Topic: NewsBusters
The increasingly discredited NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard decided to go conpsiratorial in an Oct. 20 NewsBusters post, Sheppard rants about NPR's Nina Totenberg saying that "There'd be no reason to send [United Nations Ambassador] Susan Rice out to lie if she was going to get exposed immediately" regarding the the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya:
Actually, I can think of numerous reasons.
First, the Obama administration believed – rightfully so! - that their media would take what Rice said hook, line, and sinker, especially weeks away from Election Day.
If this were to happen, the White House could create the illusion that this attack was all about protests associated with an anti-Muslim movie trailer and therefore deflect all blame and scrutiny.
The upside is that Obama's foreign policy credentials due to the assassination of bin Laden would remain intact, and he could continue saying on the campaign trail that al Qaeda has been decimated.
This is exactly why Rice, Obama, and other White House officials stuck to this “the movie caused it all” story for as long as they did.
Regardless of the number of holes that are now being revealed in this canard, so-called journalists like Totenberg aren't quite ready to give up the ghost.
They're probably hoping just as the administration is that they can hold this fallacy in place for another sixteen days and not have to really come clean to the American people until after the election.
As such, journalism really is dead, isn't it?
Actually, the only thing that's dead is Sheppard's ability to keep up with the news and examine things fairly. As he was writing that screed, his little conspiracy was getting blown up.
As first reported by the Washington Post's David Ignatius and confirmed by the Wall Street Journal, talking points prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the day that Rice did the rounds of Sunday morning talk shows, stated that the attack wasthe result of a spontaneous protest, and the CIA continued to push that view internally until Sept. 22.
Sheppard needs to do better research if he's going to peddle conspiracy theories like that. He's such an amateur -- yet he hold an editor's title at NewsBusters.
