With Election Over, ABC Wonders About Obama's 'Cover-Up,' 'Refusal' to Talk about Libya
Now that the 2012 presidential election is over and Barack Obama has been safely reelected, the journalists at ABC's Good Morning America woke up to the fact that the President has "refused" to provide details the terrorist attack in Libya and that the administration "didn't want to talk about it." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Fill-in host Elizabeth Vargas blithely announced, "In the meantime, the Libya issue has been overhanging this election. Allegations of a, quote, massive cover-up, by Senator John McCain about this administration's, really, refusal to really put to rest this issue before voting day."
Martha Raddatz, who moderated the vice presidential debate, agreed, saying, "They didn't want to talk about it. Everybody tried to pin them down on that. They did not want to talk about it." "Everybody" tried to pin them down on Libya?
Raddatz predicted, "I think a lot of those questions will probably get cleared up with an investigation that's now going on."
During the October 10, 2012 debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, Raddatz asked, "The State Department has now made clear there were no protesters there. It was a pre-planned assault by heavily armed men. Wasn't this a massive intelligence failure, Vice President Biden?"
However, the network as a whole aided and abetted the administration.
A Media Reality Check by Rich Noyes revealed:
On October 23, the CBS Evening News exclusively reported that State Department e-mails sent during the September 11 attack refer to how the terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility — more evidence that the Obama administration knew at the earliest stages that this was likely a terrorist attack.
The next morning, however, NBC’s Today show ignored the new report, while ABC’s Good Morning America logged just 35 seconds of coverage.
...
Yet ABC’s World News limited its coverage that night to a 20-second item noting that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had dismissed the significance of the e-mails. Anchor Diane Sawyer’s entire item: "And the White House also weighed in today on e-mails sent while the attack was underway. The e-mails informed them that a radical Islamic group was claiming responsibility, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says those e-mails were not hard evidence, and all the incoming information had to be evaluated."
World News offered no further coverage of the Libya e-mails, but Sawyer did carve out time that week for stories about the capture of a monkey in Florida (1 minute, 42 seconds) and whether dogs yawn when they see people do the same (1 minute 47 seconds).
It was Rice who went on the Sunday talk shows, September 14, to insist that the attack was due to a "video." However, Newsweek's Eli Lake revealed that officials knew of an al Qaeda connection 24 hours after the September 11th incident. ABC waited 40 hours before the story was publicized on the September 27 World News.
A transcript of the November 7 exchange can be found below:
7:36
ELIZABETH VARGAS: Who are the two top contenders to replace her [Hillary Clinton]?
MARTHA RADDATZ: Well, I would say right now, it's Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts. But there are some issues there. Do the Democrats want to give up that Senate seat? So, we'll have to stay tuned for John Kerry. And also, U.N. ambassador Susan Rice, who got into some trouble over Libya and some explanations with what happened on Libya. So, that's also in question. So, those are the two top candidates, I'd say. But we have to wait and see how those issues play out.
VARGAS: In the meantime, the Libya issue has been overhanging this election. Allegations of a, quote, massive cover-up, by Senator John McCain about this administration's, really, refusal to really put to rest this issue before voting day. Waiting until after election day.
RADDATZ: They didn't want to talk about it. Everybody tried to pin them down on that. They did not want to talk about it. I think a lot of those questions will probably get cleared up with an investigation that's now going on. And there will probably be hearings, as well.
-- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
