The Obama administration and its allies haven't attempted to camouflage their disdain for politicians and journalists who continue to ask questions about the Benghazi scandal. White House spokesman Jay Carney insulted reporters and tried to spin away obvious untruths over multiple press briefings last week. Former NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor mocked Bret Baier's questions about the false talking points, calling the anchor "dude," and sniffing that the terrorist attack "was, like, two years ago." Nancy Pelosi demanded that we talk about something else, even as she admitted that she hadn't read the newly-released emails that reignited the controversy last week. Harry Reid even worked a Koch brothers attack into his dismissive statement on the issue. So it should surprise no one that Obama political guru David Plouffe waved away Benghazi concerns as the conspiratorial rantings of a handful of partisans:
Plouffe has been known to imply that anyone who crosses Obama is not all there; he derided Bob Woodward when the Watergate journalist exposed the White House's bullying tactics during last year's sequestration debate:
Watching Woodward last 2 days is like imagining my idol Mike Schmidt facing live pitching again. Perfection gained once is rarely repeated.
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) February 28, 2013
While it's undoubtedly the case that Benghazi isn't at the very top of most Americans' priority list, it's simply not true that voters don't care about getting the truth. Fox polled the issue just last month and found that a large majority of Americans support continued Congressional investigations into the scandal -- and this survey was taken before the new revelations came to light:
And if it's a "delusion" that the White House was trying to conceal the truth about what happened that night, it's a pretty widely-held one:
I've seen debates online about whether Benghazi is a more significant scandal than Watergate was. John Hinderaker of Powerline argued last year that the "original sin" of Benghazi was clearly worse, while others have noted that Watergate didn't include a body count. Here's George Will arguing on Fox News Sunday that the Benghazi memos are "rather less" significant than the Watergate tapes because those proved that President Nixon was personally and actively involved in a criminal cover-up:
Will seems to predict that Democrats will end up boycotting the select committee investigation in order to make it look entirely partisan. Based on cues from the White House and Democratic leadership, he might be right.
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