“The Ignorant Inquisitors”: Capitol Hill’s Angry Little Men Keep Making Hillary Clinton Bigger
Anyone truly concerned about the safety of U.S. diplomatic personnel abroad – and that should include every American – has fresh reason for fury over last September’s disaster in Benghazi and its aftermath. But the target of public anger should not be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose conduct has been exemplary ever since the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three of his brave colleagues lost their lives last September. Far more deserving of scorn are the likes of Rand Paul (R-KY), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and all the other grandstanding, conspiracy-mongering, ill-informed politicians who questioned her Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
Four months after the tragedy occurred, Republicans on both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee still seem to be obsessed with the talking points provided to UN Ambassador Susan Rice before she appeared on television to discuss the incident. According to Republican folklore, unsupported by facts, the Obama White House engaged in a conspiracy to conceal the true nature of the terrorist attack by mischaracterizing it as a “demonstration.” The continuing focus on that trivial issue – long since explained by Rice herself, as well as retired General David Petraeus and others, under oath – understandably provoked an exasperated Clinton to scold Johnson, one of the dimmer idols of the Tea Party.
When the Wisconsin Republican began to harp on this topic yet again – interrupting her answer, after stupidly asserting that Clinton could have resolved any questions about the attack with “a very simple phone call” to the burned-out Benghazi compound – she responded sharply:
With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because there was a protest or was it because there were guys who went out for a walk one night who decided they would kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and to do everything we can to make sure it never happens again.
No doubt Clinton’s utterly sane retort will undergo dishonest editing, in the style of James O’Keefe, to make her sound cavalier or arrogant. But it is the Republicans in Congress whose attitude toward the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and his fallen comrades has seemed cynical and false, ever since they first sought to exploit the incident politically during the presidential campaign. Meanwhile, having historically supported reductions in federal spending on diplomatic security, they have done nothing useful so far to enhance the safety of Americans serving abroad. Worse still, their questions to Clinton indicate that very few of them, even at this late date, have bothered to learn the basic facts surrounding the Benghazi incident.
By contrast, Clinton has assumed responsibility in a meaningful way ever since September 11 – which is to say that she has taken action to ensure a serious response. As required by law, she empowered an independent investigation, which resulted in dozens of recommendations for improved security and held several high-ranking State Department officials to account for the lapses in Libya. It is worth noting that Thomas Pickering, the distinguished former diplomat who led the probe, fixed culpability for the security flaws at Benghazi at “the assistant secretary level,” rather than with Clinton herself. Nobody in Washington understands the workings of the U.S. foreign service better than Pickering, who served in top positions under both presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Certainly not Johnson or Paul, who rather comically asserted that “if [he] were president,” he would have fired Clinton. Always hard to imagine, a Paul presidency seemed even more remote when he quizzed her about obscure right-wing conspiracy theories involving Syria, Turkey, and Libya.
As Joan Walsh observed in Salon, those irate and ignorant inquisitors on Capitol Hill appeared small and peevish in their confrontation with Clinton, a woman whose serious, diligent, tireless approach to public service has armed her with an enduring popularity at least three times greater than her Republican adversaries in Congress. Their feeble attempts to cut her down, echoed by the usual loudmouths on radio and cable television, only make her bigger.
If they persist, she probably will be president someday.
By: Joe Conason, The National Memo, January 24, 2013
“Illogical Republican Accusations”: Hillary Clinton’s Blood Clot Isn’t A Benghazi Conspiracy
Hillary Clinton’s impressive career should, on paper, be a sign of women’s advancement in public policy and in society as a whole. That was until her detractors accused her of a higher-level version of the feigned “I have a headache” dodge.
Clinton is recovering from a blood clot in her brain. It’s a scary development, but her doctors say she is making a good recovery. But the chronology of her illness has spurred an absurd series of conspiracy theories, largely centered on the insulting idea that she was lying about being sick so she could avoid testifying before Congress about the Benghazi attacks.
