# NYT report on Benghazi should be a wakeup call to liberals too **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 7, 2014, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141 "2014-01-07T16:20:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/41 "2014-01-08T14:29:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > To whom does this refer? As the OP, I certainly hope you don’t mean me! I’m not selling shoes. Articles like the two mentioned that use such touchstone phrases such as “dangerously out of touch” and that end making Krauthammer look good are subtle fluff pieces for FOX and the right. The occasional facts listed are bait for the reasonable… scattered around a hook of fear-phrasing, distrust and hatred. Notice the clever use of the words “Jews” and “genocidal” within two sentences of each other to elicit maximum fear, pain and vitriol. I might not be Jewish, but if some asshat trotted out the deaths of my family members so cavalierly to try to manipulate me and my feelings just to get my vote, my first instinct might be to scream “F-ck You!” about 1/4 inch from the tip of their nose. (Let me be the first to say that I would make the Worlds Worst Jew and that I apologize to anyone who’d think that I might be skulking about anyones house of worship back row.) Unfortunately, some of this manipulative crap is “tried and true” among those of a certain generation who never seem to remember that eventually the fishermen who commission these articles will always yank the line to try to spear people through the throat and use this hook to pull in followers and votes. That this happens every 2 years before a presidential election, starting in the winter before the summer where the candidates “declare” is just observable history. I guess SOMEBODY has to wear straw hats and hold the 2x4s with brightly colored bumper-sticker slogans and names nailed to the top for the cameras. Somebody has to send money to the “right” campaign. This is all going to happen whether I pull back the curtain and show people or not, and me showing others doesn’t put a nickle in my pocket. If the people who write and design this manipulative crap were to read my words today, they’d probably laugh and think, “You could be Rich! Chump…” and shake their heads. Maybe they’d be right, too, but I have to live here. This country needs people willing to do the right thing to earn their place here; not more leeches looking to sell their citizenship to The Grand Caymans so they can cheat on their taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/42 "2014-01-08T14:43:38Z")
So what religion were the Libyans who held pro-American protests in the streets after the Benghazi attack? The 54% of Libyans polled who declared themselves “pro-American”? What about the 30,000 people who held anti-militia protests, including attacking the headquarters of Ansar al-Sharia, the group believed responsible for the Benghazi attack? Gosh, who knew there were so few Muslims in Libya? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/43 "2014-01-08T16:43:09Z")
**Count Blucher** , I have read your latest comment three times now and I just wish you would be more clear and direct. The best I can make out, you are now perhaps shifting to implying Sam Harris is a shill for the GOP. That I very much doubt, based on reading many of his columns. In any event, though, your previous post referred to “new lock-step FOX talking point conservative posters lately”. So since Sam Harris is not posting here and I am the OP of this thread, I must once again ask if you are talking about me. And if you are, two points. One, I am hardly new here. Two, I have made it abundantly clear over the years that I am a steadfast Obama Democrat (before that, an Edwards Dem). Not only have I strenuously argued with Republicans, but also with those on the left who make the perfect the enemy of the good by attacking Obama. I am as stalwart a Democrat as you will find. I do have differences with other liberals and air them, as here, but those are still intraparty squabbles and in no way make me any kind of Republican or even ticket splitter. I have never voted for a Republican and I have for years worked on Democratic campaigns and donated to Democratic candidates, so I find this insinuation insulting. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/44 "2014-01-08T16:57:44Z")
Wow, 54%, really? What an impressive, overwhelming majority that is! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/45 "2014-01-08T17:04:09Z")
> [@OurLordPeace](#): > > SlackerInc, you’re quite right for the most part. All religions are poisonous, but Islam is one of the worst, at least these days. At other times in history, the situation was different. Many, many people on the left are afraid to criticize Islam, for fear of being thought racist. Thankfully, European feminists and LGBT advocates know better. While they do/will need to import workers, there are lots of available non-Muslims out there, in order to even out the balance. That, and citizenship can be made conditional on being taught the modern values of the receiving country. > > Nobody is born with religion. Usually, parents put that drivel into their children’s brains, but in any case, it’s a choice. > > All is not lost. Take the long view. It wasn’t that long ago that even Afghanistan had a government that was touting feminism and state atheism. This doesn’t even seem controversial. What are we arguing about? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/46 "2014-01-08T17:09:39Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Wow, 54%, really? What an impressive, overwhelming majority that is! :smack: It’s considerably more compelling than the tiny minority of radical fundamentalists being put forth as representative of all Muslims everywhere in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/47 "2014-01-08T17:15:29Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > No, you didn’t provide something fairly well known. He was an agnostic. Which was in the cite I provided. [How about this, then?](http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15532) > [@Timothy McVeigh](#): > > I do believe in a God, yes. That cite goes on to discuss his obsession with the Turner Diaries, a book that’s kind of at the core of the Christian Identity cult. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/48 "2014-01-08T17:25:38Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > And we probably lost a significant amount of UK/ANZ tourism because of that one robbery/murder in Georgia (Alabama? Somewhere.) You’re going to have to be a _lot_ more specific than that I’m afraid. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/49 "2014-01-08T17:45:25Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Wow, 54%, really? What an impressive, overwhelming majority that is! :smack: You understand that there’s a difference between not being “pro-American,” and being a terrorist, right? ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/50 "2014-01-08T19:04:27Z")
