Conservatives are out in force this morning claiming Lara Logan's segment on CBS' 60 Minutes is evidence their yearlong effort to convert the tragedy in Benghazi into a political scandal was warranted.
Far from it -- it is the latest Benghazi Hoax.
From watching the 60 Minutes segment, you would be led to believe there is a "lingering question" involving the U.S. military's response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya. The report did not let viewers know that an anti-terrorism team was deployed from Spain, along with Special Forces based in the United States and Croatia. None of these forces even made it to Libya until 11 hours after our diplomatic and CIA teams had been evacuated.
Furthermore, the belief that the military did not do everything it could to rescue those in Benghazi has been contradicted by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, and former Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Robert Gates.
Claims that the military didn't do everything it could to help those in Benghazi go hand-in-hand with the conspiracy that a “stand down” order was issued to a Special Forces team in Tripoli. Even congressional Republicans have debunked this claim:
“Contrary to news reports, Gibson was not ordered to 'stand down' by higher command authorities in response to his understandable desire to lead a group of three other special forces soldiers to Benghazi.”
While those interviewed during the 60 Minutes report decried the lack of funding for embassy security, the program failed to note:
For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department's Worldwide Security Protection program -- well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration's request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012.
The 60 Minutes piece follows the same pattern as every other element of The Benghazi Hoax we've witnessed for the past 13 months. Supposedly new revelations promoted by different media outlets are simply worn-over versions of the same hoaxes debunked months before; context that would provide critical information to viewers or readers is missing; and the right-wing media exaggerate the new allegations to something unrecognizable from the original report.
Nothing in the 60 Minutes report implicated Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in any wrongdoing leading up to the attack in Benghazi -- in fact their names were never mentioned. But conservatives are already on the attack against the president and former secretary of state. Evidence, context, and truth don't matter as long as tragedy can be converted into political scandal.
Already this morning, cheered on by Fox News, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is using the CBS report as the pretext for blocking every Obama appointment before the United States Senate until “the survivors [of Benghazi] are being made available to the Congress” -- never mind that they have already answered questions from numerous investigators and that the Senate has access to those interviews.
Once again, rather than do the country's business, conservatives, led by their media, would rather halt the work of government in an attempt to score political points with their base.