The Fever Swamp Explodes Over David Petraeus

A friend emails to keep me up to date on how the wingnut wing of the Republican Party is spinning the story of David Petraeus’s affair:

The Fox fever swamp is sure and certain this is all related to Benghazi, even if they struggle to figure out a plausible connection. One theory is that Petraeus was more or less “outed” in order to keep him from testifying at the congressional hearings next week.

A competing and more popular theory has it that — let’s see if I can get this right — he knew he was being investigated and therefore promoted the Obama administration’s “lie” about the YouTube video under threat of being outed. Must be true, see, because the CIA station chief in Tripoli said less than 24 hours after the attack that it was AQ or AQ-linked militias that done the deed, and yet Petraeus several days later was still talking about the video in a closed congressional hearing.

Got that?

Oh yeah, I got it. You can see more along these lines from Laura IngrahamPatterico, Ace of Spades, Allahpundit, Monica Crowley, and (of course) Ben Shapiro. If only Glenn Beck were still around with his whiteboard, maybe someone would put all the pieces together and really explain what’s going on here.

There are times when I think the conservative movement is literally going to explode. Their whole Benghazi obsession long ago left reality behind, reduced to a desperate search for impeachable malfeasance even though all the evidence points to nothing more than a fairly routine level of confusion and (at worst) minor ass covering. Now, they’re desperate to somehow tie Petraeus to Benghazi because….well, why not? Benghazi is obviously a coverup, and Petraeus obviously must have known about it, and therefore (obviously) Eric Holder must have been ordered to dig up some dirt that would keep him on a tight leash. It’s the murder of Vince Foster all over again.

When do the adults in the Republican Party take a stand against this insanity? Wouldn’t now be a pretty good time?

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