Using clips from the 1973 Watergate hearings, MSNBC’s Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell went off on Wednesday at the House Select Committee on Benghazi for failing to exhibit the Watergate committee’s professionalism and instead being “oblivious and uninhibited” in creating a hearing that he promises will “waste enormous amounts of time on irrelevant questions.”
Libya
By Curtis Houck | October 22, 2015 | 12:59 AM EDT
Previewing Hillary Clinton’s testimony Thursday morning before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 did their best on Wednesday to paint the most flattering picture possible of Clinton being “battle tested” with “steady nerves” despite “withering attacks” and the ability to turn “even a hot seat, if not comfortable, at least cooler.”
By Mark Finkelstein | October 21, 2015 | 7:47 AM EDT
It might be apocryphal, but the famous quote attributed to Pauline Kael, the late film critic of the New York Times, is along the lines of "how could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him."
Mika Brzezinski had her Pauline Kael moment on today's Morning Joe. Mika declared herself "really surprised" by poll numbers showing there are more Americans dissatisfied with Hillary Clinton's response to Benghazi than there are people who think the congressional investigation into Benghazi is too partisan. Said Mika: "it's sort of like a disconnect I guess that I have with the people I talk to and the rest of the country."
By Kyle Drennen | October 20, 2015 | 4:00 PM EDT
On Tuesday – just two days before Hillary Clinton’s testimony before the House Benghazi Committee – MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell teased an upcoming interview with liberal operative and longtime Clinton hatchet man James Carville, hailing him as a “political Jedi master.” Carville: “Trey Gowdy is a creation of the Koch brothers and the whole climate denial industry and this committee was nothing but a creation of Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers. You know, Fox ran over 1,000 segments in 20 months after this thing.”
By Kyle Drennen | October 20, 2015 | 12:28 PM EDT
Filling in for Jose Diaz-Balart during MSNBC’s 10 a.m. ET hour on Tuesday, NBC national correspondent Peter Alexander interrogated Republican Congresswoman Susan Brooks about the House Benghazi Committee: “So if Jeb Bush's campaign insists that his brother, George W. Bush, bears no responsibility for the 9/11 attacks – which of course were carried out by Al Qaeda, but he was president at the time – why then do Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama bear responsibility for what happened in Benghazi?”
By Mark Finkelstein | October 20, 2015 | 8:53 AM EDT
This could be the worst whitewashing since Tom Sawyer suckered people into helping him with that fence... On today's Morning Joe, Joe Klein cleared Hillary of responsibility for American deaths in Benghazi, and blamed the CIA.
According to Klein, "this really was a CIA station there, not so much a consulate, and those guys should be able to protect themselves in most circumstances." Klein doesn't think Hillary should even be called to testify: "this is something that does not rise to the level of the Secretary of State." He suggested instead that David Petraeus be hauled before the committee.
By Jeffrey Meyer | October 18, 2015 | 2:48 PM EDT
During an appearance on CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday, veteran journalist Carl Bernstein trashed the Benghazi committee ahead of Hillary Clinton’s testimony and insisted the Democrat will “murder them because it has been a witch hunt. It has been partisan. It's great opportunity for her.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | October 18, 2015 | 11:53 AM EDT
During an appearance on Sunday’s Meet the Press, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell complained to House Benghazi committee member Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) as to why “have you focused to much on e-mails and not on the central question of why was the security failure at that consulate?”
By Jeffrey Meyer | October 18, 2015 | 10:06 AM EDT
During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, the Washington Post’s Charles Lane helped preview Hillary Clinton’s upcoming testimony before the House Benghazi committee and declared “she comes in brimming with confidence.” Lane heaped praise on Clinton’s debate performance, specifically when she compared the Republicans with the Iranians as a moment when the Democratic frontrunner appeared “humorable” and the comments were “net plus for her.”
By Tom Johnson | October 17, 2015 | 4:45 PM EDT
Michael Kinsley’s second-best-known contribution to political discourse, trailing only the “Kinsley gaffe,” is his observation that “the scandal isn't the illegal behavior -- the scandal is what's legal.” In a Thursday post, Steve Benen, a producer for MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and the primary writer for the TRMS blog, sought to apply Kinsley’s wisdom to the congressional inquiry into the September 2012 Benghazi attack.
“The Benghazi Committee isn’t investigating a scandal. The Benghazi Committee is the scandal,” declared Benen (italics in original). “There’s been some debate in recent weeks about whether congressional Democrats should continue to participate in such an obvious farce. It’s a worthwhile question that deserves an answer.”
By Curtis Houck | October 16, 2015 | 5:45 PM EDT
Finally getting his chance to interview Hillary Clinton on Friday’s The Lead, CNN anchor Jake Tapper didn’t exactly measure up as while he did what other reporters failed to do in asking Clinton about her relationship with Sidney Blumenthal, he cozied up to her on the recent marking of her and Bill’s 40th wedding anniversary plus sarcastically asking he could “get your e-mail address.”
By Ken Shepherd | October 15, 2015 | 8:53 PM EDT
Hillary Clinton doesn't need to rail again against the evils of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" these days since Republicans are all too eager to openly admit they're out to get her, USA Today's Susan Milligan insisted on Thursday's edition of Hardball: “The amazing thing is that she does not even have to talk about a vast right-wing conspiracy and have people make fun of her for it, because they're doing it on their own.”