The Cherry Pickers of Benghazi

A report by CNN's Jake Tapper has thrown cold water on the frenzy that began when ABC's Jonathan Karl and the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes reported National Security Council spokesman Ben Rhodes implied in an email that talking points distributed should be edited to provide political cover for the State Department.

Tapper, with the full email in hand reported, "Whoever provided those seemingly invented the notion that Rhodes wanted the concerns of the State Department specifically addressed."

There is no evidence that either Karl or Hayes had themselves seen the full email and intentionally chose to edit out the context before reporting on them. Instead, a source, likely a Capitol Hill staffer in either House leadership or a committee office passed on these emails, received as part of a deal to confirm CIA director John Brennan.

This has been a hallmark of the Benghazi scandal for the last eight months – leaks from Republican staffers of cherry-picked information that later emerge to be at best half-truths are reported breathlessly by a conservative, and occasionally mainstream, media. Often it is only weeks later we learn that the information reported was either false or so far removed from context it no longer resembles reality.

Stephen Hayes should be familiar with this technique: a decade ago he used cherry-picked intelligence data, supplied by operatives primarily working for Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, to help the Bush administration justify the war in Iraq

In November 2003 Hayes cited "a top secret U.S. government memorandum" to claim Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden "had an operational relationship." Hayes claimed "evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources."

Hayes' relationship with government officials was circular. In January 2004 Vice President Dick Cheney cited Hayes' reporting to echo his claim.