May 16, 2013 by David K. Sutton
CBS Evening News Calls Out Republicans On Benghazi
In a rare bit of comprehensiveness in the world of news coverage, CBS Evening News reported tonight that Republicans produced false White House quotes on the Benghazi attack. Of course CBS struck a journalistic even tone in their reporting, but there will be none of that in this blog post.
CBS Evening News — Of course Benghazi has become a political controversy. Republicans claim that the administration watered down the facts in talking points that were given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for television appearances while Mr. Obama was running for re-election. Republicans on Capitol Hill claimed that they had found proof of this in White House emails that they leaked to reporters last week. Well, it turns out some of the quotes in those emails were wrong.
The Republican version of a quote from White House Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes reads:
Republican version — We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.
The actual quote from Ben Rhodes:
Actual version — We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.
What? No mention of “talking points” in the REAL version? WTF Republicans?
Ah, that’s right, it’s the slow political season, good time to manufacture a scandal. When you say you are quoting something, particularly when attaching claims of a cover-up, the burden is on you to get the quote right. But this isn’t just getting a quote wrong, this fake quote is deliberately constructed to support a right-wing narrative, the same bullshit narrative that Fox News has talked up for eight months now.
Republicans are not interested in the facts when it comes to Benghazi, or really, anything for that matter. And to the extend that some Republicans are honestly paranoid about this administration and the potential for a cover-up, I believe it’s mostly their guilty conscience talking. When it comes to cover-ups and malfeasance, Republicans do a bang up job. So you can’t fault them when they believe the same is true of others.
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