Media ignore feeble response on Libya (11/3)

In the era of electronic bombardment most Americans don’t pay attention to events that aren’t emphatically repeated at least a dozen times in the mainstream media. For them the terrorist attack in Libya on 9/11, the Obama administration’s unbelievable response to that attack, and the stunning comments of a grieving father at his son’s repatriation service never happened.

The September 11 attack in Benghazi resulted in the death of four Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador and former Navy SEAL and Imperial Beach resident, Tyrone Woods.

In the wake of this tragedy the mainstream media for days focused negative attention on Mitt Romney for criticizing an apologetic embassy response to a non-deadly demonstration in Cairo—the pretext for which was a YouTube video of a crude anti-Muslim film produced in Southern California.

Five days after the attack U. N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday talk shows confidently asserting that the Libya attack wasn’t an organized terrorist operation but was precipitated by outrage over this same YouTube video.

Accordingly, mainstream news organizations scoured the Southland to expose the beliefs and background of the film’s “Coptic-Christian” maker and Hemet-based spokesman.

As information about the Benghazi raid dripped out, mostly via Fox News, the YouTube scenario about a “spontaneous demonstration” that morphed into a murderous, heavy-weapon assault became untenable. Yet even two weeks later the President denounced the video six times in a speech to the United Nations.

A few days ago Charles Woods, Tyrone’s father, raised a question one would think any honest journalist would pursue: Why was military assistance to his son not forthcoming during the 7-hour consulate siege? Related questions include the following: Why was the administration so reticent to attribute the Benghazi attack to an organized terrorist group? Why was the consulate’s security not better in light of prior local attacks and the fact that it was, after all, 9/11?

Almost totally ignored by mainstream media outlets were Mr. Woods’ negative comments about the demeanor of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton at an Andrews Air Force Base memorial service.

Recently President Obama declared to an impertinent Denver TV reporter that what happened in Libya “has nothing to do” with the election. An honest press corps would be demanding (with Watergate intensity) that the White House prove, before the election, that its Libya response and comments weren’t, as they appear, largely driven by politics.