October 28, 2013

"60 Minutes had an absolutely devastating report on the Obama administration’s failure to protect Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans in Benghazi."

Writes Professor Jacobson, observing that "the heart of the report is that there were clear and unequivocal warnings which were ignored, and the Obama administration lied about these warnings after the attack."

Here's the video:



From the transcript:
Andy Wood: I made it known in a country team meeting, "You are gonna get attacked. You are gonna get attacked in Benghazi. It's gonna happen. You need to change your security profile.... Shut down operations. Move out temporarily. Ch-- or change locations within the city. Do something to break up the profile because you are being targeted. They are-- they are-- they are watching you. The attack cycle is such that they're in the final planning stages."

Lara Logan: Wait a minute, you said, "They're in the final planning stages of an attack on the American mission in Benghazi"?

Andy Wood: It was apparent to me that that was the case. Reading, reading all these other, ah, attacks that were occurring, I could see what they were staging up to, it was, it was obvious. We have learned the U.S. already knew that this man, senior al Qaeda leader Abu Anas al-Libi was in Libya, tasked by the head of al Qaeda to establish a clandestine terrorist network inside the country. Al-Libi was already wanted for his role in bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa.

41 comments:

tim in vermont said...

What got Nixon was that Republicans shared the outrage. Dems made note of this and will never make the same mistake and step out of line to criticize him, and the web is full of partisan apologists, a luxury Nixon didn't enjoy.

Anonymous said...

No news in it if you were a regular at the Althouse blog at the time.

CBS is over a year late.

Rusty said...

But, Ann. We have the assurance of the administration that it was all spontaneous. It was the result of an inflammatory video on Youtube. State and the White House said so.
In any event. Obama couldn't have known, because......................................

Jim said...

The part about Al Qaeda announcing that they were going to attack: 1) The Red Cross, 2) the British ambassador, and 3) the U.S. consulate was pretty damning too. They carried out those attacks, exactly in that order. Our security guys saw that we were the only ones left on the list.

Overall it was a good report- much better than nothing anyway. It bothers me, though, that they did not report at all on trying to talk to the folks who denied the requests for security upgrades, or on their efforts to find the memos that had the actual requests.

Anonymous said...

What did Herbert Hoover Know and When Did He Know it?

carrie said...

So are they starting to think that Hillary shouldn't be the candidate in 2016 and beginning the drive to stop her?

Tim said...

At this point what does it matter? Thanks Hillary, smartest woman in the world. A perfect fit for the Lightbringer.

Kelly said...

CBS keeps doing these random acts of journalism. I would be impressed if it had happened pre election.

Matt Sablan said...

You know 60 Minutes, always focusing on fake scandals.

George M. Spencer said...

We still do not know where the President was that night or what, if any, input he had into the U.S. reaction to events, do we?

Anonymous said...

The Juxtaposition of these Two Last Posts: Journalists Ever Intent on Recycling a Fifty-Year Old Assassination In Case Some Spare Change Can Be Found in the Pockets, While Benghazi is Already Been Rushed into the Journalists' 'Who-Cares' Closet. Perhaps Benghazi Needed a Grassy Knoll.

Anonymous said...

Lee Harvey Al-Queda Acted Alone.

Lauderdale Vet said...

That was my first thought, too, that it was released to damage the Hillary brand.

Anonymous said...

Re: "60 Minutes had an absolutely devastating report"

There are Rumors of Stockpiled Devastating Reports, But the UN Investigators at CBS Cannot Find Them.

Meanwhile NBC is Enriching Obamium.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Putting it out now gives them enough time to drop it back below the radar before the election.

RecChief said...

And Obama and Hillary! told us for months that is was a video. Looking that the transcript, I see no mention of that strange occurence.

Tangentially related: I see where Obama claims that he didn't know the NSA was spying on world leaders. In other words, one more case of "I didn't know...," from this president. Now, if I had a sodlier who was constantly screwing up, and the reason was always, "I didn't know....," I would think he was lying, lazy, or incompetent to the point that he would be on permanent KP. Everyone complaining about his rounds of golf should be making a daily tee time for him just to prevent him from doing more damage.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

I found it amusing that 60 minutes could do an entire segment on Benghazi without once uttering the names "Obama" or "Clinton". It's almost like no one was in charge.

B said...

This is consistent with CBS' party organ status.

Dan Rather hosted CBS Evening news when he tried to game the 2004 election with fake but accurate journalism few weeks before hand. Now we see CBS reporting a true and accurate story nationally a year out of date that should have been fairly reported before the election. It would have been exhaustively examined and reported on, and not fairly, had it involved Romney in any way.

