clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile
Will you help keep Vox free? Vox's journalism is free, so that everyone can understand our world. Reader support helps us do that. Will you give today?

Filed under:

Why do liberals make fun of “#Benghazi” all the time?

The hashtag was crystallized in Hillary Clinton’s January 2013 testimony at a Congressional hearing.

By Zack Beauchamp
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the September 11, 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 23, 2013.
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. Before coming to Vox in 2014, he edited TP Ideas, a section of Think Progress devoted to the ideas shaping our political world.
Part of Everything you need to know about Benghazi

The media and political firestorms around Benghazi have sparked a counter-reaction, typically among liberals who doubt the merits of the Benghazi allegations. This is often expressed with ironic use of the Twitter hashtag #Benghazi, and was crystallized in Clinton’s January 2013 testimony at a Congressional hearing, in which she barely attempted to contain her exasperation with Republican questions.

The progressive attitude, basically.
ABC News

Progressives often see the Benghazi controversies as driven by a sort of Obama Derangement Syndrome, wherein conservatives invent scandals that only make sense inside their own closed information feedback loop.

benghazi pillow
For liberals, a hilarious throw-pillow.
Cafepress/The Wire

So they mock #Benghazi. A lot.

☆。★。☆。★ 。☆ 。☆。☆ ★。＼｜／。★ B E N G H A Z I ★。／｜＼。★ 。☆。。☆ ☆。 ★。 ☆ ★
— max read (@max_read) October 23, 2013

Why didn’t Zach Galifianakis ask Obama about #Benghazi?#MainstreamMedia
— John Aziz (@azizonomics) March 11, 2014

One persistent liberal meme grew out of a particularly amusing tweet that turned Benghazi into a conspiratorial acrostic.

Hence, when you see weird acrostics spelling out Benghazi on progressive Twitter, like this one:

Now you know why.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Everything you need to know about Benghazi