It started with a fall, which Clinton’s staff attributed to dehydration from the flu. The fall led to a concussion. Treatment and testing after the concussion revealed a blood clot in Clinton’s brain, a condition for which she is being given blood thinners. The snide and illogical accusations when Clinton fell—that she was faking so she didn’t have to go to the grown-up version of a high school trigonometry test—look even more ridiculous now. And they follow the same politically-driven theories about the State Department’s handling of the Benghazi episode itself.
Initial intelligence from the attacks was that the episode stemmed from outrage in the Middle East over an Internet video of a film—actually, a “film,”—that denigrated Muslims. Later, intelligence showed that it was a planned attack. Those two assessments are not necessarily mutually exclusive; it could have been a planned attack accelerated by spontaneous anger over the film. But detractors of the Obama administration, hoping to turn a tragedy into a scandal that would fell President Obama’s re-election campaign, made it into a conspiracy by the State Department to trick the American people. They did manage to end the potential nomination of United Nations ambassador Susan Rice to replace Clinton at State, saying Rice misled the American public. Yet Rice was merely doing what public officials do in cases like this—delivering the information the administration had received from the intelligence community (and it borders on delusional to think that the Benghazi episode would make the difference for Mitt Romney in the presidential campaign).
In fact, it’s not surprising that early intelligence from any tumultuous event would be wrong or incomplete. That’s the nature of early assessments. People report what they know at the time, and it’s not always a full picture. It doesn’t make it a lie.
The same is true for Clinton’s illness. First, it’s laughable that Clinton—who has faced relentless scrutiny as a public figure on everything from her health care proposals to her marriage to her hair—is scared of a bunch of congressmen. And those who now question whether we were all given the full story on Clinton’s illness when it first surfaced are guilty of the same conspiracy mindset as those who think the Obama administration deliberately lied in the early hours after the Benghazi attack.
Serious illnesses aren’t always identified at the first symptom, which may not look like the symptom of something dangerous at all. Fainting could mean you have low blood pressure or are dehydrated. Or, it could be something more—there’s simply no way to know until a patient is tested. The only question here is whether Clinton’s initial fall was caused by the blood clot or her flu, but that doesn’t suggest a misinformation campaign. The woman has traveled nearly a million miles in her four years as Secretary of State. If there’s a surprise here, it’s that she didn’t pass out a long time ago from sheer exhaustion.
The technology exists for instant communication, and that has given people the impression that facts will be clear at the same pace. Stories take longer to unfold than that—whether it’s an attack on a U.S. mission or an illness.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, January 2, 2013
“Moral Troglodytes”: Still Crazy, Fox News Gang Owes Hillary Clinton An Abject Apology
To most Americans, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s sudden hospitalization is an occasion for compassion, concern, and urgent wishes for her full recovery. But for her perennially obsessed adversaries on the far right, the former First Lady’s illness is a moment of deep embarrassment – or ought to be.
Until Sunday, when Clinton entered New York Presbyterian Hospital for treatment of a blood clot caused by a concussion she suffered a few weeks ago, her most irresponsible critics were suggesting that she might be faking the injury. The supposed reason for such a diplomatic illness, according to John Bolton, the Fox News personality and former UN Ambassador, was so that Clinton could avoid testifying on Capitol Hill about the Benghazi terrorist attack that left three State Department personnel dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Now that Clinton has been admitted to one of the nation’s premier hospitals for treatment with anti-coagulant medication, it is worth reviewing the false suspicions that Bolton, other Fox News personalities, the New York Post, and assorted reactionary bloggers tried to arouse about her. The anti-Clinton mania of the 90s – which infected mainstream media as well as right-wing propagandists – remains latent but highly contagious among certain Republicans. And it remains just as reliant upon misinformation and deception now as it did back then.
On December 17 – two days after Clinton’s doctors issued an official medical report through the State Department about her continued suffering from a stomach virus that had left her extremely dehydrated and caused her to faint – Bolton mocked her for feigning a “diplomatic illness.” She did not wish to testify about security at the Benghazi consulate, the subject of a critical State Department review that she had commissioned, and therefore had contracted “a diplomatic illness to beat the band,” said Bolton sardonically.
Bolton was not alone in uttering these unfounded claims. They were echoed on The Five, a Fox News chat show featuring four dim commentators and Bob Beckel. Monica Crowley, another regular Fox clown, likewise suggested that Clinton’s virus had “impeccable timing.”
