All Quiet on the Benghazi Front
/By Bill Maher
Last Friday, 60 Minutes retracted its Benghazi story, because it had become clear that it was based on the eyewitness accounts of a self-interested liar who just wanted to sell books.
Then, on Sunday night’s 60 Minutes, Lara Logan issued an on-air apology and retraction. And yet, as of this writing, there wasn’t a word about 60 Minutes’ Benghazi embarrassment to be found over at the National Review. Not on its blog, The Corner, or on its front page. There are at least 15 stories on Obamacare, including one called “Obama’s Massive Fraud” by Andrew McCarthy. The subhead? “The nation knows he’s a charlatan.” But nothing about Benghazi. Crickets. Because they’re all bold truth seekers.
Yes, because speaking of frauds and charlatans, the Benghazi story has been a National Review obsession ever since The Worst Thing to Ever Happen to America happened, even as one element of the scandal after another has been debunked. (“The White House edited the talking points for political purposes!” anyone?) The folks at the National Review even pushed the discredited 60 Minutes piece as required viewing:
…No, I musn’t, musn’t, musn’t. Because it was not true at all. Glad I watched Sunday Night Football instead.
And how about this unintentionally comical tweet from Jonah Goldberg:
…Yes, Jonah. Yes it has.
Now, maybe the folks at the National Review don’t see the irony in three or four dozen articles and blog posts calling the President out for that time he said something that ended up not being true and pushing a falsehood for political gain, and then, you know, doing exactly that in this case, but it sure isn’t that hard for the rest of us.
And hey, at least Obama said he was sorry. Is anyone over there going to acknowledge that they pushed a story that turned out to be completely false because they really, really wanted it to be true, and for political gain?
And since the National Review doesn’t matter, what about all the members of Congress who pushed this story,and do matter? What say you, John McCain? Lindsay Graham? Every Republican in the House of Representatives?
Also, for the millions of Americans who live inside the Republican disinformation bubble, will they even find out that it isn’t true?
