The Watergate Scandal started with a third rate burglary that did not matter. Richard Nixon did not even know about this when it happened. It was a dumb idea by some of his staff. It was also unnecessary, because he was coasting to re-election. What made the difference is that two Washington Post Reporters decided it was important. They dedicated their lives to following the rabbit trails. Eventually, the rest of the media and finally congress jumped on the bandwagon.
Up until now Benghazi has not been a big story, because the primary people covering it worked for Fox News. What they discovered was important, but it was ignored by the rest of the media. Many segments of the main stream media refuse to acknowledge that Fox News exists and they ignore any story if it breaks on Fox News. But now CNN is running reports on Benghazi and that is going to change everything:
The latest theory is that this was a CIA gun running operation. That rumor has been out there on the web for a long time, but even Fox News has avoided reporting it. The Republicans in congress have avoided investigating this. Perhaps part of that is reluctance on the part of conservatives and Republicans to damage national security. Regardless of the merits of this particular operation, responsible people know that the restraints on the CIA by the Church committee did great damage to our national security.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/investigations/ChurchCommittee.htm
Much of the criticism of the CIA was justified. But the restraints on the CIA may have resulted in 9-11. Under the Kennedy administration, they were running bizarre plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. It is ironic to note that it is another Democratic President, Barack Obama, who is once again using the CIA to assassinate people with drones.
If we had a congress we could trust, they should handle these problems in closed session. But no one in either political party trusts this congress to do that.
The liberal left, on the other hand, loves to expose the CIA, without regard to national security implications. This story is about to go nuclear. To some extent, it doesn’t even matter whether or not CNN is right about the gun running. What matters is that they have decided that Benghazi is an important story and they have verified the cover-up. The rest of the main stream media will have to cover this story. They cannot afford to ignore a major story and there is no story bigger than a Presidential cover-up. When you combine this with recent stories linking the IRS scandal to the White House, this is a perfect political storm.
The phony scandal strategy evaporated. This CNN report can hardly be dismissed as some nefarious plot by the vast right wing conspiracy.
This has already started. The Atlantic already commented on this::
Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels.
…But if CNN’s report is correct, the CIA is at minimum trying to hide something huge from Congress, something that CIA agents might otherwise want to reveal — itself a reason for Congress to press hard for information. And if speculation about moving weapons is grounded in anything substantive, that would be an additional reason to investigate what the CIA is doing in Libya. Dozens of CIA agents were apparently on the ground in Benghazi, Libya last September.
This story has escalated to the point where both liberals and conservatives are equally concerned. Conservatives were concerned about an administration that covered up its own incompetence with deliberate lies and falsehoods. Liberals are shocked to discover that this administration is also running covert ops. Regardless of the motivation, this is a story that has real legs.
This reminds me of an old Arabian proverb:
“If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.”
CNN is the camel’s nose and the rest of the media will be there shortly.
TDM