This past Monday, Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum wondered “if any of Sharyl Attkisson's friends can…explain to the rest of us what happened to her.” Drum, of course, wasn’t asking literally where Attkisson is or what she’s doing. Rather, he wanted to know why “her reporting became so detached from reality.”
Drum speculated about Attkisson’s career change from CBS News correspondent to Heritage Foundation-affiliated media critic (“Is this a genuinely bizarre case of Obama Derangement Syndrome taking over someone's life?”); touched on her intense interest in “Benghazi, the black hole of right-wing conspiracy theories”; and remarked, given statements she’s made while promoting her new book, that “her descent seems to be complete.”
From Drum’s post (emphasis added):
I don't want to belabor this, but I wonder if any of Sharyl Attkisson's friends can write something trying to explain to the rest of us what happened to her? As near as I can tell, she was a pretty good, hard-nosed investigative reporter for years. She didn't have any Watergates to her name, but she dug for stories that weren't widely reported and came up with angles that often embarrassed those in power. She was worth following.
And then came the age of Obama. Was this just coincidence? It's hard to say, since her unraveling seems to have started in 2011 with some absurd reporting about the link between vaccines and autism, which has nothing to do with politics. But it was a sign of something…
Next up was Attkisson's reporting on the Fast & Furious scandal. Taken by itself, it was decent, hard-hitting stuff, if a little overwrought. But it also pulled her into the warm embrace of Obama's right-wing media critics, and that led her on a path straight to Benghazi, the black hole of right-wing conspiracy theories. At this point she seems to have gone completely down the rabbit hole, utterly convinced that something—something!—happened in Libya that the Obama White House was desperate to cover up. Her reporting became so detached from reality that eventually she left CBS News, convinced that the network was deliberately pulling its punches on topics like Benghazi and the initial Obamacare website fiasco.
With the upcoming publication of Stonewalled, her descent seems to be complete. She's now convinced that the Obama administration was so panicked about her Benghazi reporting that it hacked her computer, stole her passwords, and deleted her work files. Unfortunately, her claims are simply laughable…
So what happened? Was Attkisson always on the edge? Or is this a genuinely bizarre case of Obama Derangement Syndrome taking over someone's life? There's a story here, but I can't tell if it's shameful or just sad. I'd like to know.
