Benghazi smell test
by digby
Kevin Drum asks the only truly relevant question on this Benghazi issue: what could the administration have been hoping to achieve by putting out the wrong story? We've seen nothing that makes any sense here. Kevin writes:
As best I can tell, the suggestion from the right has been that Obama didn't want to admit that Benghazi was a terrorist attack because....well, I'm not sure, exactly. Something about how this would blow a hole in his claim to be decimating al-Qaeda via drone attacks. Or maybe it would remove some of the luster from being the killer of Osama bin Laden. Or something. But one way or another, the story is that Obama was deeply afraid of admitting that terrorists are still out there and want to do us harm.
This has never made a lick of sense. If anything, the continuing existence of terrorists justifies his drone attacks. And it certainly wouldn't do him any harm in an election. The American public routinely rallies around a president responding to a terrorist attack...
[And] there's considerable evidence that on September 15, when Rice taped her appearances, the CIA told her there had been protests in Benghazi earlier in the day. The CIA turned out to be wrong about that, but it simply makes no sense for them to have made this up. If it does anything at all, it only makes their response look worse. This whole thing is a conspiracy theory with no conceivable motive. It's just a wild, scattershot attack hoping to take down someone, somewhere, just to claim a scalp. It's disgusting.
It's also a very common form of right wing scandal mongering. They excel at "smell test" insinuations, ginning up the sense that there must be something very wrong with a flurry of questions, not necessarily related or leading to any obvious conclusion, but always leading to the impression that something very important was being covered up.
And the press inevitably loses its moorings, running around chasing each "lead" never really sure of exactly what they're looking for until the scandal takes on a life of its own. This one is on the verge of becoming one of those scandals, especially now that sexytime's on the menu.
There's no there there. It's exactly how Kevin describes it. But that isn't stopping the press from talking about "benghazi" as a "massive intelligence failure and cover-up" featuring John McCain every five minutes ranting about "fecklessness" and pretty much taking it upon himself to destroy Susan Rice over nothing. It's what they do.
Update: Here's Anderson Cooper doing a good job last night with John McCain, but you'll note that McCain, as usual, is unmoved by clear evidence of his own hypocrisy:
COOPER: Supporters of Ambassador Rise compare her comments to made to -- comments that Condoleezza Rice made back when she was national security advisor in 2002 when she made a very public case for the Iraq war, saying Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction. That intelligence was incorrect. But when she was nominated for secretary of state, many Republicans spoke out strongly for her including herself, saying she was a success story and that any one who challenge her integrity was doing it based on politics.
They say there's a double standard. To that you say what?
MCCAIN: Well, I can say I appreciate them saying that, but the fact is four Americans died, four Americans died, and there was overwhelming evidence to the contrary that was clearly a al Qaeda affiliated attack that murdered four Americans that didn't need to happen. There were advance warnings that were sent on August 15th and 16th. They said that they -- in case of a concerted attack they could not guarantee that they could defend the consulate.
There was many warnings. There was previous attacks. All of that goes to the State Department and to this administration and our ambassador to the U.N. The -- raises the question, what was she doing out there anyway? And so the American people were told -- given false information when there was clearly information to counter that immediately. People don't go to spontaneous demonstrations with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
COOPER: I just want to push back on you a little bit --
MCCAIN: Sure. Sure.
COOPER: On the -- on the Condoleezza Rice comments because, you know, I mean, thousands were killed in the war in Iraq and yet people did not -- Republicans did not hold her accountable for misleading statements that she made in the run-up to the war when she was being nominated for secretary of state.
MCCAIN: And I respect that opinion and that view. I think these are two entirely different cases, but if somebody wants to make that case, and tell the American people that it was OK to go out and tell them that this was a spontaneous demonstration sparked by a hateful video that they're qualified for -- to be our secretary of state then they're entitled to that view. I'm entitled for my role and my advice and consent in the United States Senate, and my advice and consent, my constitutional obligation is that I will not vote and not agree to her appointment as secretary of state.
He might as well have put his fingers in his ears and started singing lalalalala.
This is why I don't believe that Democrats should ever count on taking anything "off the table" or using GOP behavior as a way to inoculate themselves from criticism. It doesn't work that way. They must understand that they have to fight each battle as if the world was just invented that morning. There is no history and no context that will protect them. Neither is there any necessity that a pseudo-scandal makes rational sense. The 90s should have proven once and for all that all they have to do is evoke the "smell test" and a scandal can become overwhelming whether it makes any sense or not.
Once a scandal has a one-word name, it's real. This one is just "Benghazi". The people don't know the details anymore than they knew the details of Whitewater, but I think they probably all know that there must be something to it or they all wouldn't be talking about it.
Update: Oy veh. Alleged Democrat Kent Conrad is on TV saying that questions must be answered. It's airborne.
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