Reproting this now protects Hillary's plans. It does not impede them. It will have the effect of dispensing with the story and assigning it 'old news, lets stick with the issues' reportage status long before the 2016 election kicks off.

Tom said...

Candy Crowley. Romney had Obama by the throat and was choking him out and Candy Crowley, like a sly WWE manager, hit Mitt with a proverbial folding chair. The election was lost in that moment. Romney looked foolish and, without a shared set of facts, he also looked like a bully.

Now, a year later, 60 Minutes decides to do an investigation. I'm glad this story is seeing the light of day. I wonder what Obama did to CBS to warrant this coverage?!

Uncle Pavian said...

Walter Cronkite is gone, so who would they have to lose before they realize they've lost the country?

B said...

'Reproting this now' should obviously be 'Reporting on this now'.

I never proof read blog comments and sometimes it bites me.

Mark O said...

NO YELLING.

TosaGuy said...

Doesn't matter. Half of 60 Minutes core audience will have passed away by the next presidential election.

Anonymous said...

Here's a hope, probably in vain:

I think it'd be best for our country if we had some of this discussion about where his Middle East vision has failed and to force him to mix things up and respond.

We're drifting along, spending more than we have, not responding to events.

At least Lara Logan has been digging around and trying to figure out what's going on on the ground in the Middle East, witnessing a lot of dangerous trends.

Yes, I realize I'm looking for middle-of-the-road Obama, and not the ideologically rigid and partisan, inexperienced, and now brittle Obama who seems incapable of anything but narrowing his inner circle to sycophants and constantly laying blame and giving empty speeches.


SteveR said...

"You're going to have to tell these guys there may not be any help coming"

Unknown said...

As others have suggested, the timing is perfect for Hillary and the Democrats. It basically has no chance to impact any election -- too late for 2012, way too early for 2016. It gives the legacy media enough space in the lead up to 2016 to claim Benghazi is "old news and we rigorously investigated it previously."

Also, with the Obamacare debacle likely to dominate the headlines for a couple more weeks, now is a good time for the legacy media to "address" other Democratic issues knowing they will go mostly unnoticed.

It wouldn't be the same for Republicans of course -- a Republican scandal would be used to knock Obamacare's problems off the front page.

test said...

Tom said...
I wonder what Obama did to CBS to warrant this coverage?!


He's out of chances to run for President. So CBS's best opportunity to support progressivism is recovering what credibility they can for use in the next election.

PB said...

I'm sure the White House is frantically thinking about kicking off a few more crises to flood the zone and distract the rubes yet again.


To quote Bob Dole: "Where's the outrage?"

Paul said...

O what a tangle web we weave when we first practice to deceive.

Yes Obama has had 5 years of practice but it still looks like he ain't ever gonna learn.

Benghazi, IRS, DOJ, Fast&Furious, CGI website, NSA, etc...

Scandal upon scandal but the lies are just so feeble.

Sad thing is, Americans DIED in at least two of them, the Fast&Furious and the Benghazi ones.

But all the actors who caused it got promotions (except Hillary but she may yet become President and that is a promotion!)

David said...

My guess is that Laura Logan is pretty tired of this shit, given her personal experience. Also she has a very good eye for the path to prominence. She seems to have concluded that actual reporting is a good avenue to journalistic success. Refreshing. Keep it up Laura.

Levi Starks said...

Fortunately Obama himself knew nothing about it.
He has a remarkable ability to remain uninformed about almost everything that happens in his administration.

Anonymous said...

They could revert back to their reporting duties after the re-election. What a bunch of scum. The scapegoat filmmaker has to spend a year in jail so the scum could play cheerleaders instead of reporters.

Chris said...

The most damning part of this saga is that, despite knowing this wasn't a "spontaneous demonstration", the President went out and blamed a You-Tube video and said he would ensure the maker was prosecuted. So after years of telling other nations/people that we have a First Amendment that is sacred, he portrayed that really ... we don't. So now, whenever someone does something or says something offensive, other people will expect our government to do something about it. I fear we will pay for President Obama's politically expedient slur against our Constitution for a hundred years.

Seeing Red said...

Interesting comments at Instapundit. Either this is getting it out of the way now for Hillary or battlespace prep for Fauxahontas.

Illuninati said...

The information coming from Egypt is fascinating. Many in Egypt now believe that the Obama administration is now actively supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

"More people, and from the least expected places, are stepping up to confirm that the now ousted Brotherhood-government of Morsi in Egypt was closely working with al-Qaeda and other jihadi/terrorist organizations in the Sinai — and all with U.S. support.

Nabil Na’im, the former leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group (where Ayman Zawahiri was before merging with al-Qaeda), recently made such scandalous allegations, especially concerning the relationship between the United States government and the Muslim Brotherhood during a televised broadcast of On TV."

