LEFT-WING LICKSPITTLES: HOW THE HUFFINGTON POST IS AIDING OBAMA'S BENGHAZI COVER-UP

- Joel B. Pollak

Normally, we at Breitbart News ignore the Huffington Post. It is self-consciously leftist, so there is little point in highlighting its rather comical bias, except when that bias filters into the mainstream media. Sunday night was just such an occasion, when HuffoPo ran two stories in succession that neatly captured the lickspittle mentality of the mainstream media towards President Barack Obama, and the danger it holds for our democracy.

The first story was headlined, “Obsessed.” It described the promised by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to block the confirmations of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan to the posts of Secretary of Defense and CIA Director, respectively, unless the Obama administration fully explained the president’s actions during the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sep. 11.

Graham is no wide-eyed ideologue. Many conservatives consider him a squish on core issues. (I was once present to hear Graham address a gathering of high-dollar donors. He admonished them about the need to address climate change, even using the odd term “carbon pollution” to describe fossil fuel use. One irritated donor turned to me and whispered: “That sound you hear is checkbooks slamming shut across the nation.”)

Yet Graham takes foreign policy very seriously, as well as the fate of Americans serving abroad. He has, after all, been one of them. In pursuing answers on Benghazi, he is doing what the mainstream media ought to have done, and what the nation wants to be done. He is also answering Obama’s challenge in November: “If Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham and others want to go after somebody [on Libya], they should go after me.”

For more of the article go to: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/02/11/Left-Wing-Lickspittles-How-Huffington-Post-is-Aiding-Obama-s-Benghazi-Cover-Up

GRAHAM VOWS TO HOLD UP OBAMA DEFENSE AND CIA NOMINEES UNTIL WHITE HOUSE GIVES MORE ANSWERS ON BENGHAZI

- Christopher Santarelli

Key Senate Armed Services Committee Republican Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, the ranking member, right, joined by Lindsey Graham, center, and Kelly Ayotte, left. (Credit: AP)

(AP) – A leading Republican senator said Sunday he would hold up Senate confirmation of President Barack Obama’s nominees to head the Defense Department and the CIA until the White House provided more answers about the deadly Sept. 11 attack against a U.S. installation in Benghazi, Libya.

The White House took aim at Sen. Lindsey Graham, a persistent critic of Obama’s response to the terrorist assault, by urging quick approval of the president’s second-term national security team and scolding any lawmakers trying to “play politics” with critical nominations.

Graham accused the White House of “stonewalling” requests to release more information about the attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. “We’re going to get to the bottom of Benghazi,” he told CBS.

A Democratic colleague branded Graham’s threat to stall the nominations of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary and John Brennan, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, to be CIA director as “unprecedented and unwarranted.” Senators should have the chance to vote on the fate of those nominees, said Sen. Jack Reed.

The White House did not address Graham’s demand for more information, but did note that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified Thursday before Congress about the chaotic day of the Sept. 11 attack.

Republicans have accused the Obama administration of an election-year cover-up of the attack, and at the hearing several suggested the commander in chief was disengaged as Americans died.

“We know nothing about what the president did on the night of September 11th during a time of national crisis, and the American people need to know what their commander in chief did, if anything, during this eight-hour attack,” Graham said on CBS.

Graham contended that a six-person rescue team was delayed from leaving the Benghazi airport because of problems “with the militias releasing them and a lot of bureaucratic snafus,” and he said he wants to know whether Obama called any Libyan officials to expedite their mission.

“I don’t think we should allow Brennan to go forward for the CIA directorship, Hagel to be confirmed to secretary of defense until the White House gives us an accounting,” Graham said, adding, “What did he do that night? That’s not unfair. The families need to know, the American people need to know.”

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said, “We believe the Senate should act swiftly to confirm John Brennan and Sen. Hagel. These are critical national security positions and individual members shouldn’t play politics with their nominations.”

Reed said that “to dwell on a tragic incident and use that to block people is not appropriate. To try to find information, to ask legitimate questions, as Senator Graham is doing is completely appropriate. But then to turn around and say, `I’m going to disrupt, essentially, the nomination of two key members of the President’s Cabinet,’ I don’t think that’s appropriate, I don’t think it’s warranted, I think it is an overreaction that is not going to serve the best interest going forward of the national security of the United States.”

Graham would have none of it.

“In a constitutional democracy, we need to know what our commander in chief was doing at a time of great crisis, and this White House has been stonewalling the Congress, and I’m going to do everything I can to get to the bottom of this so we’ll learn from our mistakes and hold this president accountable for what I think is tremendous disengagement at a time of national security crisis,” he said.

For more of the article go to: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/10/graham-vows-to-hold-up-obama-defense-and-cia-nominees-until-white-house-gives-more-answers-on-benghazi/