Smile-a-while: Is Karen DeYoung an actual human?

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2012

Puzzling life-form types it up for the Post: Yesterday morning, Lindsey Graham made an odd statement on Meet the Press.

Basically, it was a minor point. We assumed it was just a misstatement—but it did seem rather odd:

GREGORY (11/18/12): Why did the office of the Director of National Intelligence on September 28 issue a statement in which they—effectively bolstering the very remarks that Susan Rice made on this program and others, that there was a spontaneous element to this and there was contradictory information? Was she not working off the same talking points that the intelligence community was working off of and that were changed, or were not said publicly, as Senator Feinstein said, for some reason to—to cover up or to not tip their hand that they were investigating these terror groups?

GRAHAM: Isn’t it kind of odd, if the reason is to take al Qaeda out of the equation, to make sure that al Qaeda doesn’t know that we are onto them, that the story they told helps the president enormously three weeks before the election because I don’t buy that for one bit. That makes no sense to me. Al Qaeda knew we knew about them. We had people in Germany that survived the attack that could be interviewed. We had drones overhead. I think it’s very odd that the storyline they chose omitted al Qaeda which would help the president enormously, and I don’t buy it.

Graham really brought the thunder on yesterday morning’s program. He kept raising his voice and emoting. In this way, he let us see he was very upset that the administration had “taken al Qaeda out of the equation” when they gave their initial account of the Benghazi attack.

Graham was really bringing the thunder. Inside our plush viewing chamber, we made one of the analysts keep turning the volume down. But why did the overwrought senator say that the administration’s story helped the president so enormously “three weeks before the election?”

Susan Rice appeared on the Sunday shows on September 16. Presumably, that’s when they took al Qaeda out of the equation as they told their disturbingly bogus tale.

Susan Rice appeared on September 16.But that was a bit more than seven weeks before the election. It’s a minor point, but we were puzzled by Graham’s remark. Surely, he doesn’t think this outrageous story appeared three weeks before the election?

We could see that Graham was very upset. But why the heck did he say that?

We wouldn’t have wondered about it again. But just now, we looked at Karen DeYoung’s news report about Graham’s overwrought appearance.

Is Karen DeYoung an actual human? Here's how she started her report in this morning’s Washington Post:

DEYOUNG (11/19/12): Republican and Democratic lawmakers sharply disagreed Sunday over whether and to what extent the Obama administration soft-pedaled its initial public explanation of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

“I think it’s very odd that the story line they chose omitted al-Qaeda, which would help the president enormously” three weeks before a hotly contested election in which President Obama claimed to have vanquished the terrorist group, said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).

The White House, Graham suggested on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “would withhold information to prevent [Obama] from looking bad.”

Presumably, DeYoung watched Graham on Meet the Press. Almost a full day later, her report appeared in the Washington Post, with Graham’s counterfactual comment faithfully included just as if it made perfect sense.

It doesn’t exactly make a big difference. But is Karen DeYoung an actual human? Surely, an actual human would work around this slightly peculiar but obvious misstatement by the overwrought Republican solon.

Unless she’s so used to typing up crap that it’s become second nature by now. From Graham's mouth right straight to your ear!

It's obviously wrong, and it does tilt the tale. But so what? All circuits whirring, "Karen DeYoung" just typed the misstatement on up!