Righties: If You Don’t Tell Us What We Want to Hear, You Are Lying

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Over the weekend the New York Times came out with an exhaustive investigation of Benghazi. The basic take-aways are:

First, there is no evidence al Qaeda or any other international terrorist group was involved. The perps were local militants.

Second, anger fueled by an American-made anti-Islam video really was part of the motivation for the attack.

Do I think the New York Times is infallible? Of course not. But they’ve done the legwork and make a persuasive case through, you know, evidence.

Righties have gone into full temper-tantrum mode, screaming about “revisionist history.” They do not want to hear that al Qaeda was not behind Benghazi. Because.

One of the better retorts comes from Thomas Joscelyn at The Weekly Standard. I say “better” because he at least makes an effort to blow enough smoke to bring the Times’s investigation into doubt, instead of just whining and stamping his feet like most of his fellow travelers.

However, Joscelyn’s retort relies rather heavily on dishonesty. For example:

Left out of the Times’s account are the many leads tying the attackers to al Qaeda’s international network.

For instance, there is no mention of Muhammad Jamal al Kashef, an Egyptian, in Kirkpatrick’s retelling. This is odd, for many reasons.

On October 29, 2012 three other New York Times journalists reported that Jamal’s network, in addition to a known al Qaeda branch (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), was directly involved in the assault. The Times reported (emphasis added): “Three Congressional investigations and a State Department inquiry are now examining the attack, which American officials said included participants from Ansar al-Shariah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, a militant group in Egypt.”

Wow. Except from what I can gather from the earlier story, the “officials” were mostly Republican senators and congress critters. Here’s the earlier story in the Times:

But the question on the minds of some lawmakers is why the declining security situation did not prompt a fundamental rethinking of the security needs by the State Department and the White House. Three Congressional investigations and a State Department inquiry are now examining the attack, which American officials said included participants from Ansar al-Shariah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, a militant group in Egypt.

“Given the large number of attacks that had occurred in Benghazi that were aimed at Western targets, it is inexplicable to me that security wasn’t increased,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, one of the panels holding inquiries.

In other words, the New York Times was not reporting on what happened in Benghazi, but on what mostly unnamed people were speculating about what happened in Benghazi. It was merely reporting on suspicions being voiced by “officials,” and that the matter was under investigation. The New York Times is not contradicting its own reporting, as half the rightie blogosphere is claiming right now.

The Right has been implicating Muhammad Jamal and tying him to al Qaeda — and he may well be tied to al Qaeda, for all I know — but if they have any concrete evidence connecting him to Benbhazi, they’re keeping it hidden. Mostly they just quote each other’s implications as “evidence.” Everybody’s saying it, so it must be true.

Something we do know, and that the Times left out, is that The Benghazi Hoax was Spun up by the GOP to Protect Mitt Romney.

See also what Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said about Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).

14 thoughts on “Righties: If You Don’t Tell Us What We Want to Hear, You Are Lying”

  1. Oh no… say it isn’t so!

    What are we gonna do without Benghazi to kick around any more? What about fast and furious? Surely we can seek the impeachment of that other dark skinned guy, you know Obama’s home boy who caused the death of the border agent.

  2. I just don’t get it. I work with a group of guys who believe this republican b.s.. facts don’t matter. They hear something on fox or from some lame brained religious b.s. artist, and theybelieve it, no matter how absurd. I guess being told you’re a victim of descrimination and evil liberals are trying to destroy god and country have a wee bit to do with it.

  4. I seem to recall that the Obama administration requested additional funding for overseas embassies before the attacks, including in Bengazi, but that their requests were denied by the Republican led House. If my recollection is accurate, that would tend to spread the blame to republicans also.

    Does this jibe with what you recall?

  5. .. facts don’t matter

    Of course facts don’t matter. Faith alone matters.. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Like al Qaida killing the American ambassador in Benghazi.

    Thinking back on Mitt Romney’s little stunt of holding a presidential appearing press conference to announce Obama’s failure to prevent the largest terrorist attack on US interests since 9/11 only goes to show how despicable a character Romney is. Of all of his stunts and lies the Benghazi episode was the most deplorable. The truth or the facts just didn’t matter so long as Romney projected an image of being in command of the situation. What a turd Romney is!

  6. Why are the NYT and, previously 60 Minutes, still wasting time on this? Surely, there are enormously more important bushes to beat: why do we still have no gun laws a year after Newtown; how is Citizen’s United continuing to screw over the poor and middle class?

  9. I was listening to our local Upstate NY NPR station’s show about newspapers and media, and the people on the panel did a great job of explaining what was once true about local and national newspapers, news radio stations, and broadcast TV news, compared with today:
    The front page of major newspapers, the headline news openings, and the leads on news radio station, felt that they had to tell people what they NEEDED to know, and then, went on to the other BS.

    Now, it’s not news in many cases that people NEED to know, it just reinforces what they WANT to know – and that affirms their own beliefs.
    Truer words, I don’t think, were ever spoken.

  11. The whole Benghazi story got so bastardized; too much distortion and misinformation. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a scene, later described by “reporters” as something kinda sorta vaguely like what really happened. Add to that the generic bullshit that comes with al-qadia or Taliban or jihadists, it becomes similar to an old norm Crosby routine.
    On another subject, I flirted with libertarianism early in dubya’s first term for no other reason than their antiwar stance, which, sadly, turns out to be more about saving money than lives.
    They are lndeed a strange bunch.

    • Having done a little news reporting years ago, I appreciate that it’s really difficult to walk into an unfolding situation, when the circumstances and people involved are unknown to you, and not make mistakes. People tell you contradictory things. People tell you wrong things. You can’t always tell right off the bat who is in a position to know, and who isn’t. Sometimes people with some authority will tell you something, and you assume they know what they are talking about, and after the story is printed it turns out to be all wrong. Even with a fairly innocuous local story it can take hours or days to fully sort out what happened, never mind a complex situation in another country that involves secret militias and classified information.

  12. Wow, Swami, that guy reminds me of some people I meet regularly, including a neighbor I once wrote about in a comment here. He adopted me as his best friend a couple of years back. It’s been an enlightening experience. I think his life would make much more interesting “reality TV” than anything the Robertsons could offer, and he could sure use the money.

    As to be expected, the quote from Washington is spurious. It’s gotten so checking the source of the quotations offered by might right wing friends is a mere formality.

    Propaganda and misinformation is the water we swim in. It’s slicker, more marketable and probably more addictive, than the comparatively crude products of the Nazis and Soviets, and we as a people are still too innocent to see it for what it is.

    Sorry for the paranoid ambiance.

  13. maha,
    That’s why, when I see “Breaking News!” come over the TV or internet, I’ll look to see WHAT happened.
    I know that the “Who, where, why, and how,” will probably take a few days – or longer.
    And there’s nothing worse than watching one of our idiotic “News-ertainment” networks, whose people opine, on and on, for hours – even days.
    Sometime even quoting themselves, or another network.
    Look at the Boston Marathon bombings, for an example.
    Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!

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