Fox Resorts To “Professional Dirty Trickster” To Tie Clinton To Benghazi Myths
Written by Ellie Sandmeyer
Published
Fox News' Benghazi coverage has sunk to relying on Roger Stone, the head of the now-defunct anti-Hillary Clinton group Citizens United Not Timid -- designed by Stone for its acronym -- as a source to continue pushing distortions surrounding the attacks.
The March 12 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends provided Stone with the platform to promote his new book The Benghazi Report. Together with co-host Clayton Morris, Stone recounted some of Fox's favorite Benghazi hoaxes, under the pretense that the myths will harm former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should she run for president in 2016. According to Stone, “There's no question Hillary lied and people died”:
Fox selected the right guest to forward its effort to make the Benghazi tragedy into a scandal, as Stone has a long history of directing extreme and sexist attacks at Clinton. In 2008, Stone established an anti-Hillary Clinton political organization named Citizens United Not Timid - The organization frequently went by C.U.N.T., an acronym Stone settled on after reportedly failing to find an appropriate name to match the acronym B.I.T.C.H. In a January 28, 2008 Weekly Standard article, senior writer Matt Labash called Stone “a professional dirty trickster and high priest of political hijinks” before quoting him on the goals of Citizens United Not Timid: "[I]t's one-word education. That's our mission. No issues. No policy groups. No position papers. This is a simple committee with an unfortunate acronym."
Stone's group purported to “educate the American public about what Hillary Clinton really is”:
Stone has never been known as an honest political actor. The New York Times has reported that, as a teenager, Stone hired a political mole, and the Washington Post documented Stone employing deceptive campaign tactics as far back as the 1970s. According to the Times, Stone was forced to resign from the campaign of New York state Sen. Joseph Bruno in August 2007 after “allegations that he left a threatening telephone message at the office of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's father.”