Media Bias and the Benghazi Scandal « Commentary Magazine

Media Bias and the Benghazi Scandal « Commentary Magazine

Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, writing in the Daily Signal, tells the story of former State Department official Raymond Maxwell, a well-respected 21-year diplomat who personally contributed to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Mr. Maxwell has told lawmakers that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closest aides–including her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and her deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan–privately removed politically damaging documents before turning over files to the Accountability Review Board, the independent board investigating the Benghazi terror attack.

Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz confirmed to Fox News that last year, in a private interview, Maxwell told him and other lawmakers that Hillary Clinton’s aides oversaw the operation, which allegedly took place on a weekend in a basement office of the State Department.

“What they were looking for is anything that made them look bad. That’s the way it was described to us,” Chaffetz said. (State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach has denied the allegations.)

Ms. Attkisson sets the scene this way:

According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward with the story. …

When he arrived, Maxwell says he observed boxes and stacks of documents. He says a State Department office director, whom Maxwell described as close to Clinton’s top advisers, was there. Though the office director technically worked for him, Maxwell says he wasn’t consulted about her weekend assignment.

“She told me, ‘Ray, we are to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light,’” says Maxwell. He says “seventh floor” was State Department shorthand for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisors.

“I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’”

This charge needs to be fully examined and Mr. Maxwell’s account needs to be corroborated or refuted. (The House investigation into this matter begins tomorrow and will hopefully shed more light on it.) But if Mr. Maxwell’s report is true–and on the surface he appears to be a credible witness–it would amount to a very serious coverup and evidence of widespread corruption that would almost surely have to involve Mrs. Clinton.

The elite media’s indifference to this story continues to be quite telling. The vast number of journalists decided a long time ago that they were utterly indifferent to the Benghazi story, regardless of the facts, and for reasons that undoubtedly have to do with their political bias. Among many reporters the bias is so pronounced and endemic they aren’t even aware of their blinding double standards. But the rest of us are.

I can promise you that if the details of the Benghazi story were identical but it had happened in the Bush, Reagan, or Nixon administration, there would be a fierce, relentless, around-the-clock investigation led by the major media outlets. There would be a gleam in the eye of every political reporter who lives in the Acela Corridor. Journalists would be eager to afflict the comfortable, speak truth to power, hold politicians accountable, and seek to wipe misconduct from the face of the political earth. Every managing editor would want to emulate Ben Bradley; every reporter would want to be Woodward and Bernstein.

It would be a feeding frenzy in the name of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

But not in this case. Not with the Obama administration. Not with Hillary Clinton. Because many in the elite media have a narrative–the truth about what happened about Benghazi doesn’t really matter–and they’re sticking to it. Some reporters may go through the motions now and again, but that’s all. There’s no driving ambition to get to the bottom of this story. They would really rather not know. And the fact that they would really rather not know tells you a very great deal of what’s wrong with American journalism today. Elite journalists are as infected by ideology and motivated reasoning–in this case, by motivated reporting–as members of the DNC or the Obama White House. But at least those being paid by the DNC and the White House don’t pretend to be objective.