Jan Crawford slanders Ambassador Rice!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2012

Rachel and Lawrence stay silent: Alabama’s own Jan Crawford has always been a bit suspect.

Wednesday night, on the CBS Evening News, she went to Benghazi in her mind. Please note her unfolding logic as she joined the mainstream press in adopting a right-wing attack.

Crawford started out with a peculiar construction. When hacks have a right-wing hit to perform, they find some amazing routes:

CRAWFORD (10/17/12): For weeks, Republicans have said the president`s reluctant to call the attacks terrorism is a sign his administration doesn’t have a competent national security policy. Last night, the president said he did call it an act of terror within 24 hours of the attacks. That is a new explanation, and it triggered a clash between the president, Romney, and the debate moderator.

“That is a new explanation!” Obama’s remarks on September 12 have been a matter of record since September 12. Ditto for his remarks on September 13 and 14, when he used the same term.

Does Crawford know how to look things up? Or doesn’t it count until someone comes and hands her the public statements?

Using that slick and slippery construction, Alabama’s prettiest girl was off to a rather strange start. But Crawford was trying to tilt her tale, and that was one good way to do it.

This is exactly the way these people created a decade of scandal tales aimed at Clinton, then at Gore. And don't wory! Crawford played quite a few more games before her evening was done.

As Crawford continued, she showed the tape of Romney’s bungle at the town hall debate. This forced her to admit that Obama did say “act of terror” on September 12—although she forgot to mention the other dates when he said the same thing.

Poor Crawford! We’ll guess she got a sinking feeling as she made this admission! But just look where her skills as as assassin took her next:

CRAWFORD: The transcript of the president`s comments in the Rose Garden the day after the attack shows he does use those words.

OBAMA (videotape): No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.

CRAWFORD: But with that statement, Mr. Obama didn`t directly say the Libya attack qualified as one of those acts of terror. Earlier in his remarks, he seemed to suggest the attacks instead were triggered by an anti-Muslim video.

OBAMA (videotape): We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, but there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence.

In that highlighted passage, two slick moves were executed by this hack to conservative power:

First, Crawford notes that Obama “didn`t directly say the Libya attack qualified as one of those acts of terror.” At this point, she was offering the silliest play in the right-wing’s Benghazi play book.

Does Crawford's comment really make sense? What are we supposed to think Obama meant by his statement that day? Did he mean that the attacks in Benghazi were OK—but if anyone commits an act of terror from now on, we will get very be mad at them?

Is that what Obama menant that day? That analysis makes little sense—but Crawford was willing to go there. And then, she played a second card: “Earlier in his remarks, he seemed to suggest the attacks instead were triggered by an anti-Muslim video.”

Just this week, the New York Times reported that the attacks probably were triggered by that anti-Muslim video. But what does that have to do with the question at hand? Does an act of terror cease to be such if it's triggered by a video?

Crawford wasn’t making much sense. But she was serving the lord.

By law, the final play in this ugly game must always involve Susan Rice. And make no mistake: Crawford was willing to slander Rice, as was done to so many people all through the Clinton-Gore years:

CRAWFORD (continuing directly): Top administration officials, including U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, delivered that message over the next five days. On Face the Nation, Rice suggested the Benghazi incident might have been triggered by demonstrations in Cairo over the film.

RICE (videotape): It began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo.

Needless to say, Crawford cherry-picked that quotation from Rice, using it to advance her smear. In that statement on Face the Nation, Rice was describing the way the alleged demonstration started. But as she continued, she seemed to explain how the actual violence started:

RICE (9/16/12): We’ll want to see the results of that investigation [in Benghazi] to draw any definitive conclusions. But based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is, as of the present, is in fact what—it began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo, where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video.

But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent.

In that fuller passage, you can see the way Crawford cherry-picked her quotation from Rice. She included the initial statement about the way the alleged demonstration began. But she left out the more relevant statement, in which Rice explained how the heavy violence occurred—when “extremist elements...with heavy weapons” came upon the scene.

You might suppose that Assassin Crawford had used all her weapons by now. If so, you would have been done wrong.

Crawford was going in for the kill. This is the way she ended:

CRAWFORD (continuing directly): And for two weeks, the president declined to call it terrorism. But debate moderator Candy Crowley accepted the president`s interpretation last night, telling Romney.

(Begin videotape)
CROWLEY: He did, in fact, sir. So let me call it an act of terror.
OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy?
CROWLEY: He did call it an act of terror.
(End videotape)

CRAWFORD: Now, many Republicans say they think that Romney missed a real opportunity last night to forcefully challenge Crowley and the president over what they say, Scott, is a new timeline that just doesn`t square with the facts.

PELLEY: Jan, thanks very much.

Scott Pelley just swallowed this large pile of shit. On the brighter side, he did make a very nice payday.

In that final part of her report, Crawford went in for the kill. “For two weeks, the president declined to call it terrorism?” We’re given no evidence in support of that statement; for is it even clear what that statement means. Crawford then closed by letting us know what “many Republicans” are saying.

They say the new timeline doesn’t square with the facts! We’ll have to be honest: We have no real idea what the golden girl means by that.

Alabama’s prettiest girl has always been a right-wing hack. In this report, she went for the kill, spinning hard, relentlessly.

This is exactly the way the world worked in the Clinton-Gore era. All the killers—people like Crawford—came on the scene with heavy weapons blazing.

In this case, Crawford was willing to slander Rice in order to further her own career. In the Clinton-Gore days, the guild took many people down this way. Power will be served!

Crawford behaved the way the guild did back in the Clinton-Gore days. One other element remains unchanged from that disgraceful era, the era we liberals avoid.

The liberal world, dicks hanging out, is just gazing off into the space as this new case of wilding unfolds. Last night, Lawrence was starting a fight with Tagg. Rachel was helping us see that Romney can't really tell jokes.

We promise! Darling Rachel will never tell you what Jan Crawford did to Susan Rice Wednesday night. Obama is the real target, of course. Rice is collateral meat.

Darling Rachel will never tell you what Crawford did to Susan Rice. Dearest darlings, it just isn’t done!

Rachel is paid several million a year. She knows how to keep it that way.