Note to WorldNetDaily: If you have to declare something a “scandal” in the headline of the story, it probably isn’t.
A March 26 WND article by Aaron Klein carries the screaming headline “NEW SCANDAL THREATENS OBAMA, HILLARY: Report confirms what well-placed sources have been saying.”
(Another note to WND: If the “scandal” headline can’t be bothered to provide any hint of what exactly that “scandal” is, it probably isn’t a scandal.)
It turns out the article isn’t about a “scandal” at all per se, but is an exercise in self-aggrandizement through Klein congratulating himself for purportedly having his reporting confirmed by an actual news organization:
Confirming WND’s exclusive reporting for over a year, the New York Times two days ago reported that since early 2012, the CIA has been aiding Arab governments and Turkey in obtaining and shipping weapons to the Syrian rebels.
While the Times report claims most of the weapons shipments facilitated by the CIA began after the latest presidential election, Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND have said U.S.-aided weapons shipments go back more than a year, escalating before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi.In fact, the Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND since last year describe the U.S. mission in Benghazi and nearby CIA annex attacked last September as an intelligence and planning center for U.S. aid to the rebels in the Middle East, particularly those fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
[…]Now the New York Times has bolstered WND’s reporting, citing air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders describing how the CIA has been working with Arab governments and Turkey to sharply increase arms shipments to Syrian rebels in recent months.
But the Times article Klein cites does not confirm some of his more salacious (and, as always, anonymous) accusations, such as that slain U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens “played a central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Assad’s regime in Syria.” The Times article says nothing about that.
Klein also misleads when he suggests that the Obama White House was “misleading the public by repeatedly denying it was coordinating arms shipments to the rebels in Syria, insurgents known to consist in large part of al-Qaida and other jihadist groups.” But the evidence Klein provides to back that claim shows only that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked by Sen. Rand Paul whether the U.S. was “involved with any procuring of weapons, transfer of weapons, buying, selling, anyhow transferring weapons to Turkey out of Libya.”
That’s a highly specific question, not the general one Klein claimed was asked of Clinton.
Klein is in serious danger of straining arm ligaments patting himself on the back.