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/the-morsi-zawahiri-connection/

If the Egyptians are correct, Benghazi is peanuts compared to the damage this administration is doing in other parts of the Middle East.

MD Greene said...

Good as far as it goes, but I still want to know who is responsible.

A few months back a member of Congress raised a stink and an Army commander walked the plank for not prosecuting an alleged rapist seriously enough. Accountability was demanded.

Here we have a demonstrably worse situation -- an ambassador and three others killed in a terrorist attack that was clearly anticipated -- and no examination of who in the armed forces or the Department of State made the decisions not to improve security at the embassy beforehand and not to send help during an hours-long siege on the anniversary of 9/11.

Now that would make for a good investigation.

Cedarford said...

Sometimes the Right Wing falls into beliefs and "causes" that are as cringingly stupid as some of the black and left wing causes like "Saint Skittles Boy".

Like Right Wingers that still insist "vast quanties of WMD are still buried in Iraq", or that tax cuts for the rich and giving the rich a free hand in globalization and destroying US jobs under free trade "creates new exciting, better-paying US jobs due to trickledown."

Another example is the Right Wing treatment of the scumbag meth lab runner, ID theft and fraud artist Nakoula as a Holy Martyr to Freedom Lovers!

Such as "
elkh1 said...
They could revert back to their reporting duties after the re-election. What a bunch of scum. The scapegoat filmmaker has to spend a year in jail so the scum could play cheerleaders instead of reporters."

This is a Pure sideshow in the Benghazi Incident and not one of the real troubling central failures of failure to plan, failure to rescue, and a deep pervasive dirty coverup of Obama Administration incompetence during a presidential election.

Yet right wingers bleed their hearts out right and left for a guy who said he made the video hoping Americans would be killed or injured from it, who emerged posing as a Jew, Sam Bacile, in an effort to pin the whole thing on Jews. After two Embassies were trashed and partially burned, scores of people protesting at a 3rd Embassy, Yemen, were shot down by troops and Americans inside had burned all the papers and were getting ready for "Alamo-time".

When police learned the faux Jew's true identity, that he was really a felon on probation born in Egypt..California probation looked into it and found numerous probation violations by the Right Wingers "1st Amendment Hero". Fraudulent misrepresentation to investors and actors, 6 newly made forged passports, use of Internet prohibited by probation to solicit funds under false IDs.

So back to jail he went on probation violation, like 1/3rd of the people on a typical busload headed for jail.

Michael said...

"So back to jail he went on probation violation, like 1/3rd of the people on a typical busload headed for jail."

Of which 33.33% only this one was arrested with cameras flashing and multiple deputies guiding him to one of several awaiting cop cars.

Lefties hurl bullshit statistics like howler monkey's heave their own feces.

Illuninati said...

Cederford said:
"So back to jail he went on probation violation, like 1/3rd of the people on a typical busload headed for jail."

I don't know whether this was really a routine arrest for parole violation as you indicate or if it was triggered by the need of folks in the Obama administration to have a scapegoat. Because of all the talk from Hilary and Obama about the video, I have difficulty convincing myself that this was a routine enforcement of the law.

I'm not a lawyer but I would think that the unsavory attributes you assign to him would be irrelevant to the legal issue. People we don't like deserve the same protection under the law as people we like. The question in mind is was he afforded all the protections any other citizen would have under the same circumstances? I have trouble convincing myself that the answer is yes.

Kansas City said...

It was a fascinating and griping 15minutes. You should read the voices of Benghazi supplemental feature on line. But can you believe that this is essentially all the three long term TV networks have provided on Benghazi over the past 13 months?

It also was a piece largely without a conclusion (which in fairness, is not unusual for 60 minutes). I did not realize it until pointed out above but they avoided mentioning either Obama or Clinton. Sigh.

I think the lies will go unpunished politically, if this is all there is after a year - alhtough perhaps it could cause Hillary to lose a close election in 2016.

The biggest thing to me is that the press never pushed the administration to explain why help was not sent. It allowed Panetta and some general to say that there were too many unknowns to send military assets. And the press then dropped it.

The Obama and Clinton folks must laugh at all of us for their ability to get away with the deception. There are a lot of reasons for having a republican president, but one of which is that the press actually does its job (albeit in an unfair manner, but at least they chase after information).

Kirk Parker said...

"I don't know whether this was really a routine arrest for parole violation "

If you really are unsure, ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw such a big deal made in the media about the arrest of a parole violator?

The question answers itself pretty quickly, doesn't it? (And provides Yet Another Occasion for C4 to make himself look foolish.)