Salon: It's Conservatives' Fault if Benghazi Scandal Doesn't Have Legs. Er … What?
Pre-spin is the new spin
Well, here's an interesting way to respond to the Benghazi scandal, back in the spotlight again this week as whistle-blowers prepare to testify before Congress that the government always knew the assault on the consulate in Libya was a planned terror attack and not a spontaneous protest in response to an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube. Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon is pre-blaming conservatives should the scandal fail to take off:
The charges seem potentially damaging and the accusers credible, but those trying to fan flames of scandal have so embarrassed and discredited themselves by pushing bogus story lines on Benghazi that it may be hard for the media and American people to take any new allegations seriously. For instance, the last time we saw a "Benghazi whistle-blower," it was an anonymous Fox News source, but he seemed to know so little about basic special operations that military analysts called him a clown and an embarrassment.
Okay, that's one. Any others? It appears not. That's the only example he gives. I can't think of any other examples of embarrassing theories put forth seriously, other than, well, the one put out by the State Department.
In the Fast and Furious scandal, analogous in many ways to Benghazi in way it played out in the media, there was real wrongdoing, but conservatives grasped at straws to make wider, unsubstantiated allegations that let the actual problems largely escape notice.
If the three new witnesses don't get the attention they deserve, Fox News and its ilk deserves much of the blame.
Again, there's still only one example. We don't even know how seriously the public is treating this scandal yet, and somehow he's already blaming Fox News about it. Is the rest of the media not going to cover Benghazi because of something Fox did? That makes no sense. The two likely, actual reasons why the witnesses "don't get the attention they deserve" will be if: One, other news outlets don't follow the story, which will reinforce the narrative of the media as the Obama Administration's protectors; or two, if the general public simply doesn't care about the scandal as much as people in the media and pundit class wish they did (a very possible outcome).
It takes a bit of nerve to try to somehow spin a possible lack of attention on the Benghazi scandal by other media outlets or the public on the credibility of Fox News.
