The lengths we have to go to to get cnn coverage these days. I think theyre still searching for their table. So right after that joke, i looked over at one of the tables where fox news staffers were sitting. I could just tell fox news was next. Speaking of conservative heroes, the coke brothers bought a table here tonight, but as usual they used a shadowy right Wing Organization as a front. Hello, fox news. [ applause ] im just kidding. Lets face it, fox, youll miss me when im gone. So that got lots of laughs, of course. The tension between the president and fox news is palpable, it has been for years. And it was at the heart of this weeks biggest media story benghazi. So enough about the dinner. It was fascinating to be there, it was fun to celebrate the press corps. There is a lot to celebrate but also a lot to scrutinize, so lets get to it. Benghazi is a class case of red news, blue news. The president handled the tragedy as a scandal while msnbc pretty much dismisses it. One story has become two different stories on the right and the left. So the question for us is, is there a real scandal and is the press paying enough attention. It was september 11, 2012 when four americans were killed in benghazi, libya in what we now know was a terrorist attack. On the right, theres been lots of talk of a coverup to protect the president. This week there was a new development, an email obtained through a freedom of act lawsuit, written by ben rhodes, security adviser. Included on the email, some Top White House officials. Ill get to that, but first the blue on red news, blue news. It was openly mocked as the idea of a coverup. The smoking gun has been found. Not only was a cnn official apparently following guidance, he was also managing political fallout before the 2004 elections. This was a major part when they tried to broadcast fear and panic. Also being sarcastic. But the reason or proportion, those didnt seem to be lost on conservatives who have turned this email into the watergate tapes. Now bill oreilly, who was furious with the email, didnt get Media Attention right away. Thats a scandal. A scandal. That is proof the American Press is dishonest. Period. Theyre covering up a coverup. Which might lead directly to the president of the United States. And that failure by the National Press to tell the American People the truth about benghazi is for one reason and one reason only. To protect president barack obama. So this morning i put together a Blue Ribbon Panel of reporters to get at the truth of this, including Carl Bernstein of watergate fame. But here in the studio, dana bash and political staff writer glen thrush. Lets start with the email which is being called the smoking gun. Theyre calling it a smoking gun because they believe this is proof of what theyve been arguing for a very long time, which is that there was a political dynamic here and a political imperative here inside the white house to not call this a terrorist attack because it was just six, seven weeks before the election, and the president was running on somebody who killed osama bin laden. So this would have hurt that political narrative. But its not just the content, its also the fact we havent seen it. It wasnt a part of the batch of documents the white house gave up when they were subpoenaed. I was talking to a former and National Security council official yesterday, and he said it was just nuts this wasnt part of the documents in may. We sat there for two hours in the rose room of the white house with officials who assured us this was it. We were going to see every single email. And this one shows up, and in terms of its substance, i think we can agree it is not a smoking gun, it is more along the lines of just another piece of information in a larger case. There was an interest in getting everything out, wasnt there . There was at the time, but the hidden story has a lot to do with politics but it has a lot more to do with competing interests in the cia and the white house. You saw that jay carney at the white house was trying to say the reason it wasnt given over was because it wasnt specifically about benghazi, it was more of a regional discussion which, you know, nobody in that White House Briefing room bought at all. It was pretty spirited. For me as a reporter that covers the white house, the fascinating stuff is the conspiracy stuff. Its watching all these different players go at each other with knives. Where does the story go from here . A story that is daily on fox news but rarely covered as extensively elsewhere. Ive noticed that a lot of frustration on my twitter feed from a lot of conservatives out there saying, whatever story i do, okay, this is great, but why arent you doing benghazi . This is fascinating to me because fox is doing it extensively, and if you talk to republicans as i do on capitol hill, particularly those who are up for reelection, maybe even those who have primary challenges who are really trying to make sure the Republican Base is with them, this is a huge issue. So the question that i have, and i dont know if anybody can really answer this, its a chicken or egg question. Is fox doing it because the Republican Based viewership is interested or is the base interested because fox is doing it all the time . I see the same on the twitter feed, i get emails from my friends on the right saying, why arent you covering this extensively . Its important in terms of Diplomatic Security moving forward, our role in the world and this con flag ratiflagratio mideast we still havent dealt with. Because it gets called a fox story, the other people can more easily dismiss it. Exactly. For example, at the end of the week there was testimony in front of darrell isis committee who has been one of the leaders trying to investigate this, from a retired general, the First Military person who was in the