Fox News Gets Its Politicized Benghazi Report

Blame GameFox News' campaign to use the September terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, to damage President Obama may not have succeeded in defeating his bid for re-election, but it has resulted in Congressional Republicans issuing a politicized report that echoes longstanding conspiracy theories in an obvious attempt to damage Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The report, compiled by House Republicans on five committees for the House Republican Conference, has already come under fire from the Democratic leaders of those committees, who have reportedly sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner accusing him of politicizing the inquiry by shutting out Democratic views. Fox News, however, is already promoting its conclusions, with a segment on the “scathing report” leading Fox's Special Report

This is no surprise. The right-wing media -- led by Fox News -- has spent more than half a year blaming the Obama administration for the tragic deaths of U.S. personnel in Benghazi and wielding that attack as a cudgel in an attempt to cause political damage. They have politicized the attack since day 1, claiming that the Obama administration's actions are directly responsible for the deaths and pushing conspiracies about administration officials deliberately misleading the public.

Fox, GOPClinton has been a special target of these attacks, with Fox News hosts accusing her of faking injury to avoid a Benghazi hearing and faking tears during the one at which she testified.

Several Fox talking points on the attack were later used by Republican senators seeking to criticize the administration during that hearing. So it's no surprise that similar talking points have found their way into the report itself.

Notably, the document accuses the Obama administration of “deliberately misleading” by asserting that an anti-Islam YouTube video had triggered the attack, echoing claims by Fox News. But The New York Times has reported that the attackers themselves said they were motivated by the video.

Likewise, the report pins the blame for the Benghazi facility's level of security directly on Clinton. A nonpartisan review conducted by a State Department Accountability Review Board, led by Ambassador Tom Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen,  made no such finding with regard to Clinton, attributing the security conditions to lower level bureaucrats.

Expect Fox to continue to push the report in the days and weeks to come. They've been pushing these partisan attacks for months, and apparently have no intention of backing off now.