolved it into conspiracy theories. Much like flight 370. It did crash and that was worthy of a couple days' focus, just not all the breaking "no news" alerts since then.

@15: It's not about political affiliations, its about a needless cover up over a cover up when it had no real impact on Obama's chances on winning the 2012 election. Nixon had more to worry about in 1972 than Obama in 2012.

Too bad Boehner wasn't in the compound when it burned down.

#20: It wasn't a cover-up. It was messaging, something that every politician does.

@22: I can agree with that. Needless messaging works for me.

Yeah, it was a "cover-up" that lasted LESS THAN 24 HOURS, until better information came to light.

World's most pointless "conspiracy"!

Why aren't Republicans outraged about the thousands of Americans killed on 9/11/2001? Or the diplomats killed under the Bush administration? Or the hundreds of Americans killed under Reagan? This is strictly political gamesmanship to hurt President Hilary Clinton, which will not work.

The republicans are running out of ammunition. They have no credibility and are trying to dredge up anything that will astound their voter base (which by the way is dwindling rapidly.) Obamacare is here to stay, Benghazi is a non issue, they don't have any bombshell issue to lie to their followers about anymore. Hillary is the winner already in 2016 and the republicans know it and are very, very scared. If we can get rid of boner and his butt buddy mcconell that will be a huge start to making our Govt. more responsible to the voters and effective for future growth of our country.

Thankfully Rush Limbaugh is a tireless shill that will literally spin anything towards Benghazi. With him in their corner, they have him to pander to the crazies while at the same time they sound more "reasonable" by comparison to the rest of the (non-crazy) base.