region on the ground at the time to testify before congress. He argued that the military should have done more, could have done more, and that the reason they didnt is there was a cultural deference to the state department. You know what . Whether or not thats true, there was certainly a divide politically, but it should be something that the government, that we should be interested in looking into. Is there a problem with just basic bureaucracy and bureaucratic problems that could perhaps hinder trying to go help four americans and more americans four americans died but more who are under attack in the post they were sent to by this government. Now, if i were on the right, i would be angry at darrell isa, head of the investigations committee, because he drew all these conclusions at the beginning of the investigation. He brought reporters along step by step by step, without making one of the broadest accusations at the area of inquiry, i think you would see more interest in the mainstream than you see. So it has taken harm that otherwise would have taken root. I think people wonder this has been targeted as a fox story. Msnbc has been dismissing that story. Weve seen that on left wing blogs as well referring to benghazi truthfuls in a negative way. I wonder if that will come back to hurt some of these folks who have dismissed the story entirely. Im just getting a little tired of seeing the base talk to itself. Our function here is to move beyond this partisan i wouldnt say shelling because i think there are fine journalists in all these places were talking about but i think in general its just becoming noise. And finally, i wonder how productive it is. The fox folks are watching fox, the msnbc people are watching msnbc tune in to cnn it doesnt seem like either argument is selling the larger group of people who either arent tuned in to this or dont care about it much as a central issue. Also, isnt this center of attention because of the woman on the screen behind us . Who . Ben rhodes . And i do think youre absolutely right. It is a legitimate story on its substance. But youre right as well, that it does get caught in the politics, and the politics is about the base now and whether theres a coverup, but its also looking ahead to 2016 and the president having their eye on who is unbeatable, and that is Hillary Clinton, and the fact what happened in the state department, that she was secretary of state when one of her ambassadors died, the first time thats happened in 33 years, and trying to pin her with this. Now they have that infamous sound bite of her if she does run youll see over and over again, saying, what difference does it make . Youre right, Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, she is the big political target for republicans, and those two are actually related. Now to turn to someone else who wrote a book about it. Carl bernstein is one half of the woodward and bernstein team that broke the watergate scandal, so he knows a lot about political scandals. Welcome to the program. I think we need to back up a bit and say right off the bat that this is not watergate or anything resembling watergate. Watergate was a massive criminal conspiracy led by a. Were talking total apples and oranges here. Th that. When you see coverage of this especially programs on the right, on the fox channel, do you see it as a target for Hillary Clinton . This is about an idealogical scorched earth politics that prevails in washington on capitol hill and by the media that goes way beyond fox. It goes to the web, it goes to msnbc to some extent. It also goes to general coverage. Examined in a factbased way, lower the temperature. Its not about criminal presidencies or anything of the kind. Its about finding out what happened, and its not difficult to do in a sane atmosphere. We dont have a sane atmosphere. By someone who helped write a book about Hillary Clinton, do you look at her and think its probably about her and her been. Does the Republican Party, does an almost mad hatred for Hillary Clinton by the people over there, by the weekly standards, some others on the right, sure, there is. But that doesnt obviate the fact there is a real story here to be looked at in context. I think we know most of the truth about what happened in benghazi. If it were possible, and i dont think it is, to have a calm. Once and for all it could establish a set of ir refute i believe facts. That would be terrific. But i dont think thats possible in todays political atmosphere. We read so much about these talking points and they are critical critically. I dont think its been lost and i dont think theres anything surprising about talking points for the sunday shows being in a political context. Every president and every secretary of state and undersecretary is always looking for political points. What occurred here, the reaction to those political comments were fearless, but we havent seen any great use of intelligence as we saw in the leadup to the gulf war by the president of the United States, Vice President of the United States, misusing and misrepresenting intelligence to go to war. Weve seen nothing like that. What we do have here, though, is the congress of the United States asking for documents that it is entitled to have. And the failure of the executive branch to turn those documents over, the omission of this one document in particular is troubling. And the white house ought to have a much better explanation than jay carneys double talk has shown so far. But that is not to confirm in any way the wild assertions of the right and the Republican Party having to do with benghazi. What i hear you saying is its not a 72point type story,. It is worthy of a headline . I dont want to limit this to headlines. I think what we need to do is look at things in the news to context. Part of that is to look