The cover-up of the Benghazi cover-up…
…is described here.
There are many reasons for the success of the coverup. One is the nicely coordinated set of messages from the administration and the MSM. Another is the complexity of the story; people have to be motivated enough to follow the twistings and turnings, and most people are not.
The public has been distrustful of the MSM for quite some time, which has lulled the right into a false sense that the public will reject the media’s message. That turns out to be wrong—people are still influenced by it greatly, including the constant refrain that Fox News is bogus and unreliable. If it’s only Fox singing a different song and describing what happened in Benghazi and afterward, why pay attention? Especially when life can be stressful and there are so many things that are more distracting.
And by the way, I’m not really knocking the public that much over this. It’s just human nature. It’s political junkies like us who are the weird ones. We happen to be really really interested in this sort of stuff, so much so that we might spend a few hours a day reading about it. We happen to think it’s extremely important, and it is. But to most people it’s a question of tanks versus pears, and their attitude is that of Karel’s mother.
Tanks versus pears? Karel’s mother? Whatever am I talking about? I’m quoting a passage from Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (which I wrote about previously here):
One night, for example, the tanks of a huge neighboring country [the USSR] came and occupied their country [Czechoslovakia]. The shock was so great, so terrible, that for a long time no one could think about anything else. It was August, and the pears in their garden were nearly ripe. The week before, Mother had invited the local pharmacist to come and pick them. He never came, never even apologized. The fact that Mother refused to forgive him drove Karel and Marketa crazy. Everybody’s thinking about tanks, and all you can think about is pears, they yelled. And when shortly afterwards they moved away, they took the memory of her pettiness with them.
But are tanks really more important than pears? As time passed, Karel realized that the answer was not so obvious as he had once thought, and he began sympathizing secretly with Mother’s perspective”“a big pear in the foreground and somewhere off in the distance a tank, tiny as a ladybug, ready at any moment to take wing and disappear from sight. So Mother was right after all: tanks are mortal, pears eternal.
One of the reasons people should be paying a lot more attention to the “tanks” (Benghazi) is that the tanks can end up influencing our lives (the “pears”) greatly. Power-hungry and/or incompetent politicians count on the ignorance and/or inattention of the public. Sometimes the press functions to hold those politicians in check by informing the public what’s going on, but not now—at least, not where the Democrats are concerned.
So insightful, this needs to be repeated often:
Watergate would never have amounted to anything if Woodward and Bernstein had shrugged and said, “So what?”
rickl: even with Woodward and Bernstein, Watergate wouldn’t have amounted to all that much but for the “smoking gun” tape, and then the subsequent fact that Republican leaders informed Nixon they would no longer stand by him if he were impeached. He would probably have been convicted, and so he resigned instead.
Watergate would never have amounted to anything if Woodward and Bernstein had shrugged and said, “So what?”
Which they would have done had a Democrat been involved.
Cases in point, in no particular order:
1. LBJ did the same and worse, and fraudulently got us into a war (Gulf of Tonkin incident).
2. JFK’s philandering and through it connection with organized crime.
3. Clinton’s shady land deals, shenanigans with White House travel bureau, Hillary’s amazing luck as a commodities trader, and of course, MonicaGate.
4. John Edwards. ‘Nuff said.
5. John Kerry’s obscure history during and immediately after the Vietnam War; the three Purple Hearts (without a day in a hospital), VC the Wonder Dog’s literally incredible luck, the Magic Hat, and other fantasies, the meeting in Paris with enemy envoys in time of war, his perjured testimony before Congress, the circumstances involving his mysteriously delayed “honorable discharge,” to name a few issues off the top of my head.
6. Barack Obama’s entire risibly improbable and obviously bogus life story (where to begin?), his turning off address verification on credit card donations, his connections with the communist New Party and the Democratic Socialist Party, his relationship with the SEIU, his claim that his parents first met on a bridge in Selma four years after he was born (it’s a miracle!), his drug use, his relationship with Ayers, Fast and Furious, the Benghazi fiasco, to name a few.
