Rush Limbaugh is attempting to further undermine CNN's Candy Crowley's fact check debunking Mitt Romney's false claim that President Obama waited two weeks before calling the attack in Benghazi, Libya, an act of terror. Limbaugh claimed that Crowley's correction was proof of a “coordinated” effort between the Obama campaign and moderator Crowley before the debate.
In fact, during CNN's post-debate coverage, Crowley addressed the fact check and explained that she had prepared for the debate by going over what had been reported about Libya and remembered Obama's comments about the attack.
During his show, Limbaugh began the discussion by asking: “Who from the Obama team is meeting with Bob Schieffer today?” When questioned off-camera about the question, he replied: “Well, because I think somebody from the Obama team met with Candy Crowley” and apparently reminded her of Obama's September 12 comments, which were the basis for her fact check.
During the October 16 presidential debate, Crowley corrected Romney's false claim that it took Obama 14 days to call the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi an act of terror. In fact, as Crowley noted, Obama referred to the attack as terrorism on September 12.
But presumably referring to a September 30 interview Crowley conducted with senior Obama adviser David Axelrod on State of the Union, Limbaugh stated: “Candy Crowley herself knew that Obama did not call Benghazi a terror attack, and then somebody two weeks before the debate called her attention to the fact that she had, and gave her that transcript.”
Limbaugh went on to suggest that Axelrod may have pointed her toward Obama's September 12 comments and told her to mention the transcript if the issue came up.
In fact, addressing the fact check on CNN after the debate, Crowley stated: “Well, you know, again, I heard the president's speech at the time. I sort of re-read a lot of stuff about Libya because I knew we'd probably get a Libya question, so I kind of wanted to be up on it. So we knew that the president had said, you know, these acts of terror won't stand or whatever the whole quote was.”
Limbaugh previously denounced Crowley's correction, saying she committed an “act of journalistic terror or malpractice.” He went on to say: “If there were any journalist standards, what she did last night would have been the equivalent of blowing up her career like a suicide bomber.”