Hillary Rodham Clinton says she has not decided whether she will run for president in 2016, but the battle over her public record is already being fought on television.
David Brock, who is the founder of Media Matters â€" a liberal watchdog group â€" and who is one of Mrs. Clinton’s most ardent defenders, has written an e-book titled “The Benghazi Hoax.†He plans to advertise it on the Fox News Channel, the outlet he says has been the most vocal in its criticism of the State Department’s handling of the attack on the United States mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year that led to the death of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state at the time.
The advertisement includes a montage of Fox News pundits weighing in on Benghazi, some of them calling it a scandal worse than Watergate and saying, “The Democrats are very good at watching Americans die.â€
Mr. Brock also appears, with an American flag waving at the bottom of the screen. “We all agree that politicizing a terrorist attack crosses a line, but that’s what Fox has done since tragedy struck in Benghazi,†he says in the ad. “You, the Fox viewer, lose out when you don’t get the facts, so we wrote a book about the Benghazi hoax. Get the facts for yourself.â€
A spokeswoman for Fox News did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Brock was an outspoken conservative and frequent critic of President Bill Clinton and Mrs. Clinton in the 1990s. But in 1996, he wrote “The Seduction of Hillary Rodham,†which was unexpectedly sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton. He later renounced his work with conservatives.
The book is coming out as the conservative group Citizens United plans to release what is expected to be a highly critical documentary about Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. Mrs. Clinton is also writing her own memoir about her time at the State Department; it is expected to be released next summer.
Media Matters often turns its focus to Fox News. A Media Matters spokeswoman said the group was seeking to run the ad on Fox News this week, but the cable channel has not said whether it would accept it. The ad will run on stations nationally, with heavy airplay in the Washington market.
Mr. Brock says the group will also rebut attacks on President Obama; Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser; and others in the administration. But Mrs. Clinton is the focus.
Political rivals including Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, have already said that the Benghazi attack will be a liability for Mrs. Clinton should she decide to run in 2016. Mr. Brock disagrees. “Our conclusion, having looked at all the facts, is that there is no political vulnerability for Secretary Clinton,†he said in an interview.
Some conservatives have already taken issue with “The Benghazi Hoax.†In a blog post headlined “The Benghazi Whitewash,†Tim Miller, executive director of America Rising, a political action committee, said Mr. Brock started “the Democrats’ callous, politically motivated attempts to whitewash the failures leading up to and attempted cover-up†after the attack in Benghazi.
