Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Fox's Greta Responds to Jon Stewart's Criticism over Benghazi Coverage...Sort of.

One of the stranger stories I have read today in politics is an apparent small "war of words" between Fox News' Greta Van Susteren and political pundit/satirist Jon Stewart over Fox's coverage of the Benghazi tragedy.

In Stewart's critique of Fox News, he more or less made the point that while Fox News has been quick and very faithful in its intensive coverage over the various faults the Obama administration committed with its handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack, they weren't remotely as interested in the various intelligence screw-ups of the Bush administration.



Strictly speaking, I can remember the days of the Iraq War's beginnings and the first real hints that most, if not all the intelligence used by the Bush administration to lead us to war with Iraq was, well, bogus. Stewart isn't wrong in that Fox News was easily the last major news network to admit that regardless of whether the administration did so purposely or not, their intelligence concerning Iraq and Saddam Hussein were 99% DEAD-WRONG.

Regardless, when Greta Van Susteren chose to respond to Stewart's criticism, it seems she may have missed his point:

"Stewart’s criticism of Fox News Channel is that Fox News Channel is more aggressive about President Obama and Benghazi than it ever was about President Bush and Iraq.
Besides the obvious — that almost all the Democrats in Congress voted for the war in Iraq and other media reporting – is my simple note to Stewart: 2 wrongs don’t make a right."

Now, perhaps I am missing something in her response but what does the fact that Democrats voting for the Iraq War have to do with Fox News covering the later-revealed intelligence screws-up that led to the vote in the first place? I've never held the "Iraq War vote" against Democrats for the simple fact that its hard to blame folks for voting for the war given the intelligence presented to them and the public at the time. It's not necessarily their fault that the intelligence presented to them for going to war was dead-wrong now is it?'

Second, what the hell is "2 wrongs don't make a right" supposed to refer to? I'm honestly a bit lost on that one..

All Jon Stewart was saying is that while Fox News has "championed" the Benghazi controversy with extra vigor and noise, when a member of the GOP was sitting in the White House and an entire war was launched based on questionable intelligence (for which an entire country was devastated and thousands of brave service members died or were wounded) and they were the last to finally admit it, it makes them look just a wee-bit biased and hypocritical..and he's absolutely right. 

Anyone blessed with the gift of sight and hearing during the Bush administration knows that Fox News very effectively "carried the administration's water" just as the MSM today does for the Obama administration. 

So, while Greta Van Susteren did respond.sort of.. I am not certain she understands what her employers were being criticized for in the first place..

Also, for the record: 

I am not saying the Benghazi controversy isn't a real one or anything of the sort. There were some SERIOUS screws-up involved with that entire situation. We very much need a proper investigation since so many rather ominous questions were left unanswered and the fact that no one in the administration seems to think anything was done wrongly and thus there is no need to hold anyone accountable. 

DISCLAIMER:

All comments and/or opinions expressed in the above work are purely those of the author and do not represent that opinions/positions of any political or non-political organization or the Department of the Defense. Any/all distribution of this work MUST contain this disclaimer. 


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