Benghazi Insight

Bad day for Benghazi conspiracy theorists

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"Thirteen Benghazis Occurred On George W. Bush's Watrch: Not A Peep From Fox News"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/13-benghazis-occurred-on-george-bushs.html

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First things first. Today is Tuesday, Tuesday is a the third day of the week, and like every other day in the week, today would not be a normal day if Republicans weren't still talking about Benghazi, also known as the Biggest Scandal In American History (which probably is located in Cuba).

On this particular Tuesday, what's new is that Republicans have released a report on Benghazi, and among their findings is this: The White House and State Department are responsible for having failed to adequately guarantee the security of the consulate there.

That, of course, is not a stunning revelation. Whenever something like Benghazi happens, it's the case that security should have been stronger. It almost goes without saying, because the mere fact that there was a successful attack is all the evidence you need to prove the point that security wasn't sufficient. It's also not politically controversial: The Obama administration has long since acknowledged that there should have been more security.

But Republicans have instead been trying to make the case that Benghazi involved a cover-up, and that one of the things the administration covered up was that during the attack it prevented the U.S. military from executing a mission that would have neutralized the attackers and saved the lives of the four Americans who were killed in the assault.

For example: House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said he could have flown commercial to Benghazi in time to stop the attack, so clearly Obama must have beencovering something up. Lunatic Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said SEALs had been ordered to "stand down." And Fox repeated the stand down nonsense 85 times last summer.

The idea that the Obama administration somehow intentionally forced the slaughter of Americans is a crazy theory, but it's a key part of what has fueled all the GOP hysteria about Benghazi. Its centrality in the GOP narrative about Benghazi is what makes today's report surprising, because in the report House Republicans concede that the stand down cover-up theory is entirely without basis:

While the GOP lawmakers said that commanders could have pushed harder to position forces to respond to threats in North Africa in general and Libya in particular, they concluded that no U.S. military assets could have arrived in Benghazi in time to affect the outcome of the attack, according to committee staff members who briefed reporters on the report.

So that settles that, right? No more weird GOP conspiracy theories about how Obama tried to get Americans killed in Benghazi, right? Ah, who am I kidding? Of course there's going to be more nonsense. After all, these are the same guys who investigated whether Shirley Temple was a Communist. When she was ten.