Right Wing Sees Vast Conspiracy in Benghazi Capture (VIDEO)

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Liberal America
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Benghazi attack
Credit: Mike Fitzpatrick via USA.gov

I am married to a Reagan Republican. She has a picture of a smiling Gipper as her desktop background. She says that when she dies, she wants a ten-foot statue of Ronnie to mark her gravesite, and I don’t think she’s kidding. She thinks the post-millenial crowd of Republicans are barking mad, hates them with the fervor of the converted, and knows on an intellectual level that Reagan was, to put it kindly, not the best of presidents. But she still reveres him. And I’ve learned from my years of walking softly around the topic and reading some of the material she’s recommended that in some respects he was a good and decent person. Headed a lousy administration, and held some spectacularly offensive and wrongheaded views, but not a bad guy. In other words, the reality of Reagan isn’t the Saint Ronnie as revered by the right, or Ronnie Raygun as despised by the left. It’s somewhere in the middle.

The right won’t give that fundamental acknowledgement about President Obama. No matter what Obama and his administration has achieved — rescued the economy, provided millions with health care, ended the war in Iraq, oversaw the elimination of Osama bin Laden, saved the US auto industry from collapse, opposed and repealed a number of anti-gay, anti-minority, and anti-women policies, pushed the federal government to “go green,” expanded stem cell research, more — in the right’s view, he’s a Kenyan traitor and terrorist sympathizer who has colluded since before his birth with Communists and America-haters to destroy America and replace it with, well, something bad. I could spend the next ten thousand words delineating the thousand and one crimes of which the right has tried and convicted him without a shred of evidence. I won’t; you know the litany as well as I do.

The Rise of #Benghazi

The current faux scandal that the right is convinced will Bring Down the Tyrant is the September 2012 attacks on our consulate in Benghazi. Except the right isn’t angry about the attacks that killed four Americans. It’s insanely obsessed with what many on the left call #Benghazi — the almost entirely fictional tale the right has created around the Benghazi attacks, in which Obama either sat on his hands giggling while the consulate was attacked or actually orchestrated the attacks himself, then engaged in a massive and contradictory conspiracy of lies to, well, everyone about, well, everything remotely connected to the attacks. It is the latest and perhaps the greatest of the array of fake Obama scandals concocted by the right in one abortive attempt after another to either cripple or destroy the Obama presidency, from his “Kenyan birth,” his “Muslim extremism,” and his “never-ending attempt to destroy the US economy” to Solyndra, Fast and Furious, the IRS, “secret plans to confiscate Americans’ guns,” and so many others. It doesn’t matter that these were debunked, sometimes within minutes of their introduction. Come on, these are the same people who still insist that Bill Clinton is a coke-dealing, commie-sympathizing rapist who conspired to destroy the American economy, made millions off the Whitewater deal and whose wife had Vince Foster murdered after their illicit love tryst came to a bad end. Proof? Who cares about proof? It’s all about destroying the Democratic president. Or in this case, the black Democratic president, which we know is far, far worse in their eyes.

The Scandal Implodes

The #Benghazi scandal, after limping along for two years being steadily eroded by one factual debunking after another, finally imploded yesterday, when the White House announced that one of the masterminds behind the raid had been captured. Subsequently, reports came out showing that the captive, Ahmed Abu Khattala, admitted that the attack took place in response to an inflammatory video that insulted Islam. This destroys one of the foundational underpinnings of #Benghazi — that the Obama administration lied about the reasons behind the attack. Now the person who planned and orchestrated the attack has said in essence, yep, the Obama administration (and the Defense Department, and the State Department, and the CIA, and hundreds of investigative journalists, and media commentators, and bloggers, and your not-conservative Aunt Fanny) had it right all along.

The right’s response? Take a great big guess.

A Tsunami of Stupid

According to them, the capture itself is a Vast Conspiracy. Within moments of the report that Khattala had been captured, Fox News anchors and commentators began casting aspersions on the story, joined within a few more moments by talk-radio luminary Rush Limbaugh and the spokesman for soon-to-be-gone House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. The capture’s timing was quite suspicious, the talking heads said while stroking each other’s beards. Why was it suspicious? Well, they weren’t sure about that. Maybe it was to help Hillary sell her books. Or to give her something to crow about on her upcoming Fox News interview — because being on Fox News for a half-hour was just that important. Or maybe it was to distract the American citizenry with something shiny, so they would all magically forget about Iraq’s current raft of troubles. Did they have proof? Ha! No proof needed, just lots of suspicion and implications. That’s more than enough. And, as always, Republican lawmakers leapt happily into the laps of their media leaders, echoing and doubling down on what the crazies in the right-wing scream machine were saying.

