Radio host Rush Limbaugh said it was “the epitome of frustration” to watch House Republicans lose control of the media narrative on the day they released an 800-page report on the Sept. 11, 2012 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Lawmakers released the final report Tuesday on the ambush by Islamic terrorists that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods four years ago.
Mr. Limbaugh said Republicans tried too hard to appear nonpartisan, which he said benefits former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.
“The defensiveness is we don’t want our work here to be mischaracterized as nothing more than a political attack,” Mr. Limbaugh said of Republican lawmakers’ rationale. “So to prevent that, we’ll go overboard, if necessary, to say it wasn’t about Hillary, it wasn’t about the Democrat presidential nominee, it wasn’t about Obama, when of course it’s about both of them. […] “The answer that we got was, ’Read the report. Read the report. You’ll see. Read the report.’ The media’s not gonna read the report! The low-information voters are not gonna read the report. […] It has some new context. It has timelines. Folks, it is really stunning.”
The radio host said that a treasure trove of information will never be known to millions of Americans, in part because South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, and others were not media savvy enough with Tuesday’s presentation.
One particular exchange between Mr. Gowdy and a reporter irked the conservative icon.
“There are bumper stickers and T-shirts all over this country that say, ’Hillary Clinton Lied. People died.’ Is that true?” a journalist asked.
“You don’t see that T-shirt on me, and you’ve never seen that bumper sticker on any of my vehicles, and you’ve never heard me comment on that. I’m asking you to read it. I’m not going to tell you what to be on the lookout for. I actually trust you to read the report for yourself,” Mr. Gowdy said.
“They’re not gonna read it!” Mr. Limbaugh exclaimed. “They don’t care what’s in it. All they want out of this press conference is to be able to walk out of there saying that they have no goods on Mrs. Clinton. Like this there are bumper stickers and T-shirts all over the country, Hillary. You ever hear them worry about that when that was true of George W. Bush? And Gowdy, you know, wasn’t going to go there. ’No, no, no! I’m not saying she lied. I’m not…’ The report says she lied from beginning to end.”
Investigators poured over roughly 75,000 pages of documents and interviewed 107 witnesses for the Select Committee on Benghazi’s report.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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