Benghazi Coverage Reveals we are all Unprotected

by Peggy Shapiro

There are four scandals stemming from the murders in Benghazi, and the mainstream media's reluctance to cover them reveals a threat to us all.

Even as cables and emails continue to appear, most traditional media sources are downplaying or ignoring the Administration's failure to provide repeatedly requested and critically necessary security in Benghazi.  In the days before 9/11, there was a failure which left our ambassador and staff vulnerable. Yet most "journalists" aren't asking,

• "Why and who turned down these repeated requests especially before 9/11?
• How could the President never have been told about the activity level of al Qaeda in Libya that Ambassador Chris Stevens warned us about in cables to the Administration which he told us about two months prior to the attack that took his life?
• Might the security have been beefed up if President Obama had not avoided approximately 62% of his daily intelligence briefings since the beginning of the year?"

"Mum" is also the word on a second round of questions. The White House press corps and most media outlets are not demanding to know why there was a failure to send military support while Americans were fighting for their lives. More than six hours after terrorists attacked our consulate, former Navy SEALs were defending U.S. territory.  Where are the questions such as "Mr. President, since the White House was receiving real-time updates on the battle, why were Apache helicopters sitting on the ground in Italy."

The third under-reported scandal is the administration's questionable (I am being generous)  reaction to the terrorist attack. At any other time, an administration that has come up with numerous, conflicting and less than forthcoming explanations about the death of an ambassador and the ransacking of a U.S. embassy would be pressed hard for what appears to be a cover-up. The press would be shouting out at every opportunity, "Who knew what and when? Why did you divert attention to a video when there was absolutely not one shred of evidence linking the video to the violence?  Whose interests are being served by such obfuscation?"

The media "elites," those who are invited for special briefings with the State Department, are not asking the tough questions.  Their silence is the fourth, perhaps the most serious, of the Benghazi scandals. In refusing to cover the news as it unfolds, the mainstream media has failed the American public. The role of the press in America is to act as watchdogs and allow the free flow of information to help people make informed decisions. 

The mainstream media is no longer a watchdog. It's a lapdog. It refuses to put forth any facts which counter the President's ever-changing Benghazi narrative.  Most in the traditional media have cast aside their precious responsibility to the people and chosen to protect the President instead.  In the 1st Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. Today they press has failed us, the governed.

"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government." ruled a federal court in a suit  brought by the New York Times.  The Administration left the Benghazi consulate unprotected from terrorists and the media leaves us unprotected from deceptions in government.

Peggy Shapiro

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/benghazi_coverage_reveals_we_are_all_unprotected.html

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