The last time National Security Adviser Susan Rice made a memorable appearance on the Sunday morning news shows it was on five different networks in 2012 to spread the ridiculous and untrue fable that a YouTube video had been the cause of four deaths in Benghazi, as opposed to terrorists the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton should have been prepared for. This Sunday, Rice might have been caught in a brand new fib.
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Rice appeared on ABC’s This Week to defend Obama’s release of The Taliban Dream Team from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who had been a Taliban prisoner in Pakistan for five years. Other than setting the terrible precedent of negotiating with terrorists, the exchange has become controversial over claims that Bergdahl was a deserter who simply walked away from his post. Rice, however, said on ABC that Bergdahl had been “taken in battle.”
Bergdahl had apparently become disillusion with the United States, the military, and the mission in Afghanistan. There are reports that just prior to disappearing, Bergdahl mailed a lot of his stuff home, including his computer. Then, a number of his platoon mates claim, he just walked away from his post.
At first, the Army classified Bergdahl as DUSTWUN, or duty status: whereabouts unknown.
Despite all of this, Rice attempted to make the prisoner swap look like an administration triumph and obviously wanted to make it sound to George Stephanopoulos and to the American people as though Obama had just secured the release of an American hero:
Sergeant Bergdahl wasn’t simply a hostage. He was an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield. We have a sacred obligation we have upheld since the found of our Republic to do our utmost to bring back our men and women who are taken in battle.
Having watched this story unfold over the last 24 hours, the similarities to Benghazi are striking. You have (with notable exceptions like CNN’s Jake Tapper) a media that wants to protect Obama from any criticism or fallout over the Bergdahl release; thankfully, thanks to alternative media, you have the truth getting out despite the media’s best efforts; and you have Susan Rice on a Sunday news show launching what looks like another phony narrative.
But when the DC media doesn’t make Democrats pay any kind of political price for anything, why wouldn’t Obama haul out the Benghazi Playbook?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC