Birth of a scandal blaming Hillary Clinton for Ni­ger­ian kidnappings

By Dana Milbank, WashPost, Published: May 13

Conservatives have reached the firm conclusion that Hillary Clinton is to blame for those Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram, 14 months after she left office.

All they have to do now is fill in the details.

On Fox News last week, Elisabeth Hasselbeck attributed the attack to Clinton’s failure to put the group on a list of foreign terrorist organizations when she was secretary of state. That “perhaps could have saved these girls earlier,” Hasselbeck declared.

Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show, suggested that Clinton didn’t designate the group as terrorist because its members are black.

Fox’s Megyn Kelly floated the idea that Clinton didn’t put the group on the list because doing so would have “angered them,” and a guest on her show said Clinton gave Boko Haram a “green light.”

House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and others argued that the Twitter campaign raising awareness of the kidnappings, #BringBackOurGirls, was evidence of the toothless foreign policy favored by Clinton and President Obama. Clinton, who along with first lady Michelle Obama participated in the campaign, was derided for trying “to fight Boko Haram with hashtags.”

(More here.)