We are nose-deep in this tsunami of stupid, and the waters continue to rise.

Khattala Wasn’t In His Supervillain Hideout!

One of the favorite instamemes from the right is the fact that Khattala wasn’t buried in an underground lair of evil, or holed up in an anonymous safe house. Goodness me, said Fox’s Jon Scott, Khattala was “out sitting in sidewalk cafes meeting with reporters.”

Cantor’s soon-to-be-unemployed communications director, Rory Cooper, said much the same thing:

It’s true, reporters have had fairly good access to Khattala in recent months. It’s also irrelevant. Those reporters had to travel to Libya to hang with Khattala at those sidewalk cafes. Even though the current Libyan government is a lot friendlier to the US than its Qaddafi-led predecessor, in part because the Obama administration helped remove Qaddafi, it wouldn’t have taken kindly to US-controlled Predator drones blowing hell out of that sidewalk cafe and killing Khattala along with a dozen innocent Libyans. It also wouldn’t have appreciated Seal Team Six swooping in and putting the snatch on Khattala while he sipped a mocha latte. You don’t just waltz into whatever nation you please and put a hood over one of their citizens’ heads. It looks great when 24’s Jack Bauer does it, but that’s television. It’s not how the real world works. (Except that we may have done just that in finally nabbing Khattala. You’d think the right would be crowing over that. Not gonna happen.)

Probably the nadir of stupid reached in this particular aspect of the #capture came from Fox reporter James Rosen, who asked in all seriousness that since Khattala was talking to reporters, “why didn’t we pose as a reporter to capture him then?” Gee, Rosen, it’s pretty evident that your experience in #reporting has been garnered entirely inside the Beltway. Try that stuff out in the real world, especially in foreign countries whose governments and/or populace doesn’t much like Americans, and you could find yourself in a sticky situation. Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists says that such a thing should never be done, because of the extreme danger in which it would place real journalists. Bryan Bender of Military Reporters and Editors says:

If this ever occurred and word got out then obviously journalists would be much more at risk because they would be suspected of being government agents. There is a reason why both journalists and government agencies gave up a long time ago using journalists as a cover for spies and government operatives.

Oh, wait, Rosen works for Fox News. No real journalism going on over there. I shouldn’t expect Rosen to know the first thing about the subject. My bad.

Must. Sell. Books.

Fox contributor and talk-radio screaming head Larry O’Connor said it was all about Clinton’s book tour. The US worked for nearly a year with a stubborn North African government, and finally brushed off that government’s resistance, to capture a terrorist mastermind responsible for killing four Americans, so Hillary Clinton could sell more books. Why yes, doctor, that makes sense, certainly. No, I haven’t been taking my meds, why do you ask?

MSNBC’s Jane C. Timm wrote,

To hear the right tell it, Special Operations forces, the FBI, and the White House all worked together to promote Hillary Clinton.

I’m shopping for a literary agent for my first book. Someone please hook me up with Hillary’s. That agent has some freaking juice.

Look Over Here! Shiny, Shiny!

We all know Iraq is coming apart at the seams. We have some pretty good ideas why: the centuries-old dispute between Sunnis and Shi’a, the sectarian incompetence of the Maliki government, the instability of neighboring nations like Syria — and maybe a little something about the US invading it in 2003 on false pretenses might have had something to do with the current problem. But in the right’s Bizarro World take on matters, it’s entirely Obama’s fault. Everything was going so well until Obama poked his big old fingers in there …

Former House GOP member and forever war criminal Allen West (R-Goon) chimed in, again using Der Twitter:

West’s former House colleague Joe Walsh (R-Straitjacket) is also skeptical of the timing, issuing the following tweet:

Walsh has it down perfectly. He doesn’t really know anything, so he weasels around with provocative questions and heavy implications devoid of boring, no-fun things like facts. Same with another radio host, Brian Wilson, who tries manfully to hook the #Benghazi capture to the #IRS “scandal.” Nice try, Brian.

