This morning, Greg Sargent returned us to the glory of the 1990s when we were treated to the delights of mainstream media sources seriously discussing allegations that Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster killed. What is particularly tragic is that Foster killed himself, largely as the result of all the vicious attacks on him by the conservative movement. Of course Foster suffered from depression, but I suspect that had he never been part of Clinton White House, he would be alive today. So exactly the people who hasten his death, then used his death to attack the Clinton White House, most especially Hillary Clinton.
Sargent argued that those days are back. In particular, he argued that a new Karl Rove video is intended to bring back the “angry Hillary” meme. And that’s to be expected. Last year, the focus of the Benghazi hysteria was all on Obama, because they were trying to defeat him. Now they are focused on Clinton, because she is the front runner for 2016. I don’t think it as much shameless as it is pathetic. Conservatives really do not have any issues to deal with, so they trump up the most ridiculous “scandals” and beat them until finally the mainstream media start to cover them.
Check out this short video:
The argument is that Clinton was briefed by Greg Hicks, the ambassador’s aide, who told her it “was in fact terrorism.” Then, Clinton made a public statement contradicting that. But here’s the thing: one man’s opinion does not make Truth. During the lead-up to the Iraq War, Cheney and his minions combed through the intelligence, pulling out everything that made the case for war and ignoring everything that didn’t. There are always conflicting data. Clinton was no doubt briefed by many people and got conflicting information from many sources. All this video really says is that Clinton didn’t use the data from one source.
The video goes on to say that someone in the administration told him not to go to the press. There are questions about this anyway, but even if strictly true, it doesn’t mean much. I imagine a conversation like this:
Hicks: Clinton contradicted me!
WH: So? She got information from a number of sources.
Hicks: I’m going to the press!
WH: Don’t do that! This situation is already difficult enough.
But the Karl Rove attack is not about finding the true. It is about labeling Clinton as a woman who is capable of anything. Who knows, maybe she really did kill Vince Foster. Maybe she planned the Benghazi attack! Remember: Watergate was bad, but at least no one died!
BENGHAZI !
I make a point of not following this story, as whether or not some institutional incompetence resulted in the deaths of embassy officials is important, of course, but pales in comparison to the intentional deaths which our foreign policy deals out daily.
It fits into recent posts you’ve written on Republicans being a revolutionary party, one that does not accept democratic elections as law of the land. When a Clinton or an Obama is in office, angry self-styled patriots get bent about how this or that portion of the Constitution is being violated. They accept, of course, Supreme Court rulings that side with their views and executive actions made by their Presidents which have dubious constitutional justification. It’s rather like how they read their Bible.
This Benghazi story will be with us for years, and it probably involved some sort of institutional wrongdoing. Nothing compared to the lies and racist assumptions that justified annihilating Iraq for no sensible reason, but it’ll play for a lazy media that hides behind imagined objectivity.
I just finished reading Nick Turse’s "Kill Anything That Moves," an analysis of recently-declassified Pentagon documents on the Vietnam War. The military, convinced it had the press in its pocket, was stunned by exposure of the My Lai massacre. They kept tabs on every soldier who complained about atrocities after that, attempting to stay one step ahead of the press. And they succeeded. Turse’s research shows that atrocities were the norm, not the exception, which is why 15% of the Vietnamese population was killed during that war.
My Lai was a big scandal. Nothing changed because of it. Other journalists who attempted to show how systematic murder was instituted from the highest levels weren’t as compelling as the My Lai story of frightened/angry boys gone wild, so their discoveries went unreported.
It’s telling that in finding their "Whitewater" or "Lewinski" moment, Rebublicans are focusing on some dumb/sloppy/self-interested moves by administration officials which may/may have not resulted in the death of embassy employees; the symbol of our power everywhere. (If Republican policies result is declining standards of living, well too bad for the losers, but nobody gets to mess with arbitrary symbols of American power and live to tell the tale.)
Our political system is corrupt; we all know that. Our media plays at the game of objectivity while focusing on stories that get it the most hits and viewers/subscribers; we know that. Organized genocide was the policy of our braintrust in Vietnam, and the media willfully ignored it — well, I didn’t know that. I might have suspected it, but Turse’s poring through the records makes it irrefutable.
But this shit’s all brand loyalty, isn’t it. Democrats lost us the Vietnam war by maligning our noble troops, Republicans stand for national pride. Doesn’t matter if a Democratic president gave the go-ahead for a kill mission on Bin Laden sitting there bored and watching bad TV when our ostensible allies in Pakistan finally got sick of him. If it’d happened under Bush, it would have been the triumph of all virtue. Under Obama, it’s a magnificent operation carried out by our elite video-game-style experts despite the President’s contempt for real Americans who care about such things as not getting blown up in Des Moines.
I wonder, sometimes, under what circumstances right-wingers imagine there is any threat to their existence. Do they envision this scenario? "Ahmed: you kill the heathen New Yorkers. Jamal: you kill the infidel invaders of Iraq. And, uh, Mahmoud?" (Mahmoud burps loudly and says, "yeah?") "Mahmoud, why don’t you work on that plan for killing everyone at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD." (Mahmoud claps and shouts, "Yay, I’m a rebel!" while other terrorists avert their eyes.