0 the mainstream media is sometimes a conduit of the lies that republicans are feeding them. more skepticism. and you know, in my book, we talk a lot about fox, but the truth is, cbs's coverage of benghazi has been troubling, aside from this, for a year. >> so, what is the parallel here? i keep thinking about the clintons and whitewater. >> sure. >> i think about something that is identified as a scandal, and then the reasons for it being a scandal keep changing or keep being reverse engineered around the conclusion it's a scandal. >> yes. >> and benghazi, we've gone through seven or eight iterations of what the scandal is. obviously, it's a horrible, horrible tragedy that happened, an outrageous, awful thing that happened. four americans are killed. >> right. >> but as for what the malfeasance is or what the cover-up is, that has changed now seven or eight times, about the intelligence, about whether it was a protest. >> right. >> do you see -- i guess my question to you, as someone who's close to the world of the clintons and has covered sort of attacks on the clintons for years, do you see this as kind of a whitewater 2.0? >> sure. i think benghazi is whitewater. so, in writing this book, one of the things that i felt was a sense of deja vu all over again. you know, i was very involved in covering the clinton scandals and then uncovering them and exposing the right-wing conspiracy. and you had right-wing lawyers coaching so-called whistle-blowing witnesses. >> feeding them to media. >> that's right. and then they testify and then they don't testify to what the lawyers are telling the press. so, there's a lot of aspect to this, just phony stuff, you know, the smoking gun darrell issa produced a cable showing that secretary clinton lied under oath when she said she had no knowledge of the relates for security, and it ends up that the "washington post" shows that the cable was auto-penned and she had no knowledge of it, so sure. >> steven reiner is former producer for "60 minutes" and cbs, now professor of journalism at stony brook university. you were there during the rathergate phenomenon, the national guard story that became such a huge story. were you expecting more on sunday night? >> i was expecting more in the way of clarification and more in the way of transparency. i don't see a tremendous number of parallels between the rather story several years ago and this story. this is in a way much more straightforward, in my estimation. >> right. >> and it is -- >> the rather story was really a mystery. it was like, who the heck made these documents and how did they get out there? >> but one of the things about the rather story that wasn't a mystery was who the guiding force was behind the rather story, and that was the producer, mary mapes, who brought the story to "60 minutes 2" and really was the driving force. in this particular case, don't know who the driving force behind the story was, who really wanted to get this on the air. was it the correspondent? was it the executive producer? was it the booking department? was it simon & shuster particularly, so that's why accountability becomes murkier. >> here's where the parallel i think is between the rather story, the national guard story we talked about at the top of the program. it's that, were the shoe on the other foot, this would be a huge story, right? if this were some liberal, you know, pet liberal issue that was then debunked by a witness who had essentially lied or appears to have lied, or at least told the fbi something else, i remember in the midst of that storm, that was like the biggest story out there. and the ability of the right-wing echo machine to turn it into the biggest story in the world -- and again, it was in the midst of a campaign, you know, you're talking about the president's service record. obviously, these are intense things, but i still think that what we're seeing in some ways in the fall of this is the asymmetry of the pressure on the right and the left around issues like this. >> yeah, i think that's absolutely right. so, not only -- so, the "times" speculated this morning that one of the issues here was the right was much louder in the rather case. he was kind of a pinata for the right. the network was scared of the right. i think economically, they were scared of a right-wing boycott of the show. so, what's different here is, you know, it's little old media matters and journalism professors who are -- >> okay, let's not whip out the smallest violin in the world. it's also the white house and the state department. >> sure. >> and some of the most powerful people in the world, right? >> sure, but the republican party was out there attacking dan rather. i don't see the democratic party doing that, right? >> i want to play this clip from lara logan that's now getting a lot of play. and let me just say, i have no opinions one way or the other about lara logan's body of work and don't feel i'm here to go after lara logan. i simply don't know. i know this story and some of her other work. this is a speech she gave to the better government association in chicago last year. take a listen. >> there is a big song and dance about whether this was a terrorist attack or a protest, and you just want to scream, for god sake, are you kidding me? the last time we were attacked like this was the "uss cole," which was a preclude to the 1998 neutrality that is necessary for "60 minutes" to exist when this is the background context. >> well, this is precisely the point that bill keller and again greenwald were bouncing back and forth when they did their dialogue in the "times." >> bill keller, formally with "the new york times." >> but obviously, this statement of lara's, and this is going to become more and pore apparent, raises the stakes even more for the importance of cbs to be transparent about just how the vetting process was done. i mean, this is ultimately a failure of good journalism. it's an abrogation of the verification process. it was not followed. >> you have one source, you're resting the most explosive things on that one source -- >> exactly. >> you've got to make sure -- >> and we have a very, very high-stakes story that is red meat to the right. everybody knows it. you are under more of an obligation, particularly in this day in age, to be transparent and to really do a better job reporting the story. it was also interesting to hear that, you know, sort of -- there's a bit of an arrogance at cbs by saying, well, it wasn't until we found out that the fbi report was different that we're going to report it. "the new york times" beat cbs on the reporting. >> this is the key reporting. this is the key reporting mistake, that in a year of reporting this story, you're cbs news, you can call, you can find out that he talked to the fbi and what they told him. you're cbs news, you can find that out. >> one more point. i don't think anybody venerates "60 minutes" more than jeff faher does -- >> he's the head of "60 minutes" -- >> and chairman of cbs news. and notwithstanding how he's choosing to manage this in front of the public. i have no doubt that he is going to take this very seriously internally. >> i don't think this is the last we've heard of it. david brock from media matters, thank you very much. >> video obtained by filipino broadcaster shows the moments of impact. a wall of water 20 feet high by some accounts crashing into tacloban, leaving the city of 220,000 in ruins. >> the philippines has been on the front lines confronting climate change because they are literally on the front lines. more on the devastation there and what it means for their efforts ahead. 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