Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Asshole of the Day for September 17, 2014
For the last two years we have heard Fox News and Republicans repeatedly accuse Obama and Democrats of doing things to distract us from Benghazi, so sure they are that if we watched all 1,098 prime time segments on Benghazi that Fox News aired, that we would understand their need to drop everything and be outraged. And, yes, that 1,098 number is accurate-- Media Matters tallied it up, and that figure is only through May and doesn't include all evening shows.
Their pleas that "this is distracting from Benghazi" remind me of a small child who can't wait their turn and has to make it all about me, me, me, oh why o why aren't you paying attention to me.
But except for people who already hated Obama with every fiber of their being, the Benghazi accusations never justified all the hysterics. Yes, 4 people died. But it was 4 people in an unstable country. A tragedy, yes, but not Watergate. So in order to try to convince people of their point of view that this was the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the world, they have cooked up a million different wild conspiracy theories. Stand down order! Let them die! Out fundraising!
And yet they continue to fail to convince anyone. But no matter, they got the House GOP to vote for a Select Committee on Benghazi which starts today. And it's starting even though all 12 Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, which spent 18 months investigating and holding hearings on Benghazi, says there’s nothing more to investigate because there is no sinister wrongdoing. The House Intelligence Committee unanimously cleared the Obama administration of all wrongdoing.
And so it happens that in a week that was dominated by the Ray Rice story and discussions about domestic violence, that over on Fox News they were annoyed that it would cut into their non-stop Benghazi coverage. Which led to Fox & Friends host Elisabeth Hasselbeck trying to insert Benghazi into the domestic violence discussion:
Imagine if everyone that asked for transparency in the #nfl @nfl Demanded that same #transparency in our #government #Benghazi #IRS
— elisabeth hasselbeck (@ehasselbeck)
September 16, 2014
After people criticized her for this, she then replied:
. @HuffingtonPost We spoke w/the mom whose son was killed &men there that night. Inserting #Benghazi - is NOT ridiculous-IT IS AN #HONOR
— elisabeth hasselbeck (@ehasselbeck)
September 16, 2014
It is an honor to insert Benghazi into conversations about domestic violence. With that statement she is elevating the four lives lost in Bengahzi above the 11,766 lives lost to domestic violence over the last decade. But Fox News doesn't have any perspective about this. They don't care about all those people who die anywhere else.
And that, more than anything is why the Benghazi story never breaks out of the conservative news bubble any more-- perspective.
Fox News has become a parody of themselves on Benghazi. In 2007 Joe Biden mocked Rudy Giuliani saying "there's only three things he [needs] to make ... a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11." Today, as Elisabeth Hasselbeck proves, you could say a version of that about Fox News:
GOP Throwback Thursday: Then: Noun, verb, 9/11 Now: Noun, verb, #Benghazi #tbt pic.twitter.com/PwZzMwz8NC
— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat)
September 17, 2014
So, for dismissing the important national conversation about domestic violence and trying to steer it back to Benghazi with all Fox News's discredited accusations, Elisabeth Hasselbeck is the Asshole of the Day.
It is Elisabeth Hasselbeck's second time as Asshole of the Day. Previous wins were for saying that rather than blame guns for a mass shooting, we should blame video games.
Full story: Media Matters.
UPDATE: After posting today, we got this comment on Twitter, which really sums it up nicely:
@assholeofday @TeaPartyCat it was her "honor" to politicize the death of 4 Americans.
— Jukebox Romeo (@FrayedBlueJeans)
September 17, 2014