Ten days later, Bolton again insinuated in an op-ed article for the New York Post – also owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp – that Clinton was attempting to avoid testifying about Benghazi. While accusing her of using “a series of excuses” to evade testimony, Bolton’s article didn’t specify the “diplomatic illness” charge again, prompting Washington Post press critic Erik Wemple to ask whether he was withdrawing that canard. In an email to Wemple, Bolton made feeble jokes but neither repeated nor withdrew the accusation. Meanwhile, wingnut bloggers claimed that Clinton was carousing at a resort in the Dominican Republic — just as she was being sent to the hospital in New York by her physicians.
With Clinton in the hospital, it should now be obvious even to the most addled hater that the repeated statements from the State Department about her medical condition have been accurate, that she is innocent of any deception, that she fully intended to testify in January as promised, and that she indeed took full responsibility for the Benghazi tragedy, even though she deserved no blame. It should also be obvious that she deserves an apology from Bolton, a figure who has brought ridicule and shame on the US government more than once in the guise of public service.
The first reactions from the Republican right were not promising, alas, as alarming symptoms of the same old sickness showed up instantaneously on Twitter. Nor was it reassuring that the Los Angeles Times gave credence to the charges in an online poll inquiring, “Did she fake it?”
“If anyone has mastered the victimhood complex it is Hillary Rodham Clinton,” cheeped a GOP activist from New York. “She plays it brilliantly. Has for 20 yrs.”
You see, it doesn’t matter whether Hillary is actually the victim of speculation, slur, and slander. It never has and – for those moral troglodytes – it never will.
By: Joe Conason, The National Memo, December 30, 2012
“I’m Not Holding My Breath”: Will Republicans Apologize For Accusing Hillary Clinton Of Faking Concussion
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital to undergo treatment for a blood clot, a potentially serious condition stemming from a concussion she suffered earlier this month. Aides say that Clinton, 65, is currently being treated with blood thinners, and that further action may be required to prevent the clot from worsening. In a worst-case scenario, the clot, if located in the head, could cause a brain hemorrhage.
The concussion forced Clinton to cancel weeks’ worth of engagements, including scheduled testimony before Congress on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. Republicans have been highly critical of President Obama’s response to Benghazi, with many suggesting that the administration tried to cover up the incident. Clinton’s illness prompted several conservative commentators and prominent members of the GOP to speculate that she was faking her concussion to avoid testifying. John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described Clinton’s condition as a “diplomatic illness.” Ousted Rep. Allen West (Fla.) said, “I’m not a doctor, but it seems as though — that the secretary of state has come down with a case of Benghazi flu.” Charles Krauthammer, the influential conservative columnist, told Sean Hannity of Fox News that Clinton had likely come down with “acute Benghazi allergy,” which led Hannity to respond, “Let’s see the medical report on that.” Other conservative news outlets also demanded a medical report.
Now that Clinton’s condition has taken a more worrisome turn, will these Republicans offer their apologies? “I’m not holding my breath,” says PBS’s Jeff Greenfield. The fake Clinton concussion will probably join a long list of conservative conspiracy theories that, despite overwhelming evidence to contrary, continue to thrive in certain corners of the GOP (see: Obama was born in Kenya, the polls are skewed, et al.). Indeed, it’s just as likely that the fake Clinton concussion will morph into the fake Clinton blood clot.
By: Ryu Spaeth, The Week, December 31, 2012
“The Choir Preaching Problem”: The GOP’s Lost Year In The Fox News Bubble
Suffering an election hangover after having been told by Fox News that Mitt Romney’s victory was a sure thing (a “landslide” predicted by Dick Morris), some Republicans have promised to break their addiction to the right-wing news channel in the coming year. Vowing to venture beyond the comforts of the Fox News bubble, strategists insist it’s crucial that the party address its “choir-preaching problem.”
Good luck.
This grand experiment of marrying a political movement around a cable TV channel was a grand failure in 2012. But there’s little indication that enough Republicans will have the courage, or even the desire, to break free from Fox’s firm grip on branding the party.
