In keeping with the long, sordid history of Clinton derangement that animates the Media Research Center roared to life once again with Hillary Clinton’s testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
TheMRC kicked things off with the Oct. 21 column by Tim Graham and Brent Bozel, which rather desperately tries to distract from the statements from Republicans — not Democrats — that the committee is designed to harm Hillary’s presidential chances: “The Democrats have pushed heavily on the narrative that the House probe is transparently political — as if everything they say about Clinton is transparently … nonpartisan?” See what they did there?
They even spun Republican Kevin McCarthy’s statement to that effect by claiming he merely said Hillary was “untrustable,” omitting the part about how he said it was the Benghazi committee that made her so.
The MRC displayed its full-derangement mode with the headline of this Oct. 22 post by Geoffrey Dickens: “Watch Hillary Gleefully Laugh As Andrea Mitchell Clip Played In Her Defense At Benghazi Hearing.” That’s right — Hillary laughing is the only item of “media research” substance it could pull from the testimony.
Other items of MRC “media research” include complaining about commentary over the hearing that was insufficiently hateful of Hillary and a clip of MRC chief Brent Bozell whining on Fox Business that Republicans weren’t asking Hillary tough enough questions.
Meanwhile, over at MRC “news” division CNSNews.com, here is what was considered “news” from the Benghazi hearing:
- An article by Melanie Hunter rehashing Rep. Trey Gowdy’s assertion that his Benghazi committee is not about Clinton, but omitting the statements of two Republicans and a former committee staffer that the committee is designed to ruin Clinton’s presidential campaign.
- Another article by Hunter forwarding the amazing right-wing spin that “of the more than 600 security requests related to Libya and Benghazi that came in in 2012 before the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack none ever reached her desk” yet “[Sid] Blumenthal’s 150 emails reached her desk.” hunter did not point out the difference between personal messages from Blumenthal and requests for security that went to State Department personnel whose job it was to review.
- A lengthy rehash by Susan Jones of Republican Rep. Jim Jordan’s talking points for his questioning of Clinton, which is so skewed it reads like it was written by Jordan’s congressional staffers.
- An article by Jones repeating testimony by Clinton, in response to a Republican representative’s questioning, that “I did not conduct most of my business that I did on behalf of our country on email.”
- A repeat of an article on Benghazi CNS first published in 2013.
- A blog post featuring Adam Baldwin’s take on the Benghazi hearings. CNS’ Mark Judge did not explain what special insight the actor has into Benghazi that made his views worthy of a blog post.
No original CNS story on the hearing referenced questioning from Democratic members of the committee.