Fox Military Analyst Counters Rest Of Network, Denounces "Second Guessing" On Benghazi Attack Response

Former NATO Ambassador Adds: "Keep Politics Out Of This"

Video››› October 25, 2012 3:18 PM EDT ››› MEDIA MATTERS STAFF

From the October 25 edition of Fox News' Happening Now:

As I sat here watching this video of Retired Army General Jack Keane, Vice Chief of the US Army, 
 and Ambassador Nick Burns, former US Ambassador to NATO, who are both Fox Analysts, I was struck at the total dishonesty of the Fox host Jon Scott in trying to steer the conversation.

Although I have to admit that Jon Scott's comments why didn't they fly F-16's overhead and scare the the terrorist was classic. Guess they scared Scott when they flew over his head but we are talking about terrorist types that had planes flying overhead all the time during the uprising in Libya that took out Gaddaffi. What can you say to such stupidity -- thought the General was going to burst out laughing.

These two men put Country over the Republican Party and Fox News by telling the truth that politics needs taken out of the Libyan Consulate Attack.  When you listen, you discover how brave our security people were and how security forces from Tripoli got there to help evacuate those still alive who you never hear about.

Then there was the former Secretary of State Condi Rice interview throwing cold water on Fox Tabloid News Libya conspiracies:

With her reasoned response, Rice stands apart from other former Bush administration officials, including former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Both Rumsfeld and Bolton have repeatedly insisted that the Obama administration has performed a cover-up of the events in Benghazi. 

Condi Rice Pours Cold Water On ‘Benghazi-Gate’By Hayes Brown on Oct 25, 2012 at 1:07 pm

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice broke with the majority of her party last night on Fox News, as she tried to hit the brakes on the right wing’s politicization of the recent attack in Libya. 

Host Greta Van Susteren asked Rice directly and repeatedly about a set of emails uncovered by Reuters. In what has been dubbed “Benghazi-Gate,” the conservative media has jumped on the emails as definitive proof that the Obama administration has been lying about what it knew and when in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Rice’s response was likely not what Van Susteren expected: 

RICE: But when things are unfolding very, very quickly, it’s not always easy to know what is really going on on the ground. And to my mind, the really important questions here are about how information was collected. Did the various agencies really coordinate and share intelligence in the way that we had hoped, with the reforms that were made after 9/11?

So there’s a big picture to be examined here. But we don’t have all of the pieces, and I think it’s easy to try and jump to conclusions about what might have happened here. It’s probably better to let the relevant bodies do their work.

Throughout the interview, Rice highlighted the difficulty that comes in a “fog of war” situation, with multiple stories coming in which need to be processed and verified. Her statements strongly align with the evolution of the Obama administration’s understanding of what happened in Benghazi. Rice also joined current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in dismissing the big picture importance of the emails from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, as a small portion of the overall communication between the mission and the State Department.

Read More at Think Progress and Media Matters about the biased reporting we are seeing about Libya from Fox Tabloid News.  You may ask why I call them Tabloid News -- the answer is pretty simple as they have as much credibility on reporting News as the tabloid news magazines you see in the grocery store. aisles.

When Roger Ailes who is President of Fox News Channel and Chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group decided to take Fox News from being more Fair and Balanced to being the Romney campaign second headquarters, for some of us it was the final straw with Fox.  They had so many Romney surrogates like Karl Rove and others giving Romney spin even during the primaries that it was obscene but they refused to acknowledge these Fox news contributors were Romney supporters/consultants.  According to Fox Tabloid News, Rove is just another analyst not the owner of a Super PAC and non-disclosure PAC supporting GOP candidates including ads for Romney which he has now scaled back to concentrate on the hard right GOP Senate races.  
It has been amazing to sit back and watch Fox News contributors go on the air along with Rush to give Romney and his team advice and the next day see a clip of Romney using those same words.  At first I thought I was imagining things but I wasn't.  Others picked up on the same thing

Check out these links from Fox Tabloid News and see why I call them Tabloid News now:

Fox Regular Michael Scheuer: "Democrats Are Very Good At Watching Americans Die" Video October 25, 2012 5:16 PM EDT

On Fox, Lars Larson Accuses Obama White House Of Watching Americans Die In Libya Blog October 25, 2012 6:19 PM EDT

O'Reilly "Speculat[es]" Obama Didn't Pay Attention To Benghazi Attack, "Even Though One Of His Ambassadors Was Murdered" - Video October 25, 2012 10:01 PM EDT

Fox's New Low: Accusing Obama Admin. Of Abandoning Americans To Die In Libya 

Fox News hosts and contributors repeatedly suggested that the Obama administration made a "political decision" to allow Americans to be killed in the September 11 Benghazi, Libya, attack on an American compound. But U.S. agents and the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli rushed to the aid of the compound during the attack, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that the attack was over before the U.S. military had sufficient information on which to act.

