i have come to the conclusion that this Benghazi thing is f*&king stupid.

Like hungry dogs with meaty bones ~ obviously, there is no level too low for GOP/TPers to stoop, trying to feed their ravenous hunger/hatred ~ ~ Sooz

GOP invents new, broader Benghazi conspiracy
12/31/13 11:15 AM—Updated 12/31/13 12:10 PM
By Steve Benen

The New York Times published a comprehensive report over the weekend on last year’s attack in Benghazi, and it’s arguably the most detailed account any major news organization has completed on what transpired in Libya in September 2012.

The report also appears to have driven some Republicans bonkers.

GOP conspiracy theories surrounding Benghazi have long been something of a sideshow – after multiple, independent investigations, none of the far-right allegations have been substantiated in the slightest. But the NYT’s account discredited the far-right theories even more thoroughly, effectively ending the debate, such as it was.

That said, watching the concerted effort to defend the conspiracy theory with an even more elaborate conspiracy theory is rather alarming.


The Republican pundit believes it’s “quite obvious” that the New York Times “invested all the effort and time in this and put it on the front page is precisely a way to protect the Democrats, to deflect the issue, to protect Hillary, who was exposed on this issue as almost no issue in her tenure in the administration. It is obviously a political move.”

Noting that Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal explained how baseless the allegations against the paper really are, Krauthammer added that Rosenthal “being defensive” only bolsters the new conspiracy further.

(One has to admire the logic on display. According to Charles Krauthammer, ostensibly one of the sharper minds in Republican media, because Rosenthal said the conspiracy theory isn’t true, it must be proof that the conspiracy theory is true, otherwise Rosenthal wouldn’t deny it. Brilliant.)

It’s one thing for conservative activists to desperately search for new ways to keep their rallying cry alive, but for high-profile Republican lawmakers and pundits to embrace loony-tunes ideas without shame or embarrassment is unsettling.

As we discussed yesterday, when a conspiracy theory is debunked, its proponents have a few options to consider. They can look for additional evidence to bolster their argument; they can reevaluate their theory in light of the new information; they can even accept reality and move on to something else.

But Krauthammer has joined a small cadre of GOP voices choosing instead to expand the delusion, raising the specter of an even grander conspiracy involving a more elaborate set of players.

For the record, there’s literally no evidence to substantiate this new conspiracy theory, and if you’re going to accuse one of the world’s preeminent news organizations of lying to the public as part of a broader scheme to influence a presidential election three years in advance, you should probably think of some way to back it up before taking the theory to national airwaves.

What’s more, the conspiracy doesn’t make sense on its face since the NYT’s report doesn’t cast Clinton’s State Department in an especially flattering light anyway.

The right really needs to get a grip on this.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-invents-new-broader-benghazi-conspiracy

Mark my words, the Republicans are going to squeeze Benghazi like a lemon at least until Hilary's inauguration, if not longer.

sure, the same paper that quelled the warrantless wiretapping story for over a year, allowing Bush to win a second term, is now protecting Hillary.

that makes sense.

not.

I'm thinking that not only do the GOP/TPers suffer from an acute lack of comprehension, they also seem to be infected with an unfixable "talent" for projecting onto their targets what they themselves would likely do in similar circumstances ~ ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Another bad day for Benghazi conspiracy theories
01/15/14 04:00 PM—Updated 01/16/14 02:13 AM
By Steve Benen

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, better known as the Senate Intelligence Committee, published an 85-page report (pdf) today on the attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi in September 2012. Its findings will likely seem pretty familiar.


If this seems to cover familiar ground, that’s because previous investigations have led to very similar conclusions. The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted that Republicans, especially those eager to tear down former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are likely to be “sorely disappointed” by the findings.

That’s clearly true. As Adam Serwer’s report makes clear, there was no “stand down” order; Susan Rice did nothing wrong; and there was no White House interference with the creation of post-attack talking points. Indeed, of all the various Republican allegations about a conspiracy, there remains literally no evidence to bolster the far-right paranoia.

Indeed, if GOP officials who tried to destroy Susan Rice’s reputation apologize now that their attacks have been discredited, I remain confident that she’d be gracious about their misguided smear campaign.

All of this, however, leads to a larger question: just how much more will it take to convince the Republican conspiracy theorist they were wrong?

I did a little digging this afternoon and found that over the course of the last 15 months, the deadly attack in Benghazi has now been investigated by:

* the independent State Department Accountability Review Board, led by former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and career diplomat Thomas Pickering;

* the Senate Intelligence Committee;

* the Senate Armed Services Committee;

* the House Intelligence Committee;

* the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee;

* the House Armed Services Committee;

* the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform;

* and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

And those are just the official investigations, led by current and former U.S. officials, and don’t include investigative reports from journalists at major news organizations.

After all of this scrutiny, there’s still no evidence of a cover-up or a conspiracy. None. The allegations raised by the Obama administration’s fiercest and angriest critics are still without substantiation.

Given the latest report, which reinforces the previous reports, are Republicans finally prepared to move on to some other alleged conspiracy? Of course not. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) saw the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee and said, “It should be clear, even to my critics by now, that Benghazi is bigger than Watergate.”

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) added, “I’m familiar with cover-ups throughout history, the Pentagon Papers, Iran-Contra, all of them. This is gonna go down as the greatest cover-up in history because the president and Susan Rice both knew it was an organized terrorist attack and deliberately sent Susan Rice to tell the American people it was not.”

It doesn’t matter that they’re wrong; they don’t care. They start with the conclusion and try to work backwards to find evidence that satisfies their goal. If the evidence doesn’t match the preconceived answer, then there’s a problem with the evidence, not the assumptions.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/more-setbacks-benghazi-conspiracy-theory#break