The White House Lied About Benghazi

One of the favorite questions the media asked during the Watergate Era was, "What did Nixon know, and when did he know it?" Once the media found out what Richard Nixon knew and when he knew it, his presidency was over and careers in journalism were made.

We now know what Barack Obama knew and when he knew it about the Benghazi terrorist attacks, and the media sits in relative silence.

Oh, there are stories breaking every day on this, but overall, the media refuses to connect the dots and put this story right where it belongs---on the desk in the Oval Office of Barack Obama.

Obama, Hillary Clinton, Jay Carney, and Susan Rice lied by calling the terrorist attack in Benghazi a "spontaneous attack" fueled by a movie, and more importantly, they knew they were lying at the time. Reuters now has e-mails showing the White House knew this was a coordinated terrorist attack hours after it began, still, the administration lied to America about it. I wrote about this story a week after it happened, and I knew the administration was lying then, and I said so. If I knew, they knew. Oh wait, I wrote a column the day after the attack exposing the lies. Read it here.

Oh, Good Morning America mentioned the e-mails, as other media have, but they still refuse to tie this lie directly to their Dear Leader. CBS Radio News failed to mention this story during their top of the hour newscast at 12 noon Eastern time today. But, they found time to work in a story about identity theft at a few Barnes and Noble stores. CBS Evening News first exposed the damaging e-mails, but this is just the tip of the story. Real "junk yard dog" reporters will latch on to this story and not let go until they destroy those responsible. That's what the media does---or is supposed to do.

This story needs to be told with the Obama Lie front and center. He also failed to react and send troops to save the lives of those being murdered by terrorists. Tell me both of those issues don't deserve more attention than they are currently being given.

I'm guessing the folks at the networks have the video of Obama blaming that stupid video that nobody has seen. Check the video files---go back to the last month. In case they have burned that video of Obama's statements, I found this on YouTube.  Obama blaming the video for the terrorist attack in Benghazi. Match it up with the e-mails that have now been uncovered and whaddya know---you have one hell of a story about known lies at the highest level of government. Maybe the Networks are waiting for the Aaron Sorkin version to come out on HBO before they do anything.

Networks and newspapers are trying to excuse themselves on this story by giving it cursory mention. This is not a :15 second "reader" or "voice-over" type story. This is an hour-long prime-time special type story. You can hear them in newsrooms now, "Oh ya, we did that story at the end of the B-block at 4:30. We covered it!"

Beginning November 7th the investigation will go into full gear and the media will expose these known lies and they will ask why action wasn't take at the time to save the lives of the 4 Americans brutally killed by terrorists in Benghazi. At that time journalists will start thinking about the Emmy's and Peabody's on the table for the taking.

Until then, they have an election to win.

Follow Ron Futrell on twitter @RonFutrell

"Who Authorized Fast and Furious?"

I like to get to the heart of the matter, so I will use this column to ask one question of  President Barack Obama, "Who authorized Fast and Furious?"

Since no answer will be given, I will rhetorically ask a couple legitimate follow-ups, "Why do you not have that answer by now?" "How do you not know?" "You're the President of the United States of America, shouldn't you know this by now?"

Follow-ups are always the best indication of when a journalist is serious, or when they are pandering. This president gets very few serious follow-up questions.

I've been to plenty of media scrums and press conferences where questions had to be shouted and I would have no problem shouting that question to the president at the end of every public appearance. "Who authorized Fast and Furious?" Ronald Reagan got questions shouted at him many times during public appearances, if Obama won't answer this question, I would make it obvious that the president is avoiding me.

Obama was asked this question by Univision's Jorge Ramos on March 22, 2011. "I did not authorize it, Eric Holder the Attorney General did not authorize. He has been very clear that our policy is to put gunrunners in jail, so what he's done is to assign an IG, an Inspector General to investigate exactly what happened here," said Obama. Ramos interrupts Dear Leader at that point and asks, "Who authorized it?" Obama's answer, "Well, we don't have all the facts, that's why the IG is in business....this is a pretty big goverment, the United State government, I've got a lot of moving parts."

Ya, I guess the government is too big to know who inside it would concoct a program to sell 2000 of the most dangerous hand-held weapons on the planet to known Mexican drug dealers, kidnappers and murderers.

It's been 15 months since Obama was first asked, "Who authorized Fast and Furious?" and we are still no closer to an answer today than we were then. In fact, thanks to Obama using executive privilege to keep vital documents secret, we are farther from an answer today.

As journalists we should unite on this. No other question should be asked of the president until he answers this one. No fluff interviews about Bo the dog or Michelle's diet requests. Brian Terry was killed more than 18 months ago and his family deserves to know the answer to this question, "Who authorized Fast and Furious?"

If the media won't demand answers from this president, who will?