> [@JayD294](#): > > I’ll go one step farther and propose that Sunni and Shia Islam are not our allies under any circumstances. I’m just wondering, who do you mean by ‘our’? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/51 "2014-01-08T19:08:14Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Wow, 54%, really? What an impressive, overwhelming majority that is! :smack: For an opinion on a foreign country with a long history of obnoxious behavior, it is a rather large number. How high a percentage of non-Americans do you think there are anywhere who are “pro-American”, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/52 "2014-01-08T19:09:44Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > You’re going to have to be a _lot_ more specific than that I’m afraid. I think he’s referring to the Australian baseball player that was killed this year in Oklahoma. It sparked calls for an tourism boycott of the US by Australians, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/53 "2014-01-08T19:49:53Z")
…sorry Im late, something about traffic at the GWB. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > so I find this insinuation insulting. …unless you’re Deniro, the “are you talking to me” is old. They’re your links, you like the authors. You picked the articles. I should give you a pass based on past works? Your agida is your own. Deal. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/54 "2014-01-08T19:57:04Z")
You were the one who apparently characterised me as a “new lock-step FOX talking point conservative poster”, yet you have provided no evidence for any of that. Burden of proof’s on you, bud. ---
**Author:** ![citizenzen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@citizenzen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/citizenzen)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/55 "2014-01-08T20:10:15Z")
> [@OurLordPeace](#): > > … Many, many people on the left are afraid to criticize Islam, for fear of being thought racist. … Islam is a religion … not a race. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/56 "2014-01-08T20:12:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > For an opinion on a foreign country with a long history of obnoxious behavior, it is a rather large number. How high a percentage of non-Americans do you think there are anywhere who are “pro-American”, anyway? I’m well aware of this, but it’s a double standard. The people around the world who derided us as warmongering cowboys during the Bush years failed to take any note of the fact that Bush got 47.9% of the vote in 2000 (less than Gore) and 50.7% in 2004. Half the country wanted someone else, but that was ignored. (If we threw out the South, as I’d dearly love to do, LOL, we’d see a strong anti-Bush majority in the rest of the country in those elections.) As soon as Obama was elected, international opinion of the U.S. skyrocketed, so 54% isn’t that impressive given that the U.S. intervened militarily to oust a widely hated dictator. But I call it a double standard because it’s okay to say the U.S. has “a long history of obnoxious behavior” (true, as far as it goes–I have read my Zinn); but not okay to say that about all the other countries being obnoxious in the 21st century in ways the U.S. would never dream of being. I think the reason that some people have trouble seeing where I stand on the political axis is that (sadly) I am a relatively rare bird, kind of a throwback to the New Deal generation in a way: I am a proudly _pro-Western_ progressive. I almost said “pro-American”, but really I am even more of a fan of other progressive Western nations like those found in northern Europe. I am not so much a fan of most other countries around the world, with their repressive and kleptocratic governments and backward cultures of misogyny, homophobia, and religiosity. Expressing this often elicits reactions from progressives that I have a “colonialist”, “white man’s burden” type attitude. ETA: > [@citizenzen](#): > > Islam is a religion … not a race. A religion practiced mostly by nonwhite people. This again is a double standard, because I cannot count the number of times I have criticised Muslims and been met with insinuations that I am against “brown people”. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/57 "2014-01-08T20:37:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You were the one who apparently characterised me as a “new lock-step FOX talking point conservative poster”, yet you have provided no evidence for any of that. Burden of proof’s on you, bud. You mean, other than this thread? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/58 "2014-01-08T20:41:08Z")
Ha ha. First of all, I think it’s clear I’m not a “new” poster, right? Then, that aside, please quote anything I’ve said that qualifies as “lock-step FOX talking point” or “conservative”. ETA: Seriously, my OP was not that long. How did you miss my verbiage of “feverish paranoiac claims from the right”? That is clearly referring to (and not in an admiring way!) all the obsessive nonsense spouted endlessly for months on FOX News about Benghazi. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/59 "2014-01-08T20:53:10Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Ha ha. First of all, I think it’s clear I’m not a “new” poster, right? Then, that aside, please quote anything I’ve said that qualifies as “lock-step FOX talking point” or “conservative”. Literally your entire OP after the first sentence. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141/60 "2014-01-08T21:18:28Z")
Surely you are not asserting that Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins are “lockstep FOX News talking points conservatives”? I’m positive that’s not what you mean, because only a blithering idiot would say or even think something as imbecilic as that. And just your ability to compose grammatically correct sentences tends to argue for your possessing an IQ several standard deviations higher than that. (What you actually meant to say I cannot imagine.) It would appear that some people either need a primer on the basic crux of the argument, or are engaging in Orwellian doublespeak (black is white, night is day, etc.). I will be charitable and assume the former and provide said primer: –Susan Rice, of Obama’s inner circle and a top candidate to replace Hillary as Secretary of State before this whole imbroglio erupted, went on the Sunday talk shows after the Benghazi attacks. –Ms. Rice asserted that the attacks were spontaneous and in response to an anti-Muslim YouTube video. –Since then, the main FOX talking point about the Benghazi attacks has been that they were not spontaneous, not in response to the video, but in fact an al Qaeda act of terrorism; and that Rice–and the Obama administration more broadly–was engaging in a cover up. –Throughout all the hearings and calls for heads to roll ad nauseam, I have been on Rice’s side, on Hillary Clinton’s side, on Obama’s side. Nothing I posted here has contradicted that. Therefore people claiming I am spouting the FOX line are full of shit and should be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately some people simply have no shame. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-report-on-benghazi-should-be-a-wakeup-call-to-liberals-too/678141.md?page=4)