Do The Conspiracy Theories Pushed By Fox's Peter Johnson Come Straight From The Top?

Blog 1 hour and 34 minutes ago 

Why is a Republican Senator Defending Issa for Outing Libyans?

Why is Senator Graham making a fool of himself over Libya by defending Issa?  First of all there is later data out to confirm what Susan Rice said that confirms the video was part of this but why let facts stand in the way.

October 16: News reports begin to indicate that while the Benghazi attacks may not have grown out of a protest against an anti-Muslim film Rice said in her Sept. 16 remarks, the assault may have been both an act of terrorism and carried out in response to the video.

Anyone who has ever been around the Intelligence Community knows that initial reports may not be the whole story.  That is nothing new but to declare the video had nothing to do with the attack isn't facing reality as the demonstrations started in Egypt due to the video and were spreading so a logical conclusion is that some terrorists took the opportunity to go after the consulate.  Did they know the Ambassador was in residence that night or were they after another facility on the compound?

The very idea that any sitting Senator would approve of what Issa did by releasing these documents to the public that contained names of Libyans who have been helping us is outrageous.  It just proves that these Republicans in Congress will do anything they can to defeat Obama when it means going against their core values in order to support a dishonest and corrupt Mitt Romney.  Also proves that Fox News will do anything to support Republicans by changing subjects like Chris Wallace did.

Durbin: Issa endangered Libyans with document dump to get ‘toehold’ for Romney (via Raw Story )

By David Edwards 

Sunday, October 21, 2012 12:37 EDT 

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) on Sunday ripped House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrel Issa (R-IL) for exposing the identities of Libyans who were working with the U.S. government in an effort to politicize the recent deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and get a foreign policy “toehold" for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. 

During an interview on Fox News on Sunday, host Chris Wallace repeatedly ignored Durbin’s efforts to point out that Issa had dumped 166 pages of sensitive State Department documents without redacting the names of Libyan civilians.

“Let’s ask the honest questions, let’s gather the evidence, let’s make sure we understand actually what did occur,” the Democratic senator told Wallace. “But jumping to conclusions — I mean, Darrel Issa does a documentary dump on his website of sensitive information about those in Libya who are helping to keep America safe. It shows the lengths many will go to try to politicize this tragic situation.”

Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, however, praised Issa and Fox News for continuing to attack President Barack Obama for his handling of Libya before and after the attacks. 

“Thanks God for media that will ask questions, thank God for some Republican control of one branch of government,” Graham opined. “If you left it up to this administration to inform the American people, we would still be believing this was a spontaneous riot spurred by a video.” 

“I am totally convinced that this is going to go down in history as one of the most major breakdowns of national security in a very long time,” he insisted. “It’s exhibit A of a failed national security strategy.”

For his part, Durbin said that it was “always easier to say the day after how you could have won that football game.”

“This idea of Chairman Issa, saying that he’s going to dump the names in public of Libyans who are risking their lives to support America and keep us safe in an effort to get a political toehold in this election is unconscionable, it is unacceptable,” Durban observed. “I’m sure that Sen. Graham doesn’t support that.”

“Well, let’s move on to the shifting story after the attack,” Wallace replied, declining to press Graham on the question of Issa’s document dump.

Fox Tabloid News pundit Wallace refused to press Graham on his answer preferring to 'move on' so Graham didn't have to answer whether he supported outing the Libyans or not.  By his silence and support of Issa, he has answered that question that he agrees or he would have spoken out.  Shame on Senator Graham for putting Party over our Country and National Security.  He joins a long list of Republicans who have been obstructing and attacking the President for over 3 1/2 years but this is reprehensible out of someone with access to classified information and has been a member of the military.

What country would want to work with the CIA if we are going to out their people?  Or is that what Graham and others want -- do away with the CIA and bring intelligence under the military which is bad idea.  They don't have the resources and the DoD is headed by a political appointee that leaves his job when a new President takes over while the CIA Director is a 10-year appointment like the FBI Director.  The CIA operates independently from the military but so many times they have reached the same conclusions from different avenues which is necessary to have an intelligence community that works.  I have no faith left in today's Republicans in Congress or in the flawed candidate representing the Republican Party.

The obstruction and House Republicans cutting the budgets of security for the embassies should make everyone cringe at what they would do if Romney was President.  

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