Fox's Attempted Revival Of Transcript Trutherism Falls Flat

Fox News anchor Bret Baier complained that President Obama's description of his administration's response to attacks on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya attempted to rewrite history. On May 13, Obama recalled how he had previously described the attacks in the context of terrorism. Baier argued that if Obama's comments were laid out in a video timeline, “it doesn't match up to what he said today” -- but a video timeline produced by Media Matters illustrates the opposite.

Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron held a joint press conference on May 13, where Obama was asked about his administration's response to the attacks on our U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Obama pointed out that he had explicitly deemed it an "act of terror" while speaking in the Rose Garden the day after the attack. He noted how, “What we have been very clear about throughout that immediately after this event happened we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were.”

Baier appeared on Happening Now after Obama's press conference, where he stated, “Let me say one thing about [Obama's] timeline on talking about terror.” Baier suggested that if you “set that aside” Obama's remarks in the Rose Garden - where he called Benghazi an “act of terror” - then Obama has avoided referring to Benghazi as such. Baier went on, “If you just lay it out in a timeline, what the president said and what he was asked about it, it doesn't match up to what he said today.”

Media Matters indulged Baier's request for a video timeline, which reveals that Obama both called the Benghazi attacks an act of terror while emphasizing that an investigation was ongoing, just as the president said today:

Fox has misrepresented Obama's statements on whether the Benghazi attacks constitute an act of terror for the last eight months, often ignoring his remarks entirely or bizarrely claiming Obama was referring the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, not the Benghazi attacks, when he spoke from the Rose Garden.