Convention watch: Candidate Clinton would look good in stripes!

TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2016

Smith's nineteenth nervous breakdown: We're going to start with a somewhat unpleasant comment.

In the past four years, we've seen Patricia Smith discuss the death of her son, Sean Smith, on many TV shows. We often get the impression that she may not be fully competent.

Last night, Smith spoke at the Republican Convention. As she discussed her son's death at Benghazi, she declared that Candidate Clinton would look quite good in stripes:

SMITH (7/18/16): For all of this loss, for all of this grief, for all of the cynicism the tragedy in Benghazi has brought upon America, I blame Hillary Clinton.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son. That's personally.

And in an e-mail to her daughter shortly after the attack, Hillary Clinton blamed it on terrorism. But when I saw Hillary Clinton—

AUDIENCE MEMBER: A liar!

SMITH: She sure is. She lied to me and then called me a liar.

(CROWD BOOING)

When I saw Hillary Clinton at Sean's coffin ceremony, just days later, she looked me squarely in the eye and told me a video was responsible.

[...]

This entire campaign comes down to a single question. If Hillary Clinton can't give us the truth, why should we give her the presidency?

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

That's right. Hillary for prison. She deserves to be in stripes.

Just for the record, Hillary Clinton has never called Smith a liar.

Last night, as in the past, we wondered if Smith is fully competent. That said, it's perfectly clear that our press corps isn't competent to even the slightest degree.

Why do we say that? Here's why:

Smith's endless claim that Clinton has lied turns on an elementary point—a basic point our "press corps" avoids like the plague. We refer to the reason for the killing attack on the Benghazi facility.

For the past four years, Republicans have pimped a false dichotomy about that killing attack. Benghazi was a terrorist attack, they angrily say. But Hillary Clinton once said it was caused by a YouTube video!

Duh. There's no apparent reason why a "terrorist attack" couldn't be inspired by a YouTube video. All over the Muslim world, people were in turmoil that week over that insulting video. There's no reason why a terrorist group in Benghazi couldn't have launched that attack because of that insulting video.

There's no obvious contradiction there. But from the first day after the attack, Republican attack dogs have pushed this false dichotomy, using it first to attack Susan Rice, then to go after Clinton.

(On MSNBC, our liberal stars ran and hid in the woods while Rice was being savaged. They've refused to address this point ever since.)

What's the truth about the motive for the Benghazi attack? Was it a reaction to the insulting video? Or was it perhaps a "preplanned" attack, designed to coincide with the anniversary of September 11?

Over the past four years, your "press corps" has avoided this basic question like the plague. In doing so, they've helped keep a deeply divisive, punishing conflict alive.

Last night was no different. On CNN and MSNBC, mumble-mouthed pseudo-journalists tiptoed around the basic facts behind that false dichotomy. They mumbled about how "emotional" Smith had been—and they refused to play the journalistic role, in which they would offer basic facts about intelligence assessments.

What has the intelligence community come to believe about the motive for the Benghazi attack? The last time we saw it discussed, it was our impression that the intelligence community didn't think the Benghazi attack was a long-standing, "preplanned" event.

That said, it's been a long time since we saw this divisive matter discussed at all. The people hired to pose as our journalists avoid this topic like the plague.

Last night, they did it again—Maddow and Williams and Cooper and Tapper and the whole gaggle of posers. Smith staged her latest public breakdown. They engaged in their latest avoidance of facts.

What is the current best assessment of the motive for that attack? Our TV stars refuse to say. In fairness, we know of no reason to think that any of these world-class slackers have even the slightest idea.

Smith has been staging this breakdown for years; Republicans are eager to exploit her highly emotional state. In the face of all this misery, Maddow, Williams, Cooper and Tapper refuse to perform the most basic tasks.

Facts are no longer part of our discourse. It's narrative, and emotional cries, pretty much all the way down!