Damn Them Both

This is rich.  CNN is playing the victim and is wanting to know why the government is "shooting the messenger."  The messenger being CNN.  Like CNN wasn't there in the front row ridiculing Jennifer Flowers when she came forward with news that Bill Clinton was cheating on Hillary.  And attacking Lucianne Goldberg when she reported him screwing one of his young employees in the Oval Office. And going after the National Enquirer when it broke the John Edwards Tryst story.  And going after Standard & Poors last year for downgrading America's credit rating while their guy was in office.

Now the tables are turned.

Listen to the folks at CNN whine:

US State Dept. blasts CNN report on Stevens' diary
By Lynn Elber, AP Television Writer

Los Angeles (AP) — CNN reported on the personal journal of slain American ambassador Christopher Stevens over objections from his family, a State Department spokesman said Saturday.

The news channel, in a story posted online Saturday, said that it found a journal belonging to Stevens four days after he died in a Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Three other Americans also were killed.

CNN broke a pledge to the late ambassador's family that it wouldn't report on the diary, said State Department spokesman Philippe Reines, a senior adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In a blistering statement, Reines called CNN's actions "indefensible."

The channel said in the story online that it took "newsworthy tips" from Stevens' diary and confirmed them with other sources. Citing an unidentified source "familiar with Stevens' thinking," CNN said that the ambassador was concerned about security threats in Benghazi and a "rise in Islamic extremism."

In a statement Saturday, CNN defended its use of the journal's contents and asked "why is the State Department now attacking the messenger."

"CNN did not initially report on the existence of a journal out of respect for the family, but we felt there were issues raised in the journal which required full reporting, which we did," the channel said.

The public has a right to know what CNN learned from "multiple sources" about fears and warnings of a terror threat before the Benghazi attack, the channel said, "which are now raising questions about why the State Department didn't do more to protect Ambassador Stevens and other U.S. personnel."

Stevens' family was informed within hours about the discovery of the journal, a hard-bound book that included seven handwritten pages. It was returned to them via a third party, according to CNN's online story.

An Italian official took control of the diary from CNN in Benghazi at the State Department's request, and it is en route back to Stevens' family, the department said.

"Given the truth of how this was handled, CNN patting themselves on the back is disgusting," Reines said in his statement. [link]

I say, Boo Freaking Hoo.

And a plague on both their houses.

Obama's government - as is its custom - is trying to deflect criticism for its having done nothing to protect our ambassador in Libya - nothing - from harm. As is made clear in the diary left in the rubble of the burned-out consulate building.

It'll get no sympathy from me.

But to watch CNN play the victim is rather entertaining.

Unseemly.

But entertaining.

The people who made the decision to lift information from Ambassador Stevens' private journal - after his murder - and not report the source is wrong. Totally wrong. And to not return the journal to his family until it had gleaned everything from it the cable channel's reporters could was reprehensible.

It's worth remembering, though, that it wasn't CNN that created conditions that allowed for an American ambassador and his staff to be totally defenseless in a hostile Muslim land on 9/11. It was Hillary.

So a plague on both their houses.

- - -

Not that the journal provided CNN with any useful insight:

Despite Having Ambassador's Journal That Suggests Otherwise, CNN Continues to Blame Anti-Islam Film For Attack in Libya

They see what they want to see.

May God have mercy.