The headline writers at the Daily Beast are either dumber than a box of rocks, or really, really don't like the content of Eli Lake's story today. The smart money should be on the latter.
As of 5:20 p.m., Lake's story concerning previous attacks on Benghazi, numerous security warnings, and the State Department's refusal to beef up protection was Number 2 in the rotation on the Daily Beast's home page, but with the headline seen after the jump.
Here it is:
Oh, it gets worse.
At least the narrative below the rotation item's headline seen above describes the existence of prior attacks. But as seen at Lake's story, the headline in the "Most Popular" category, more than likely blasted out to computers and handheld devices around the world (and which Drudge picked up as is without digging deeper), only reads: "Jihadists Warned U.S. on Facebook," as if that's the critical element of the story. Give me a break.
Rest assured that Lake's story would be even more popular if the Daily Beast linking headline had tightened up Lake's actual story headline, as seen below:
Do I really need to explain why the prior attacks should have been headlined like the story itself was instead of the watered down to merely cite the existence of Facebook posts?
Here's more from Lake's story:
... Details on these alleged incidents stem in part from the testimony of a handful of whistleblowers who approached the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the days and weeks following the attack on the Benghazi consulate. The incidents are disclosed in a letter to be sent Tuesday to Hillary Clinton from Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the oversight committee’s subcommittee that deals with national security.
... For example, following a May 22 early-morning attack on a facility that housed the International Committee on the Red Cross, a Facebook page claimed responsibility, and said the attack was a warning and a “message for the Americans disturbing the skies over Derna.” That reference was likely to American surveillance drones over a city that provided fighters to al Qaeda in Iraq in the last decade.
... The letter also discloses for the first time a bombing at the U.S. consulate that occurred on April 6, 2012. It says that on that day, two former security guards for the consulate in Benghazi threw homemade improvised explosives over the consulate fence. That incident resulted in no casualties. The Wall Street Journal first reported last month that on June 6 militants detonated an explosive at the perimeter gate of the consulate, blowing a hole through the barrier. The letter to Clinton quotes one source who described the crater as “big enough for forty men to go through.”
... A senior State Department official acknowledged that there were five serious attacks on Western targets since the spring in the lead-up to the attack on the 9/11 anniversary. Speaking of the June 6 attack at the consulate’s perimeter gate, this official said, “The IED attack caused no loss of life and no injury. The wall acted as designed. It absorbed it.” This official said that compared with the 9/11 anniversary assault, the earlier attacks in Benghazi were mild. “We faced a coordinated, military-style assault. We’ve never seen that kind of attack before,” this official added.
Separately, the Hill is reporting that "whistleblowers (say) that the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked and threatened 13 times before the incident last month that killed four Americans."
I guess by the time that story gets the Daily Beast, the headline will be "GOP lawmakers talk to whistleblowers." The goal seems to do all that is possible to hold down readership of news unfavorable to Dear Leader.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