For Fox News chief Roger Ailes, the network’s slash-and-burn formula worked wonders in terms of catering a hardcore, hard-right audience of several million viewers. (Fox News is poised to post $1 billion in profits this year.) But in terms of supporting a national campaign and hosting a nationwide conversation about the country’s future, Fox’s work this year was a marked failure.
And that failure helped sink any hopes the GOP had of winning the White House.
From the farcical, underwhelming GOP primary that Fox News sponsored, through the general election campaign, it seemed that at every juncture where Romney suffered a major misstep, Fox misinformation hovered nearby. Again and again, Romney damaged his presidential hopes when he embraced the Fox News rhetoric; when he ran as the Fox News candidate.
Whether it was botching the facts surrounding the terrorist raid on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, parroting the Fox talking point about lazy, shiftless voters who make up “47 percent” of the electorate, or Romney’s baffling embrace of reality TV show host-turned Fox News pontificator Donald Trump, the Republican candidate did damage to his chances whenever he let Fox News act as his chief campaign adviser.
Fox viewers didn’t fare much better. Fed a year’s worth of misinformation about the candidates, and completely misled about the state of the race (all the polls are skewed!), Fox faithful were left crushed on Election Night when Romney’s fictitious landslide failed to materialize.
“On the biggest political story of the year,” wrote Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic, “the conservative media just got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media.”
Indeed, Fox’s coverage of the campaign has been widely panned as an editorial and political fiasco. The coverage failed to move the needle in the direction of its favored Republican candidate, and the coverage remained detached from campaign reality for months at a time. (Megyn Kelly in July: The Obama campaign is “starting to panic.” That was false.)
Following another lopsided loss to Obama, Republican strategist Mike Murphy urged Republicans to embrace a view of America that’s not lifted from “Rush Limbaugh’s dream journal.” (The Fox News dream journal looks nearly identical to Limbaugh’s.)
And San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll wondered if Romney’s defeat marked the end of a Fox News era:
You had to wonder about Fox. This is the third presidential election in which Fox has been a major player, and the Democrats have won two of them. A combination of big money and big propaganda was supposed to carry the day for Romney and the Republicans, but it didn’t. Could it be that the Fox model has played out?
Is the Fox model of a cable paranoia played out in terms of ratings? It is not. Is the Fox model of cable paranoia played out as an electoral blueprint? It sure looks that way.
Of course, conservatives should have thought that through before handing over the control of a political movement to Ailes and his misinformation minions. They should have thought twice about the long-term implication of having irresponsible media outlets like Fox supersede leadership within the Republican Party, and should have figured out first if Fox News had an off switch to use in case of emergencies.
It doesn’t.
Yet as Fox News segued into the de facto leader of the Republican Party, becoming the driving electoral force, and with Ailes entrenched in his kingmaker role, candidates had to bow down to Fox in search of votes and the channel’s coveted free airtime.
And Andrew Sullivan noted in January:
The Republican Establishment is Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, and their mainfold products, from Hannity to Levin. They rule on the talk radio airwaves and on the GOP’s own “news” channel, Fox.
There’s a reason New York magazine labeled Ailes “the head of the Republican Party.” And that’s why a GOP source told the magazine, “You can’t run for the Republican nomination without talking to Roger Every single candidate has consulted with Roger.”
That meant campaigns were forced to become part of the channel’s culture of personal destruction, as well as to blanket itself in Fox’s signature self-pity. (Here was Mitt Romney adopting the right-wing whine that the conspiratorial press was out to sink his campaign.)
Still, the right-wing bubble was a comfortable place to inhabit if you thought of Obama as an historic monster, or if you required to be reminded of that fact many time a day, every day of the year. The bubble is the place where followers for four years were fed the feel-good GOP narrative about how Obama’s presidency was a fiasco, that the Americans suffered a severe case of 2008 buyer’s remorse, and that the president’s re-election defeat was all but pre-ordained.
The one-part-panic, one-part-denial message may have cheered obsessive Obama-haters, but it didn’t prepare conservatives for the reality of the campaign season. And it cost the GOP a lost year in the Fox News bubble.
By: Eric Boehlert, The Hufington Post Blog, December 30, 2012
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