The President of the United States might not believe there is any “there” there regarding his administration’s now-admitted mishandling of the September 11 terror attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, but a new Gallup poll seems to indicate the America people aren’t quite as sure. A full 52% “strongly agree” that Benghazi is a “serious issue that needs to be investigated,” while 17% “agree.” That’s a total of 69%.
Because the mainstream media has conspired (it must be noted that there are a number of notable individual exceptions) with the White House over the last eight months to downplay Libya, you might think that particular scandal would generate less interest than the IRS scandal — which the media have taken much more seriously. Surprisingly, though, the numbers aren’t all that different. When asked the same question about the IRS, 56% “strongly agree” and 18% “agree;” for a total of 74% — which is only 5 points higher than Libya.
The numbers for Libya create a real dilemma for the White House and its lapdog media. The no there “there” Narrative they have spent eight months manufacturing obviously isn’t working. Moreover, the motive behind this Narrative is a sinister one: neither Obama nor his media want the truth to get out, and both know that the more the people learn about the administration’s handling of Libya, the worse it will be for the administration.
For instance, with the release of the 94 emails earlier this week, we now know for a fact that the White House repeatedly lied with their claim that the administration played no role in shaping the CIA talking points. The media, though, refuse to hold the White House accountable for that lie and prefer to pretend the emails actually do back the administration’s claim.
The main reason the media have smothered the damning revelations found in the emails, though, is to protect Hillary Clinton. It was the State Department that demanded what amounted to almost a total rewrite of the completed talking points, and won them. But the media see Hillary as the best chance they have for keeping the White House out of Republican hands in 2016, and so they are circling the wagons for her, just like they have for Obama for the last five years.
Plus, even though the media isn’t demanding more, we still don’t have all the information regarding the shaping of the talking points. These information gaps are critical, and to say we should take the White House’s word for anything at this point is a joke.
The media are also ignoring and smothering the effort to find out who gave the order to “stand down” when it came to sending help to Americans under attack that night. And when it comes to finding out what exactly the President was doing during those horrific hours during which the attack took place, the media is laughably uncurious.
To protect the White House from having to reveal the truth, the President and his media have developed a strategy that smears as partisan witch-hunters anyone searching for the truth. This includes any Republican in Congress pushing for investigations and, naturally, Fox News.
But from the looks of this poll, the witch-hunters have the will of the people on their side–a whopping 69% of them. That’s a huge number, but if you think about, not really a surprising one. When Americans die, decent people believe everything should be fully investigated and made public.
The American people are, by and large, decent.
This White House and its media, however, are not.
Hopefully this poll will only further embolden the GOP and Fox News and the exceptions in the media to continue to do the decent thing: Find and tell the complete truth about what led to the deaths of an ambassador and three other Americans.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC