NPR's Nina Totenberg: 'There'd Be No Reason to Send Susan Rice Out to Lie'

The Obama-loving media is still trying to shelter the President they adore from scrutiny concerning the White House's ever-changing explanation for what happened at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last month.

Doing her part Friday was NPR's Nina Totenberg who actually said on PBS's Inside Washington, “There'd be no reason to send [United Nations Ambassador] Susan Rice out to lie if she was going to get exposed immediately” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: It seems obvious to me that there was a screw-up at relatively low levels. I am not clear about what the intelligence said right away to the President. Certainly the Vice President suggested in his debate that they had been told initially something different. And there'd be no reason to send Susan Rice out to lie if she was going to get exposed immediately.

Actually, I can think of numerous reasons.

First, the Obama administration believed – rightfully so! - that their media would take what Rice said hook, line, and sinker, especially weeks away from Election Day.

If this were to happen, the White House could create the illusion that this attack was all about protests associated with an anti-Muslim movie trailer and therefore deflect all blame and scrutiny.

The upside is that Obama's foreign policy credentials due to the assassination of bin Laden would remain intact, and he could continue saying on the campaign trail that al Qaeda has been decimated.

This is exactly why Rice, Obama, and other White House officials stuck to this “the movie caused it all” story for as long as they did.

Regardless of the number of holes that are now being revealed in this canard, so-called journalists like Totenberg aren't quite ready to give up the ghost.

They're probably hoping just as the administration is that they can hold this fallacy in place for another sixteen days and not have to really come clean to the American people until after the election.

As such, journalism really is dead, isn't it?