This is Hillary's 'Are you shitting me?' face. We saw it a lot.
Following Hillary Clinton's epic ass-kicking performance during the Benghazi hearings, we received an assignment that we knew was going to hurt, but was necessary: watch Fox News to get a feel for how the hearings played in the Conservasphere, or at least on Planet Ailes. Happily, we were given permission to fast-forward once we got a sense of how each segment was unfolding, a measure that may have reduced our exposure to deadly levels of Stupid.
And so, TiVo remote in hand, we ventured into the Belly of the Primetime "Opinion/Analysis" beast, where there are a surprising number of commercials touting the wisdom of putting all your money into sketchy gold investments. Same Pharma ads as on MSNBC, so we can at least credit erectile dysfunction for bipartisanship.
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Here's the best indicator of how well Hillary did: Fox was the only one of the three 24-hour cable news outfits to actually stop broadcasting the hearings live, even though it has consistently been the Benghazi Network, running over 1,100 segments on Benghazi and what a horrible thing it was. Once Clinton was actually mopping the floor with the committee, Fox was out of there, going with its usual afternoon talker lineup, starting with "The Five Idiots," where Greg Gutfeld shared diet tips. We shit you not. (Fox did continue livestreaming the hearings on its website, though.)
Greta Van Susteren left almost no impression on us, as usual; the only notable thing that happened during her hour was a brief return to the live feed while Rep. Jim Jordan badgered Clinton for a while about her email server, and then cut away again once Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland started sharing possum recipes. Then there was a panel discussion on Paul Ryan doing speaker of the House things.
On "The O'Reilly Factor," Billo said the hearings wouldn't change anyone's mind because everyone is so darn partisan these days. He also said that the biggest "discovery" of the hearings was that Hillary "knew" the "Innocence of Muslims" YouTube video wasn't the real cause of the Benghazi attack a few days earlier than she'd previously said, which doesn't explain how she made Benghazi happen, but don't worry about it, the wingnuts are still working out the details of their conspiracy theories.
O'Reilly also claimed nobody can trust Clinton to be a real leader because she allowed security professionals at the State Department to handle the logistics of the Libyan embassy's requests for more security at the Benghazi outpost, which means she refuses to take responsibility. Or maybe she lets security people do security.
About half of O'Reilly's show was dedicated to a far more pressing matter: the murder of an NYPD cop by a criminal who had been labeled a "non-violent offender" because his previous convictions had all been drug and property crimes. There was also a segment about how Black Lives Matter is racist, and a deeply unfunny Jesse Watters segment with people not knowing where or what Benghazi is.
The deepest crazy came on "The Kelly Files," when Megyn Kelly claimed that an email Clinton sent to the Egyptian foreign minister the night of the attacks proves, without a doubt, that she knew the attack was unrelated to the "Innocence of Muslims" video. Except for how it doesn't, really -- Clinton has already said her understanding of the motives for the attack "went back and forth" as information became available.
Still, Kelly waved the thing around like a bloody shirt to prove Clinton retroactively killed four Americans by giving different explanations for the attack after it happened. Probably something to do with Quantum Entanglement.
[contextly_sidebar id="ubEM9b2CiWRNdnLoq1oNoPpLTDLFMqpf"]Also, not that anyone on Fox ever mentions it, but participants in the attack did indeed talk about being motivated in part by the video, which had caused sometimes-deadly demonstrations around the Muslim world that week.
Sean Hannity likewise exclaimed that this one email proved the administration had lied, lied, lied about the video. He also repeated his favorite personal bullshit claim, that special forces were given a "stand down" order that prevented them from going to the aid of the embattled Benghazi outpost.
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That one was conclusively debunked by the House intelligence Committee last year, but Hannity really likes it, so he keeps saying it.
Hannity and Kelly featured interviews with family members of two of the men killed in Benghazi, and you'll be astonished to learn they know for a FACT that Hillary and Obama deliberately killed their loved ones.
Elsewhere in the Wingosphere, we learned from Breitbart that Hillary lied a whole bunch, especially when she claimed to care about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, because she is an inhuman monster. Not that Breitbart had too much to say on the matter; the front page Friday morning featured four stories on the Benghazi hearings and two on Donald Trump.
The Nine Full-time Staff at Twitchy took a slightly different tack, explaining that the Lamestream Media is helping Hillary to cover up her evil deeds, none of which it could name:
But the real winner for Stretch of the Week goes to the inimitable Matt Drudge, who we suspect let his fedora type up this deep analysis of the Big Takeaway from the hearings:
Eleven hours of testimony without breaking a sweat -- as Tommy Christopher pointed out over at the Daily Banter, long enough to watch your choice of all three Lord of the Rings movies or a full season of "True Detective" -- but then she coughed a bit and needed a lozenge. Lingering effects of that concussion ? A deliberate attempt to throw off the committee right as they were about to finally nail her? HAS NO ONE VETTED THIS CANDIDATE???????
Clearly, wingnuts are still coming to grips with the liberally biased reality that they did not get the shouty-faced confession -- YOU'RE GODDAMNED RIGHT I DID BENGHAZI! -- they were hoping for. So sad.
[ WaPo / Mediaite / Breitbart / Daily Banter ]
That looks good. Have you seen Copper? It's amazing!
So I poked around the internet. Apparently what Hilz is guilty of is
wait for it....
No, its a death blow to her campaign, really...
She said Benghazi was a spontaneous attack because of the video, when it was actually planned. She knew and she lied.
Um...
That's it. That is the reaction of the bottom of the internet (ie those sites that DO allow comments. Thanks ShyPixel)
YEAH. TRUMP 2016. A man WHO WON'T LIE ABOUT CAUSES OF AN ATTACK.