Saturday, May 10, 2014
The White House is betting that journalists are more cynical about House Republicans and their motives than they are about the Obama administration’s mendacity on Benghazi.
May 19, 2014 By STEPHEN F. HAYES
Benghazi, crazy. That’s the association the White
House and its allies want to encourage as a House Select Committee
begins what should be the most thorough investigation of the Benghazi
attacks to date. The White House wants to delegitimize the process
before it begins and preemptively discredit the findings. So last week
senior White House adviser David Plouffe claimed that “a very loud,
delusional minority” is driving the Republicans on Benghazi, and former
representative Jane Harman compared questions about Benghazi to
conspiracy theories about Vince Foster and aliens.
Newscom
At
first blush, it might seem an odd strategy. A Fox News poll taken in
mid-April found that 60 percent of voters want Congress to continue
investigating the Benghazi attacks—a total that included 77 percent of
Republicans, 61 percent of independents, and 42 percent of Democrats.
The same poll found that 61 percent of Americans believe the Obama
administration is “trying to cover up” the real Benghazi story—87
percent of Republicans, 66 percent of independents, and 33 percent of
Democrats. Just 26 percent think the administration has been “open and
transparent.” Notably, this poll was taken before the court-ordered
release last month of previously withheld White House emails and talking
points, a revelation that provided fresh evidence of White House
stonewalling.
But the Obama administration’s strategy isn’t intended for
the country at large so much as it is for the Washington press corps.
The goal is to convince reporters that by investigating Benghazi they
are doing the bidding of crackpots and political hacks. The White House
is betting that journalists are more cynical about House Republicans and
their motives than they are about the Obama administration’s mendacity
on Benghazi. There’s some evidence that’s right.
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