OBG:

Thanks for correcting me. The "8" button on my TV's remote control is inoperative so I can't get the Fox News Channel - and I probably wouldn't watch it even if I could since I'm an "unfair" and "unbalanced" librul. (Ah, wonderful. What a great double entrendre!)

I've been listening to Rachel Maddow obsessing about this over on MSNBC. I thought I distinctly heard her say phones had been tapped, but I could have been mistaken. (She spent the first 15 minutes of her show tonight talking about this and drawing Watergate analogies, so I may have "thought" that I heard her saying that phones had been tapped.)

Even with just call logs, they should have been able to figure out (or have a pretty good idea) as to exactly who was the leaker. The real question in all this is exactly who in the Obama administration ordered the acquisition of those phone records? They managed to get the call records by circumventing the normal process of going to a judge and obtaining a subpoena. That, in and of itself, may be a violation of law - law that was passed after Watergate.

A special prosecutor or an "independent investigator" with subpoena power is going to be tasked with looking into this case. (Republicans will demand that at a minimum. They smell blood and they want to get to the bottom of it. Mitch McConnell said as much today on the Senate floor.) Once a special prosecutor starts turning over rocks, there's no telling what might turn up. Drawing blood is a competitive sport in Washington, DC.

lololololol now people are talking about impeachment? wtf is happening???

Nah, this will go away pretty quickly when Holder keeps repeating Americans lives were put in danger by the leak and the rest start the same mantra.

They need to get back to BENGHAZI>>>>>>>

The POTUS is a Democrat. A Democrat!

Benghazi would be the tip of the iceberg for this monster if we could get an independent counsel appointed to investigate him, his family, and his administration.

Yeah baby.

Dunno why the Rs beat around the bush so much. Just get the White House and propose a law or constitutional amendment that makes being a Democratic politician illegal. They pretend that's the case anyway.

OMM the president got a new dog, IMPEACHMENT!!!!

So that leaked email differs from the original huh? BOMBSHELL!

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the lengthy response. A few thoughts; One;

I don't think the right necessarily cares if they can go through with an impeachment. I think they benefit from (and one of their major strategies) is to continually trying to tar the opposition. Keep throwing crap at the wall and pretend its all the worst thing ever. Even if they never move ahead with impeachment proceedings, by the time the president's term ends they've tried to paint the opposition as a scandal ridden party.

And If any of this can be tied to Hilary then they have ammo should she run in the next election.

I'm also not entirely sure they're always so rational as you would make them out to be. Nor do I think the strategic thinkers are necessarily in control of all the players. (Congress isn't necessarily able to stop the noise machine that is Fox and Talk Radio) I say this primarily because there seems to be a number of politicians who I would already characterize as either batsh*t crazy or at least playing to the nutty parts of their constituients.

And touching again on the rational part; there's such a hostility to outsiders and Obama... they just want to attack. It may not be the best strategy politically (though either was their stance with respect to policies on minorities).... Perhaps they just need to stick it to the Muslim Brotherhood loving Kenyan President.

Sorry if this was a little rambling.

When the summary E-mails "leaked' were poltically motivated and not even close to the original, yes, should be a bombshell.

ABC got played.

So the mainstream, err, sorry, the lamestream media reported on documents whose truth and authenticity were suspect?

Rathergate all over again.

I mean, Rathergazi.

But, uh, damn LSM, always attacking the liberal movement. Well, vaguely left of center movement, as it were.

Too early to tell who got played. ABC is standing by the story and wanting WH to release all the emails.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...points-emerge/

Tapper on twitter agrees that the WH needs to release all the emails.

CNN actually has an actual E-mail, the substance quoted by ABC is not even remotely close to the actual E-mail.

Are there more of them, likely.

Should they all be released, yes since the WH selected one that seems to make ABC look bad, on purpose.

EDIT ADD:
There is a decent breakdown of the ABC version at Media Matters (no they do not just go after Fox):

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/05...e-bengh/194076

WH released 100 pages of emails/notes on Benghazi today

IMPEACH EVERYONE

All the new emails.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/interact...azi-emails.pdf

As an idea, can we fold the entire Benghazi deal from Fox in Sept all the way through to ABC reporting off a second hand summary into the Boston coverage and just call this entire mess mediagate? They love that -gate suffix so **** it, they can have that one on me even though its super dumb and has been since whatever followed watergategate.

Someone should get the DOJ to illegally get all the reporter's phone numbers and tell them all they suck at their jobs.

Edit, as an aside I am considering starting a journalism school where half the lessons consist of the best way to RT what someone else said on twitter. The advanced classes teach you to read that **** out on air live.
Edit 2, you know who wasnt first to report all that Boston bull**** on twitter? @BreakingNews cos for some reason nearly all of the jouralists who care about getting this right first time are the ones who work for a barely known offshoot of NBC whose sole goal when created was to be the first to break news stories wtf seriously.

How insensitive that they release painful details to try to cover their own asses while the Benghazi mothers are still grieving. Have you no shame Mr. Obama?

I prefer:

So did we establish the the scandal is Obama not being aggressively pro grilled cheese sandwiches which led to FOUR DEAD AMERICANS?

Fox burying the lead:

Pro tip: use *lede* to show your intellectual ivory tower egghead elitist superiority

The released emails also show that whichever Republican staff member (inaccurately) leaked a few choice (paraphrased) quotes from emails to Jonathon Karl at ABC LIED and INTENTIONALLY MISLED THE PUBLIC. FOUR PEOPLE DIED!!!!1 Why isn't the mainstream media all over this?

Poor Benghazigate, R.I.P.

I'd like to imagine if only one person came out of it questioning fox news and republicans that a greater purpose was served.

So, uh... where'd all the conservatives go? It's awfully quiet in here.

rara? seattle? Jim? Latford? ogallala? adios? PFunk? Cat's got ALL of your tongues?

Do you guys ever get tired of being led by the nose through Rupert Murdoch's fun-house of blatantly partisan misinformation?

No because they all think Murdoch is just aligning himself with what they already believe, and it's those fence-sitters that need the propaganda. No one ever thinks of themselves as having their fears and baser emotions played on by conservative media in any way. They awakened one day to the conservative reality through pure first-hand observation. Which is why cities like NY and LA are so anti-immigrant - they've lived it. Oh wait...

My Mom took great offense that I thought she might be getting her opinions from FoxNews. So she sent me a WSJ editorial (that basically called Obama a power-grabbing tyrant) to show how she gets her news from all sides.

Yeah, when Fox also quotes the WSJ they never tell viewers that is basically the print version of FN & FBN.