On Tuesday, Judicial Watch released emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show then-White House deputy strategic communications adviser Ben Rhodes collaborated with other senior White House officials to shield President Obama from criticism following the September 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. In the emails, Rhodes explained the “goal” is “to underscore that these protests are rooted in [an] Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”
As TheBlaze reported, several top White House staffers, including political strategist David Plouffe and press secretary Jay Carney, were involved in these emails, some of which were circulated just a day before then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on television to blame the attacks on a YouTube video.
Over the weekend, prominent Democrats, including Plouffe, made the rounds on the Sunday morning shows to downplay the significance of emails. On radio this morning, Glenn lambasted the sad state of the American media when it comes to actually reporting on the issues that matter.
ON CNN’s State of the Union, Gwen Ifill of PBS News Hour ran through a list of stories she believes deserve greater coverage than Benghazi.
“If this weren’t about politics, we would be talking about the two-hundred-plus missing girls in Nigeria,” Ifill said. “We’d be talking about the outbreak of war in South Sudan. There are so many important issues around the world which involves people’s lives, helpless people’s lives, that could use a little attention.”
“That involve people's lives,” Glenn asked. “Not the unbelievable slaughter of innocents in Libya, not the slaughter in Syria because we helped run guns to al-Qaeda then the guns were shipped over to Syria. It's just important things like Nigeria and the Sudan, not Libya and Syria. That's not important.”
Over on ABC News’ This Week, Laura Ingraham was forced to respond to Plouffe, Van Jones, and Cokie Roberts after she disagreed with Ploffe’s assertion that a “very loud, delusional minority” is driving the Republican Party to politicize Benghazi.
Watch the exchange below:
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“This is [Cass Sunstein] full throttle,” Glenn said of Plouffe’s attempt to marginalize the issue. “Cass Sunstein said make sure you call it a conspiracy theory. Even if you know it to be true, label it a conspiracy theory.”
While Ingraham holds her own against the progressive power players, the jury is stacked against her. As soon has Plouffe seems to be at a loss, Jones and Roberts are there to rescue him.
“She jumps right in and says, ‘Let’s not have a prosecution here,’” Pat said of Roberts. “What are you talking about? That's what your whole show is about!”
The Sunday shows should be a roundtable to Washington analysts who can offer a deeper look and perspective on the biggest issues of the week. Instead, week after week these shows prove to be nothing more than a political game.
"That's what it's supposed to be about. You are supposed to bring the newsmakers on and hold them accountable for what happened,” Glenn said. “But this is what it looks like after a White House Correspondents Dinner. You do a dinner for 100 years and this is what you get: ‘Whoa, hold on, outsider. I don't think you know how this is played. We're in this together. We'll take a pound of his flesh and he'll take a fund of ours, but we'll all go away happy and have dinner together.’”
“You see that played out every single Sunday on every one of these shows,” Pat concluded. “Then when you get someone like Laura Ingraham, who is not part of the inside ring, it's a blood bath.”