Finding Fault

Think about it. What happened when the traditional local/network nightly news block spawned 24/7 news channels and parallel Websites for just about everybody who read the news on any form of television? There wasn’t more news to report, only more time to fill. So what happens when the hour or two expands to well… all the time? Add blogging… like this one? Better reportage? Sometimes for some stories. But most of the time, filler began to dominate these mega-news-franchises. Opinions replaced coverage (they were great time fillers), often dominating the air time. Ratings began to be the driver, and words, stories and slant targeted generating eyeballs to enhance subscription and advertising revenues above all else. Whatever it takes.

And while a feel good story may be added now and then to fill the programming time or end “on a happy note,” the hard fact remained: no one generated ratings by reporting nice stuff, but what really hit the gut was the evolution of the nasty. From Nancy “I’m wrong too often” Grace on CNN to virtually the entirety of Fox News to the loud-mouthed liberal screamers on MSNBC. Nasty was selling ads. Critics of every decision, every political statement, every rash and violent act now generated opinions and news staffs expanded the fodder that their endless programming demanded. I recall CNN running out of fodder and turning to reporting on the reporters covering the story.

Add to these “nattering nabobs of negativism” (okay, who remembers who said that?) a political system – once abused by Democrats when they held the catbird seat in politics, but now a GOP signature process – that thrives on decimating your opponent: gerrymandering.  Republicans discovered the efficiency of redistricting to exclude opponents from the remotest shot of carry a legislative or congressional seat. Republicans found that they no longer needed to fear Democrats in so many elective offices. But politics is nasty and competitive, and GOP stalwarts now faced a surge of new candidates from their own party… and the battle to see how far right, how fiscally and socially conservative you can be, became the hallmark of elections in gerrymandered districts. Extremism was in. Compromise was toast.

With financing wide open from ultra-rich, ultra conservative billionaires thanks to “you may buy election issues” Citizens United, a new uncompromising force began to rise in elective offices across the land. Shut the government down! Impeach the president! Sue the president! Take no prisoners! Campaigns were now built on how strongly a politician could mount a nasty criticism of his or her opponent. Fox News was laughing all the way to the bank.

But a new trend arose. Generate an extreme opinion, call for Congressional investigations and special prosecutors, all at the very beginning of a breaking story. Enrage without the facts! Turn news into political criticisms to damage opponents as quickly as possible. Make up facts if necessary, since by the time the truth finally arises – if it ever does – the damage will already have been inflicted.

Remember in 2012 when a U.S. Ambassador and three of his fellow Foreign Service Officers were killed by terrorists in an attack in an obscure and exotic city in Libya: Benghazi. Then U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, speaking to the press on behalf of the Obama administration after some preliminary assessments by the CIA and others on the scene, suggested that a protest over a controversial American video (promoting an anti-Islam film) sparked the attacks. It turned out that she was wrong, dead wrong.

The GOP war machine flipped the full-on-attack switch, ripping Rice, the Obama administration and, most of all, potential future presidential candidate and then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Conspiracy, they cried. Intentionally deceiving the American people and covering up the truth, they asserted. Security was purposely held back, stated the neo-critics. Demands for immediate responsive testimony before GOP-led subcommittees were made. The Obama administration refused. Fox News was raking in ad dollars fanning the flames of “cover-up and deception.” The GOP made the Benghazi incident a rallying cry for well over a year, even into the recent mid-term elections, although the story appeared to take on a “beating a dead horse” moniker.

Meanwhile, a bi-partisan, GOP-led congressional panel, 12 Republicans and 9 Democrats from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, slowly investigated what really happened. Shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday but well after the elections, they released their findings a little more than two years after the event. Aside from a criticism that the Consulate facilities were not well-secured, their release pretty much found no one really did anything wrong.

Here’s how one of those traditional networks, NBC, reported the results (November 21^st): “The Republican-led House Select Committee on Intelligence on [November 21^st] released its report on the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and it found that the military and the Central Intelligence Agency responded appropriately during the attacks.

“The investigation, which took nearly two years and thousands of hours of work, found the CIA had ‘ensured sufficient security’ and ‘bravely assisted’ the night of attacks that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The panel also found no intelligence failure prior to the attacks.

“The committee said bit found no evidence that the military was ordered to ‘stand down’ during the attacks in Benghazi, as some had claimed, and that ‘appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night.’ It also found no evidence of similar claims that the CIA was involved in arms shipments or other unauthorized activities.

“The report did say that the initial narrative by the White House that the attack stemmed from a protest was not accurate, but it blamed that on contradictory intelligence assessments in the attack’s aftermath rather than an effort to obscure the truth. The committee said it found ‘no evidence that any officer present during the attacks was intimidated’ to prevent them from addressing Congress or revealing what they witnessed.”

Gee, I guess that means the Benghazi controversy – clearly targeting Hillary Clinton – has finally been settled. Not exactly. The dead horse seems to be quivering as the facts didn’t turn out as planned. The inconvenient truth, even created under supervision of their own party, was not what they wanted to hear: “On [November 23^rd], Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told CNN that the report – issued late [November 21^st] by the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee – was ‘a bunch of garbage.’ Herenewed his call for a special joint House-Senate committee on Benghazi. Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who will be chairman of the oversight committee next year, has also suggested that he wants a hearing on embassy security in early 2015.” New York Times, November 23^rd.

So America is governed by people on both sides of aisle who love to seize on any events to blame their opponents with or without the facts. They are aided and abetted by 24/7 news outlets who need filler, controversy and anything to drive anger, which in turn generates ratings. The scene is exacerbated by Citizens United and gerrymandering. The sacrificial lambs are truth and quality governance. Instead, skewering, lying, false sloganeering and polarization are the deciders. What’s wrong with this picture? Everything! It’s a lesson in how to destroy a democracy.

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless we care enough to bring America back together, we are planting the seeds of our own destruction.