In each case, just a little investigative reporting, a small fraction of the digging and drum beating of Watergate, would doubtless have ended each of these worthies’ careers. Such reporting has happened on occasion, when for example the National Enquirer bounced the MSM into reporting John Edwards’ sleazy doings, and sank Gary Hart’s campaign back when. The MSM also ratted out Hillary’s “sniper fire” BS, producing a video clip disproving it within 24 hours of her claim, because they wanted to torpedo her in favor of their Messiah, but that proves they can do their jobs when they want to. But in general Democrat malfeasance is a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil job.
By contrast, if a conservative breaks wind off key it’s front page news for weeks. Of course, in Nixon’s case it was all payback for Alger Hiss, but as the MSM treatment of Sarah Palin shows, they don’t need a grudge to go after a conservative.
Neo says, “Power-hungry and/or incompetent politicians count on the ignorance and/or inattention of the public.” (That is the new “gun” or “weapon” of them.)
Two things:
1) Add to ignorance and inattention, outright deception (more to follow).
2) But then against that, add the ineffability of the public. Anybody like that word: ineffability.
It nicely desribes the public, the people, who defy boundaries. It makes the Founder’s trust all that more iconic, more perturbable, more schismatic (yes!), more wisdom without reach.
Do you remember the reply of Lucky Ned Pepper to Mattie in “True Grit” when she stated her gun failed to fire: “It will do it, every time. It will fail you.”
He knew. The gun is no guarantee. And in fact there is no guarantee for anything.
Now as to more to follow: Yes we are being misled. Consider California’s Prop 31 which was a masterpiece that failed.
First, it was/is the brainchild of oligarchy. Nicolas Berggruen, big time billionaire philo, invested many dollars (more than all the opposition combined) to make the proposition pass.
You may not know Mr. B, but you should. He’s part and parcel of the origin of 21st Century Council which is focused on global governance; the Council for the Future of Europe, to support European integration; and the Think Long Committee for California.
How’s that strike you? Think Long Committee for California.
Proposition 31 was defeated, thank god. And that it was exists as Lucky Ned Pepper’s exclamation, “It will fail you every time.” Of course, it does not, but it seems like it to the men(and now, thank god, women) of the gun. The public is ineffable. Why prop 31 should not have passed is a wonderful tale of why not to give up. Because here in California the tale of the rabbit is it’s nose. The California Republican Party and the Orange County Business Council alligned with the billionaire socialist and europianist, Mr. Berggruen, to endorse the proposition.
And finally, what was the proposition. Buried within many layers and promised good things, was “regionalism,” that is, the power of a region to direct funds from one locale to another.
Yeah. We’ve heard of this. Suburban to Urban.
But it failed and in California the normal “good guys” were for it while the normal “bad guys” were against it.
Again. You got me. Someone else help. I’m falling. Into ineffability.
By contrast, if a conservative breaks wind off key it’s front page news for weeks. Of course, in Nixon’s case it was all payback for Alger Hiss, but as the MSM treatment of Sarah Palin shows, they don’t need a grudge to go after a conservative.–OC
A stew is brewing, a perfect stew.
“Ineffable” sounds like it’s been bowdlerized.
Not only do the power-hungry politicians desire and depend upon an ignorant electorate, they also have done their damnedest to make them so.
The Benghazi story isn’t at all hard to follow, except for pinheads.
California isn’t ineffable. It’s all to readily effed, and has been, repeatedly.
“to” -> “too”
Me two.
Sorry, but I don’t see politics as the solution to anything.
The last election was one long miserable torture.
I had virtually nothing to say about it, and it still produced nothing but misery in my relationships with other people.
I’m pretty fed up with politics.
I know some people who are kind-hearted and educated and ineffably dumb.
Their view of conservatives and republicans is that such are so vile that their ideas need not be engaged at all.
When bad things happen which they voted for, presumably unknowing, and which were predicted, their response is to accuse somebody of greed or whatever. Which, for them, solves the problem.
What really happened concerning the Benghazi event and why should we care?
