What Defines "Legitimate News?"

Late in the 2000 presidential election, someone discovered a 24 year old drunken driving arrest in George Bush's record. The mainstream media went wall-to-wall with its coverage. 

As Barack Obama's facade of lies surrounding the terrorist attack at Benghazi crumbles, it exposes ineptitude, dishonesty, corruption and an indifference to the fate of heroes willing to die for their country. 

In other words, the difference is that Benghazi exposes Barack Obama's actually performance as president, in ways that an ancient traffic ticket does not. The other difference is that the mainstream media have imposed a blackout on Benghazi.

Last week, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that sources on the ground in Libya say they pleaded for support during the attack on the Benghazi consulate that led to the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. They were allegedly told twice to "stand down." Worse, there are suggestions that there were significant military resources available to counterattack, but requests for help were denied.

If true, the White House's concerted effort to blame the attack on a video crumbles. Yet, last Friday, the president claimed that "the minute I found out what was happening" in Benghazi, he ordered that everything possible be done to protect our personnel. That is either untrue, or he's being disobeyed on grave matters.

This isn't an "October surprise" foisted on the media by opposition research; it's news.

This story raises precisely the sort of "big issues" the media routinely claim elections should be about. For instance, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that the "basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on, without having some real-time information about what's taking place." If real-time video of the attack and communications with Americans on the ground begging for assistance doesn't constitute "real-time information," what does?