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Libya: As the father of a former Navy SEAL slain at Benghazi wonders why our secretary of state lied to him, we wonder why our CIA director abetted a lie that contradicted counterterrorism officials and the FBI.
During the 2004 presidential campaign, a media eager to deny George W. Bush a second term made Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq, a national heroine and reported virtually her every word and move.
"Cindy Sheehan," gushed NBC News, "is single-handedly bringing the Iraq debate to Mr. Bush's doorstep."
But nobody in a mainstream media eager to see President Obama get a second term is bringing the Benghazi debate to the White House doorstep. On all the Sunday talk shows, when Benghazi was brought up, the moderator quickly changed subjects.
On CNN's "State of the Union," Candy Crowley, who came to the aid of President Obama on Benghazi during the second presidential debate, sloughed off attempts by two GOP officials to broach Benghazi.
When Newt Gingrich raised Benghazi on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos quickly changed topics. NBC's David Gregory cut off GOP panelist Carly Fiorina when she brought up Benghazi, promising to "get to that a little later." Of course, he never did.
Nor is Gregory or the others likely to pursue an interview with Charles Woods, father of Ty Woods, one of the SEALs killed in Benghazi.
A few conservative outlets have talked to him, notably Fox News, and he's had much to say about how and why his son was abandoned by the government he served.
Woods is especially angry "that apparently the White House situation room was watching our people die in real time, as this was happening."
If Cindy Sheehan had made such a comment, it would have led every evening newscast.
Nor is Woods happy with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "Her countenance was not good, and she made this statement to me .. . she said we will make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted," he told radio host Glenn Beck. Woods said he "could tell that she was not telling me the truth."
Indeed, she and the president had to know Benghazi was not caused by a video and knew in real-time there was no spontaneous mob, but rather an organized terrorist attack by the al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Sharia.
Two days after the deadly Libya terror attack, representatives of the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) gave Capitol Hill briefings in which they said just that — that the evidence supported an al-Qaida or al-Qaida-affiliated attack.
FBI and NCTC also briefed that there were several al-Qaida training camps just outside Benghazi where the attack occurred and resulted in the deaths of four Americans. The area was described as a hotbed for the militant Ansar al-Sharia as well as al-Qaida in North Africa.
So why did CIA Director David Petraeus tell lawmakers the opposite a day after, that the attack was more consistent with a flash mob, where militants showed up spontaneously with rocket-propelled grenades?
Petraeus downplayed to lawmakers the skill needed to fire mortars, which every spontaneous demonstrator knows how to do.
Petraeus, who served honorably as commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, had to have known otherwise.
"I wish that the leadership in the White House had the same level of moral courage and heroism that my son displayed," Woods said.
So do we. And we wish the media would give him as much sympathy and air time as they gave Cindy Sheehan.
Read More At IBD: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/103012-631381-cindy-sheehan-cheered-charles-woods-ignored.htm#ixzz2Atn47T8I
