They have no shame: It’s confirmed, Fox News lied egregiously (again) in its latest Benghazi “bombsh

They have no shame: It’s confirmed, Fox News lied egregiously (again) in its latest Benghazi “bombshell”

by Simon Maloy at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/10/they_have_no_shame_its_confirmed_fox_news_lied_egregiously_again_in_its_latest_benghazi_bombshell/

"SNIP..............


To refresh everyone on what happened: On the evening of the Benghazi attacks, Panetta ordered special operations and Marine anti-terrorism teams in Europe to deploy to Benghazi, but they arrived in Libya well after the attacks concluded due to logistical and diplomatic hurdles. Fox News reported on an email that Panetta’s then-chief of staff sent while the attacks were happening, which said that the Pentagon had “identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.” In Fox News’ version of the email the forces in question had been redacted out, and the conservative network interpreted the message to mean that there were military assets that could have been moved to Benghazi immediately but weren’t. The rest of the conservative media took it as confirmation that the Obama administration had purposefully let people die in Benghazi.

But, as the unredacted version shows, the forces identified in the email were the same special operations and Marine anti-terrorism teams that Panetta had ordered to respond. As I wrote yesterday, “all Fox News has done is confirm what we already knew: the Defense Department ordered military assets to respond to Benghazi.” There is no story, there is no new information, and there is no conspiracy.

..............

So the Republicans on the committee knew that the email did not contain any new information. They knew that the unredacted version didn’t back up Fox News’ allegation that it “contradicted” anything the administration had said. But they sat on that info and instead offered a tantalizingly cryptic hint that their final report would reveal… something about this. They could have waved Fox News off this one, but they didn’t because they share the network’s goal of creating a politically damaging narrative about Benghazi.

I know there’s been some clamor for the Democrats on the Benghazi committee to resign in protest over the investigation’s obvious politicization and bad-faith behaviors. But as this little dust-up makes clear, they have an important role to play in exposing the shenanigans of their colleagues in the majority.



................SNIP"