Victory for First Amendment; Press gets administration to admit the truth about Benghazi

With all the talk about whether any speech against Islam should be criminalized, perhaps we should look at the upside of freedom of speech and possibly one of the reasons it rankles the Obama administration. That would be freedom of the press. For more than a week after the act of war committed against a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, in which four Americans were killed - including our ambassador to that country - White House press secretary Jay Carney insisted that the attack was the result of a crudely made video in the United States.

Here is a montage of Carney's responses to questions about the attack. These excerpts take place between 9/12/12 - 9/19/12.

Via Right Newz:



Freedom of speech in general - and freedom of the press in particular - obviously dogged Carney and the administration. It helped force both to admit the truth.

That truth?

The attack on our consulate was a pre-planned terrorist attack. On Air Force One - at the end of the above video - Carney admitted to a press gaggle that very thing, saying it was "self evident". Even NBC news had to report that because it came straight from the administration's mouthpiece.

Without freedom of the press, the Obama administration could have continued to further the lie that the attacks were spawned by an anti-Muhammad video. That could lead to shifts in policy that actually serve to further an anti-free speech agenda, which many leaders in the Muslim world have. Egypt's Mohamed Mursi and Turkey's Foreign Minister seem to share in that agenda.

Can you imagine a press corps. challenging the likes of Mursi over such matters?

The Obama administration is likely quite roiled at the fact it has egg on its face as a result. Had it been allowed to let such a lie take root as fact, the first amendment to the Constitution they all took an oath to protect and defend would have been in even greater danger; the conditions for policies that could potentially criminalize criticism of Islam would become even more ripe.

The irony is that as frustrated as administration officials may be at the press for dragging them to the truth, in so doing, the press actually helped to protect the first amendment rights of those same administration officials.

Accountability is uncomfortable but that doesn't make it any less right.