The media stirs
I can't tell if the moribund American media is finally doing their job on Benghazi or if they're being dragged, kicking and screaming. I do find this progression interesting:
Weekly Standard
National Journal
CBS News
ABC News
The New Yorker
No wonder the White House had to gather up their loyal subjects for a "deep background" review. When it was a Fox News and Weekly Standard story, it could be marginalized by this White House; when you've lost the New Yorker can CNN and MSNBC be far behind? OK, well, not MSNBC.
Update - They're resorting to extreme measures now: "Smoke forces evacuation of White House press room."
8 comments:
I'm having trouble finding the flowchart that begins with the righteous and principled conservative investigative coverage of the 2002 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Calcutta (5 dead). Or the flowchart for the 2002 suicide bombing of the Karachi Consulate (12 dead, 51 injured). Or the 2003 attack on the Islamabad Embassy (2 dead). Or the 2003 Al Qaeda invasion of the Riyadh diplomatic compound (36 dead). Or the 2004 bombing of the Tashkent Embassy (2 dead). Or the 2004 Al Qaeda storming of the Jeddah Consulate (9 dead). Or the 2006 followup attack on the Karachi Consulate (4 dead, including the U.S. diplomat who was the target of the assault). Or the 2006 storming of the Damascus Embassy (4 dead). Or the 2008 attack on the Istanbul Consulate (6 dead). Or the 2008 repeat assault on the Sana'a Embassy (16 dead).
Sincere concern plus facts is a powerful combination that can't be ignored forever. If you could point us to the progression flowcharts for those pre-2009 security scandals, we could use them to really stick it to the biased liberal media.
Will you stipulate that the concern level is higher when American are killed? I would think that would raise eyebrows if security warning were ignored (they were) and talking points were doctored (they were).
Americans were killed in several of those attacks: Riyadh, Karachi, and Sana'a for sure. The Sana'a bombings got slightly more attention than the others because it had the hook of a dead American newlywed. There was little concern about its having been followup attack, the second in half a year. The Karachi assault that targeted and killed David Foy was the third such attack on that consulate.
Were security warnings more or less effective under Obama or Bush? The available news links are unclear. I do know that talkative critics like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld should have enough humility about their own security oversight record to STFU. And that the conservative press could have the good grace to acknowledge that they're well-rested on this topic, after their 7-year nap.
I think Benghazi is getting more coverage because it was the most violent movie review ever.
Also, it's the first time an American ambassador has been killed since the Carter administration.
Benghazi is getting more coverage because Hillary Clinton is a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, and has attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Yeah, it was awful nice of her to provide us with an issue to use against here, as the New York Times says.
Please proceed, Governor.
Now that the Obama presidency has lost the New Yorker, which is a key media tipping point in whether a story has legs...
THE I.R.S. AND THE TEA PARTY: WHERE IS THE SCANDAL?
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/05/the-irs-and-the-tea-party-where-is-the-scandal.html
TEA PARTIERS AND TAX EXEMPTION: THE REAL I.R.S. SCANDAL
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/05/irs-scandal-tea-party-oversight.html
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