And, as noted in the previous article, Limbaugh leapt on board this particular bandwagon, calling the capture “an amazing, timely coincidence” that they captured Khattala at this very moment and not at another moment when the scream machine was in full-throated attack mode. (See how easy? Any time Khattala would be captured would be suspect. The entire idea of capturing the Benghazi ringleader is suspect … just as not capturing him is suspect. Somewhere in literary heaven, Franz Kafka is exchanging terrorist fist jabs with George Orwell.) You should also remember that just a few weeks before, Fox talking heads were screaming down the rafters demanding that someone responsible for the Benghazi attacks be arrested.

I Miss Waterboarding!

Frankly, this one just bemuses me. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-Wheee!), the “I hate the tea party but I love their votes” guy, somehow wants to make this about the administration’s interrogation policies. Twitter is a great venue for these guys: it gives them the opportunity to let off a political stink bomb with almost no accountability. Graham posted:

Hmmm. Because the prospect of Khattala overwhelming the entire crew of whatever ship he’s on, leaping overboard in whatever ocean he’s in, and swimming to freedom is, what? Believable? Apparently it has something to do with Graham and his crusty Uncle John McCain wanting Khattala immediately taken to Gitmo, where the waterboarding and fluffy pillow torture can begin. I presume Graham wants a video linkup so he can enjoy every grisly moment. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) had the following reaction after hearing about their demand:

Oh, for God’s sake.

Capturing the Terrorist Has Nothing to Do with the Terrorist Attack

NPR and Fox contributor Mara Liasson tries an entirely different version of the #Benghazi two-step, saying that the capture of Khattala has nothing to do with the actual attack Khattala organized or the way people are reacting to the capture and the controversy as a whole. Um, what?

Liasson says the capture “really exists on a separate track to the controversy over Benghazi.”

I really can’t figure this one.

And Now for the Farm Report with Les Nessman …

Some few on the right, such as dumpster diver Matt Drudge, decided that the story wasn’t worth the pixels it would take to report it. The Drudge Report, usually full of screaming red headlines about whatever high crime and misdemeanor the Obama administration has committed today, showcased the capture of one of our least favorite terrorists this way:

Drudge on Benghazi
Credit: Drudge Report via Daily Kos

Not About Benghazi Attacks at All

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America says it as clearly as it can be said:

If you care about justice and if you care about holding people accountable for terrorist actions, your interest in the Khattala arrest wouldn’t revolve almost entirely around the ‘timing’ of it. If you’re crusading on behalf of victims’ families, beseeching and cajoling investigators to do everything in their power to arrest a suspect, when that breakthrough happens you wouldn’t complain endlessly about why it took place on a particular day. This is demanding that a suspect capture take place, and then when it finally does, you denounce it? That doesn’t make sense. And that’s why Benghazi hustlers in the press this week inadvertently gave away the game. (Again.) By essentially belittling the capture of Khattala, Benghazi hustlers telegraphed that their manufactured outrage isn’t about righteousness. It isn’t about bringing possible perpetrators to justice. It isn’t about anything, really. Except getting Obama.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has probably the most sensible response of anyone to the scream machine’s take on the capture:

It doesn’t matter what your ideology is, you should feel good about this. There’s no conspiracy here, this is actual news. But the reaction of some of the Republicans, I’ve been told, is to downplay and insult the brave men and women of our special forces and the FBI. They’re trying to say, oh, it’s no big deal. I wonder if the men and women who captured the terrorist agree. But the Republicans said it’s no big deal. Even in these days of polarization, created by the obstruction, the delay, and diversion of the Republicans, even in these days of polarization, their reaction is shocking and disgusting. They’re so obsessed with criticism, criticizing anything President Obama does. They’ll go so far as to sit here and insult the men and women in uniform and in law enforcement. They should stop and think, just for a little bit, about what it’s like to put your life on the line and to do something for our country — that’s what they did. They’re insulting these good men and women who did some courageous things, heroic things, in order to criticize President Obama. I think they’ve lost touch with reality; it’s really pathetic, there’s no other word for it.

#Benghazi was never about finding the perpetrators of that attack. It was never about bringing anyone to justice. It was never about bringing closure to grieving families. It was never about justice, or standing tall against terrorism, or even good old vengeance. Just as the Whitewater/Lewinsky/Paula Jones/Vince Foster farrago of fake scandals was never about truth or justice or political integrity. It was about crippling or destroying the Democratic presidency. Clinton then, Obama now.

Cenk Uyger of the Young Turks has some fun with the whole thing. Enjoy.

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me_tooned Published writer since 2001, focusing on politics,
 history, Web development, and other topics.
 First book is coming soon.

Edited/Published by: WG

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