at idle players and what his objectives are. In context, was susan rice trying to go out there and deliberately lie about what happened . It certainly didnt look like it to me. Take a look at the record. But i do think a scale to which the republican right, the tea party right has made this issue tried to make it and overpositive lit size it. Is wrong, and has taken the thing totally out of con. Always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for coming on with me. I have to take a quick break, but when we come back, these questions. Would you want the Death Penalty . Would you want to see one carried out, an execution . Would we all want to see what goes on in the Death Chamber . Some tough questions, and answers when we return. In the nation, its not always pretty. But add brand new belongings from nationwide insurance. And well replace destroyed or stolen items with brandnew versions. We take care of the heat, so you dont get burned. Just another way we put members first, because we dont have shareholders. Join the nation. Nationwide is on your side the execution in oklahoma of Tracy Lockett went terribly wrong. He died of a heart attack tuesday night, 43 minutes after the states botched attempt to kill him with drugs. I told the friend i was with, then what happened . The same thing that probably happened in millions of homes this week, we launched into a vigorous debate about the Death Penalty. Lets put this up on screen. More americans are for the Death Penalty than oppose it. Those for it stands at 50 . Its dropped in recent years but its still pretty strong. Its natural to wonder if those numbers would change if people actually saw what happens in the Death Chamber. Occasionally there is talk about actually televising executions. Some say if you support it, you ought to be able to watch it. Others claim seeing it may change your mind about the issue. When i was having my Death Penalty debate with my friend, she was surprised when i told her reporters do see it, that reporters are witnesses to compete executions whenever they take place. The reporters serve as our eyes and ears. They are there to report when things go wrong, as they did this week. Matt trotter witnessed locketts execution. It was the first time he had been a witness. On the other hand, bloomberg had witnessed several executions. Matt, let me start with you. I know it cant be comfortable coming on television talking about this, but tell me what you did witness on tuesday. Well, it was, you know, as you said, my first execution, and i didnt approach it lightly. To me it was that extension of my duty as a reporter. Its a very extreme extension of it, but this is something i felt obligated to do. But that still doesnt quite prepare you for actually being there and watching it, especially when you see it starting to go wrong, and you hit that point during the execution where you and the rest of the media witnesses in the room are able to exchange quick glan glances with the people next to you and just go, oh, wow, this is really going wrong. So when it got to that point, i think the journalistic instinct for most of us, definitely for me, just kind of kicked in, and it was a lot of looking up at the clock, looking down at locke lockett, looking at the clock, scribbling on the prisonprovided notepad. I think im at the point where i havent slowed down quite enough to process what i saw on tuesday night, and i think its going to be difficult when that does finally kind of catch up with me. Greg, since youve witnessed a number of executions, first let me ask how many, and tell me, what changes over time when youve done this more than once . I witnessed 10 executions. And the first one was my toughest, at least. I remember after i covered that first execution, i went back i had a story, of course, on the ap wire service, but i also had to write a story about what it was like to go through that execution just to get it all on paper. Its instinct actiively a secre process. In georgia only a few reporters get access to that Death Chamber but its one thats essential. Just as matt was saying, you sort of wrap yourself in the shroud of journalism. It doesnt make it any easier to do that. Can you relate to what matt was just saying about what its going to be like when he finally gets to slow down and process what happened . It does hit you, because as reporters we cover awful things. We cover executions, we cover murders, we cover tornadoes and natural disasters. And it will hit you at some point. What i did and what many of my colleagues did, they essentially say this is a duty. Someone has to be there when the state does this final act. Often, for high profile executions in georgia, i covered trey davis, which was an International Story a few years ago. Often theyre not international stories. Maybe if youre lucky, two reporters are actually in the Death Chamber and one of them was sort of a rookie who had never been there before. You said just two . Sorry . You said just two reporters. Just two reporters. In georgia, there is up to five reporters in the Death Chamber, but some of them ive covered, there was a local radio reporter plus me for the associated press. So sometimes theres very little Media Attention on these executions. So we have a duty to say what happens. And ill add, too, some executions, even the condemned mans lawyers or family or friends arent even in there. The lawyer is usually back in atlanta or washington filing lastminute appeals and they dont have anyone there for them. Not that thats our job, but we have the right to write what is actually happening in there. Theres been discussions over the years the idea of televising this. Its sometimes brought up by liberals who say the Death Penalty should be abolished. They say if it was televised, people would change their minds and be against the