When A Mainstream Journalist Falls Down The Benghazi Rabbit Hole

Written by Matt Gertz

Published

It's become commonplace for the right-wing fringe to respond to breaking news by invoking Benghazi. The Ebola outbreak, the NFL's domestic violence problems, and the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 are just three recent examples in the panoply of events that remind conservatives of the terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound, which they've spent the last two years trying to turn into a political scandal.

It's more unusual for a journalist from a mainstream outlet to engage in this sort of behavior. But here's how Josh Kraushaar, the political editor for National Journal, responded to the October 8 Washington Post report that suggested senior White House aides had hidden their knowledge of the fact that “a prostitute was an overnight guest in the hotel room” of one of the volunteers on the advance team for President Obama's 2012 trip to Colombia:

In isolation, the WH cover-up of staff misconduct is a blip. But it fits pattern of the WH hiding damaging info from the public b4 election.

-- Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 9, 2014

When Panetta tells @mitchellreports that he told the WH that Benghazi was a “terror attack”... http://t.co/5i7VKu1bXH

-- Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 9, 2014

... makes you wonder if the partisan criticisms have more merit than many first thought. http://t.co/5i7VKu1bXH

-- Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 9, 2014

First instinct is to trust what the WH is saying, but they've squandered a lot of that trust lately.

-- Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 9, 2014

Kraushaar's National Journal colleague Ron Fournier also recently invoked the administration's response to Benghazi as a reason for the public to doubt the federal government's response to Ebola.

Others referencing Benghazi in their discussions of the prostitution story include Ronald Kessler, the investigative journalist described as “a bit of a kook” who recently drew fire for suggesting that President Obama would be to blame if he were assassinated, and Steve Doocy, the Fox News host who previously complained that the deadly Hurricane Sandy “knocked [Benghazi] off the front page.”