Been half-following the right’s feigned OUTRAGE!!! over BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI and I’ve yet to figure out just what they are attempting to allege.
That Obama “covered up” what “really happened?” For what purpose? Because if “terrorists” attacked the embassy in Libya it would somehow have been more politically damaging than if the attackers were simply pissed over that anti-Muslim video?
Is this it?
If this isn’t it, what is it?
I mean, there’s more illogic that flows from this initial illogic. Obama didn’t call the attackers terrorists because by doing so he would have had to implicitly acknowledge that terrorism is still a problem in the Mideast and he hasn’t solved that problem… and, what, Americans en masse would have concluded that we’d be better off with Romney’s warmed-over Bush policies?
Come on.
A reader over at TPM summarizes what may be other right-wing rationales. “May be” because I don’t even know that conservatives know what they’re arguing. They’re simply shouting LIES! COVER-UP! without much thought as to whether there’s any there there, any rational reason why the administration would engage in a cover up.
It’s like, they know Obama’s a liar and this is just proof!
This is classic right-wing, shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater politics. There’s no legitimate national security concerns here; it’s all politics. There’s one end goal, and it’s not improving security at our embassies, or pursing the “right” policy in the Mideast; it’s all about “getting” Obama.
One reason we do the whole OUTRAGE!!! business in the first place is because Republicans/conservatives are so prone to react exactly this way. They are OUTRAGED!!! at Benghazi, but exactly what’s the narrative here? Doesn’t matter – LIAR! OUTRAGE!
It’s hard to caricature this because it is such a caricature.
And then, of course, the fact that the media isn’t covering this the way they believe it should be covered fuels even more OUTRAGE!
But the Benghazi attacks have been getting more media coverage than many of the far worse attacks that took place under, you guessed it, George W. Bush:
June 14, 2002, U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan; Suicide bomber kills 12 and injures 51.
February 20, 2003, international diplomatic compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Truck bomb kills 17.
February 28, 2003, U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan
Gunmen on motorcycles killed two consulate guards.July 30, 2004, U.S. embassy in Taskkent, Uzbekistan
Suicide bomber kills two.December 6, 2004, U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Militants stormed and occupied perimeter wall. Five killed, 10 wounded.March 2, 2006, U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan
Suicide car bomber killed four, including a U.S. diplomat directly targeted by the assailants.September 12, 2006, U.S. embassy in Damascus, Syria
Gunmen attacked embassy with grenades, automatic weapons, and a car bomb (though second truck bomb failed to detonate). One killed and 13 wounded.January 12, 2007, U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece
A rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the embassy building. No one was injured.July 9, 2008, U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey
Armed men attacked consulate with pistols and shotguns. Three policemen killed.March 18, 2008, U.S. embassy in Sana’a, Yemen
Mortar attack misses embassy, hits nearby girls’ school instead.September 17, 2008, U.S. embassy in Sana’a, Yemen
Militants dressed as policemen attacked the embassy with RPGs, rifles, grenades and car bombs. Six Yemeni soldiers and seven civilians were killed. Sixteen more were injured.
Do you even remember coverage of some of these? Seventeen killed in Saudi Arabia.
So in the end, the media is giving far more time to Benghazi than other attacks which were far deadlier. And yet it’s still not enough; the media too is “burying” the story, once again showing its supposed liberal bias.
This is a case study in OUTRAGE!!!, a case study in the way the right does politics. If an embassy attack is outrageous, then all of the above that took place under Bush must also have been OUTRAGES!!!; if the embassy in Libya was attacked due to perceived American weakness, why were all these other embassies attacked, during the tough-guy Bush years?
Or maybe an embassy being attacked isn’t, unfortunately, that rare an occurrence. Maybe, in a very unstable part of the world, this happens regardless of who’s in power here in the states.
But that doesn’t support the narrative. Better to yell and go off half-cocked than to think it through and realize that whatever “there” might be there – it’s been there for quite some time.