When the embassy was attacked the president, the state department and the CIA knew about it in real time they even watched it on big screens. There was never any doubt that this was a terrorist attack. Early on Obama realized this could harm his reelection effort in two ways: 1) It would destroy his claim that he had Al Qaeda on the run and almost destroyed. 2) He realized that if he made a rescue effort and it failed or worse the rescuers were killed then THAT would become the big story and he would look inept. So Obama made the decision to let the attack take place and to blame it all on a spontaneous event caused by a random film made by a film maker trying to expose the seriousness of radical Islam to our country. It was his best chance to keep this out of the press and if some Americans died to get him elected then so be it.
Within days the story became even bigger and Obama’s attempt to minimize the story was failing so he decided to double down on the film and blame the film maker. So he changed the intent of the intelligence he had received from the CIA and other sources to fit the new story he wanted to promote and put out his front people to tell that story. He didn’t put out the secretary of state presumably because she wouldn’t front this lie for him but he found some who would go on the Sunday shows and tell the fable.
But even this began to fall apart as the CIA resented being thrown under the Obama bus and denied the new Obama fable and stated unambiguously that Obama and the administration knew the truth from the first hour. The media rallied behind Obama and either continued to present the film story as fact or refused to present the CIA story that refuted it. But still the facts were coming out and now the facts showed an intentional coverup by the administration. More spin from Obama and his minions merely muddied the water so it was time to bring out the big guns. So now the story focused on racism since the person put out by Obama to tell his lies was a minority clearly any attempt to disagree with her lies was racism. And why not the racism meme works every time it is trundled out and the compliant media always takes the racism ball and runs with it.
So is the crime that Obama failed to protect the ambassador and other Americans to protect his election chances? Or is the crime that Obama covered up the first crime to protect his crimes? Or is the crime that we all fall for the racism meme everytime that card is played? Well Rice ever testify under oath before congress? I mean really testify not say “I don’t recall” or some other lawyerly weasel words? I’m betting Obama gets away with this crime(s) and Rice will get away with prevaricating and disinforming under oath. I’m betting once again the American media will carry Obama and his miscreant gang of Chicago thugs out of the way of any serious investigation of this affair. I also predict the Republicans will roll over when they are called racist on TV and the media begins treating THEM as though they committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” instead of Obama.
GoneWithTheWind, 11:39 am:
Excellent, concise summary.
I will be dumbfounded if the incumbent and Ms. Rice do NOT get away with it all.
We may as well not have a “press”.
Bengazi: Weren’t ~30 people rescued or saved due to the Seals? Where are these people? Why do we hear nothing from them? Time to raise this question along with the others.
Francesca: I think they’ve entered the Witness Protection Program.
Actually, your question has been asked before by pundits and bloggers. As far as I know, it has not been taken up by the MSM nor asked of anyone that matters.
GWTW,
Yes.
Also yes.
Not really a crime, more of a default setting for conservatives. We’ve had it drilled into us starting as kindergarteners in public school: Even the merest hint of racism is The WORST Thing EVER. Causing global warming, er, “climate change,” is a close second.
Safe bets there.
I doubt it’ll ever come to that, with the MSM hellbent on “Nothing to see here, move along.” They’re determined to minimalize Benghazi, and they do control the public dialog to an alarming extent.
Its been a great 4 days of children and grandchildren, and now the house is empty except for my honey and me. I trust all had an equally joyous holiday. Now, back to the world at large….. Benghazi must be investigated until we learn who (and we all know who) gave the order to stand down. Contact you elected idiots in DC and demand answers.
Meanwhile, the messiah will have to deal with the end game before January, 2017 rolls around. We are all soon to be Greeks.
“We are all soon to be Greeks.”
If you know the salacious meaning of “Greek” that could be true in more ways than one. Well, you did say “end game”.
“people have to be motivated enough to follow the twistings and turnings, and most people are not. ”
It’s more than that. It’s a tribal trait: People hear what they want to hear, and they are satisfied when they hear what they want to hear.
Then if there are gray areas, doubts, hairsplitting complexity, 2 sides to a story, etc, they’ll just freeze-frame on the version of the ‘truth’, however spun or shallow it is, that is most comfortable for them and move on.