RUTHFULLY YOURS

Yesterday, President Obama finally addressed the Benghazi controversy, calling scrutiny of the edited talking points a “sideshow” and denying his administration was involved in a cover-up. ”If this was some effort on our part to try to downplay what had happened or tamp it down, that would be a pretty odd thing that three days later we end up putting out all the information,” Obama said. “Who executes some sort of cover-up or effort to tamp things down for three days? So the whole thing defies logic.” Equally willing to defy logic was Obama’s MSNBC whore Chris Matthews, who has been more than eager to carry water for the Obama administration. Indeed, Matthews’ coverage of the unrelenting Benghazi scandal has distinguished itself as being particularly loathsome.

Last Thursday, Matthews was in fine form. After acknowledging that Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, had testified before the House that he had spoken with Hillary Clinton on the night of the attack and that Clinton’s Chief of Staff tried to intimidate him into silence, Matthews downplayed the egregiousness of the former secretary of State’s scandalous behavior. The Obama administration was merely putting the “best face” on a terrible situation, Matthews said. “But it didn’t cause Chris Stevens to be killed, it didn’t cause the guys being killed by the mortar fire in the second attack, it didn’t really cause any damage except to Mitt Romney,” he continued. “And how is that going to offend the public?” In other words, four deaths and a subsequent cover-up are no big deal.

New York Times political reporter Jeremy Peters, on Matthews’ Hardball that night, parroted the host’s take, insisting the public wasn’t offended, and that any indignation was limited to “riling up a small part of the Republican base.” “You can’t go to a Republican town hall meeting these days without someone shouting ‘Benghazi! Benghazi!’” complained Peters. Incredibly, Matthews wondered what harm was done by the State Department removing references to terrorism from the post-attack talking points two weeks before the election. “What’s the big damage there?” he asked. Matthews neglected to connect for viewers that one of the president’s central campaign slogans was that terrorism was “on the run,” something that makes the cover-up of the jihadist murder of our ambassador and three Americans at the height of a presidential election much more nefarious.

The fact remains that, in answer to Matthews’ question, the “big damage” is that the Obama-Clinton Benghazi lies were indeed concocted to conceal their responsibility for the deaths of four Americans. When Senior NBC investigative reporter Lisa Meyers, also on the show Thursday, pointed out there were legitimate questions regarding the lack of security and contingency plans at the consulate in Benghazi, and that no effort was made to rescue the Americans trapped there, Matthews acknowledged that such a reality was problematic. But he quickly insisted Clinton ”does care about her ambassadors” and then launched into a fantasy scenario involving Clinton moving heaven and earth to save Americans. Even Chris Stevens himself warranted more blame than Hillary and Obama: As Matthews asserted, Stevens knew what he was getting into when he went to Libya, “a country that wasn’t quite stable.”

Matthews then referred to Republican questions about Hillary’s character as a “clambake” and a “battle of the bands,” further insisting that going after Clinton’s character is part of the “Republican manual.” As far as Matthews is concerned, Clinton’s reference to the Islamic video as the cause of the attack, which has now been revealed as a bald-faced lie, was nothing more than “spin” perpetrated by Republicans. “The only thing that matters to the American people, was anyone derelict enough to let someone die who was a good guy,” he stated. Again, in this instance, Matthews conceals from viewers the indisputable fact of Clinton’s deadly negligence regarding consulate security concerns (lamented by Stevens himself), not to mention the multiple “stand down” orders issued by the administration, which needlessly left our people for dead.

On Monday, Matthews was even more virulent in his defense of the president. In an interview with Rep Mike Turner (R-OH), Matthews behaved like Obama’s personal attack dog. When Turner referred to the lie perpetrated by UN ambassador Susan Rice regarding the Muslim video narrative, Matthews demanded to know if Turner “has proof Obama was involved” in creating that narrative. He continually interrupted Turner when he tried to answer. “Tell me something I don’t know,” repeated Matthews. He then asked if Clinton was involved in editing the talking points. “Was the Secretary of State involved, because what’s going on here is that the big names are getting bopped by your party, which is the way it works. I just want you to tell me who did it,” Matthews complained.

Matthews’ clear intention was to imply that if there is no public trail leading directly to the president, calls for further investigation into the scandal can be dismissed as baseless. When Turner said the connection to high officials like President Obama was precisely what the committee is attempting to determine, Matthews became visibly angry, accusing Turner of making unwarranted accusations. “I think it’s odd to have an investigation to find out if you know what you’re talking about,” Matthews sneered.

“That’s what we’re trying to get down to,” Turner explained, noting that the president only released emails because Congress forced his hand. “He’s not stepped forward and said ‘excuse me, I’ve now learned that a lead administration official on my behalf told a fiction to the nation.’ That’s what he should be focused on, and that’s what we’re trying to find out,” Turner explained.

Here, Turner stumbled onto the crux of the issue, but he did not articulate it fully. Leftists like Matthews have defended Obama in the wake of Benghazi by casting doubt on the idea that the president knew that the Internet video story was a hoax when it was first peddled by Susan Rice on national television. Unfortunately for Matthews, this “plausible deniability” has proved to be most certainly false. Both Obama and Clinton served up the same lies spewed by Rice on multiple occasions after the attack, well after it was known that it was the work of jihadists. Obama and Clinton even took the charade so far as to appear in a Pakistani ad campaign denouncing the video. Obama himself used the Internet video narrative in a speech before the United Nations. Turner’s response should have been that if Obama didn’t approve the lie himself and was somehow misled, where is the outrage? Where are the heads of the people responsible for this ruse? The fact of the matter is there are no hides to be had because it is inconceivable that the commander-in-chief was the last in the chain of command to know the truth.

As a former speechwriter for President Carter, Chris Matthews is well aware of how government agencies operate and he knows full well that there isn’t the remotest chance that Susan Rice, after a major attack on the U.S., unilaterally decided to promote the Muslim video angle. He simply doesn’t care. As far as Matthews is concerned, his sitting president and his 2016 presidential candidate of choice must also be protected at all costs — even if anything resembling journalistic integrity gets sacrificed in the process. Matthews has demonstrated a willingness to destroy his own credibility for the sake of currying favor with those in power. That’s what media whores do.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.