Getting to the Source of the Lies

A theme emerged at Tuesday night's Republican debate that went something like this: because of political correctness, the Obama administration has failed to keep us safe from terror attacks. It was applied in reference to the shooting in San Bernardino by several candidates, including Ted Cruz.

It’s not a lack of competence that is preventing the Obama administration from stopping these attacks. It is political correctness. We didn’t monitor the Facebook posting of the female San Bernardino terrorist because the Obama DHS thought it would be inappropriate. She made a public call to jihad, and they didn’t target it.

That is the story that has become embedded over the last week in the right wing mindset. But as FBI Director James Comey said yesterday, it's not true.

So far, in this investigation we have found no evidence of posting on social media by either of them at that period in time and thereafter reflecting their commitment to jihad or to martyrdom. I’ve seen some reporting on that, and that’s a garble.

There was no major breakdown in security at DHS as a result of political correctness. It's all about a couple who were inspired by ISIS to go on a killing spree - much as Robert Lewis Dear was inspired by the anti-abortion movement and Dylann Roof was inspired by white supremacists.

But as Kevin Drum reports, there's more to the story. The question becomes: what was the source for the story about Tashfeen Malik's public Facebook postings? It was an article in the New York Times titled: U.S. Visa Process Missed San Bernardino Wife's Zealotry on Social Media. And not only that. As Drum says:

The story was written by Matt Apuzzo, Michael Schmidt, and Julia Preston.

Do those names sound familiar? They should. The first two were also the authors of July's epic fail claiming that Hillary Clinton was the target of a criminal probe over the mishandling of classified information in her private email system.

Is it merely a coincidence that these two NYT reporters have been fed stories by their sources that are fabricated lies about the dyad the Republican candidates blamed consistently with such disdain Tuesday night - Obama/Clinton? I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But you don't have to be to understand why it is important to get an answer to that question.