Fox News furthered its efforts to protect Mitt Romney from fact checks, claiming today that moderator and CNN host Candy Crowley interrupted a “major moment” for Romney during the presidential debate when she corrected his lie that President Obama did not immediately characterize the September 11 attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
During the October 16 debate, Crowley stepped in to debunk Romney's claim that it took 14 days for Obama to characterize as terrorism the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. As she noted, Obama “did call it an act of terror” the day after the attack.
Addressing the nation on September 12 about the attack, Obama said: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America.”
The next day in Colorado, Obama again referred to the Benghazi attack as an act of terror.
But during today's broadcast of Fox's America Live, host Megyn Kelly faulted Crowley rather than Romney, saying that Crowley “interrupted Governor Romney in the middle of an exchange with the president about the terror attack in Libya.”
Senior White House correspondent Ed Henry went on to accuse Obama of “rewriting history,” claiming that Obama was actually speaking “more generally” when he “said that acts of terror would not deter the United States.”
Fox and right-wing media have repeatedly tried to dismiss the facts concerning what Obama said about terrorism in Libya -- and today, Fox hosts repeatedly attacked Crowley for noting the truth of Obama's terrorism comments.