May 5, 2013
"Even as the White House strove last week to move beyond questions about the Benghazi attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2012..."
"... fresh evidence emerged that senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about what had happened in the days following the assaults. The Weekly Standard has obtained a timeline briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailing the heavy substantive revisions made to the CIA’s talking points, just six weeks before the 2012 presidential election, and additional information about why the changes were made and by whom...."
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68 comments:
The smart ones knew it immediately.
Prediction: This will be covered like the Gosnell trial.
I'm guessing that Paula "PillowTalk" Broadwell will be on the next cover of Maxim.....prolly doin' push-ups, or sumthin'
Foggy Bottom versus Chicago according to one diplo blog.
Read about the whistleblowers here .
"What difference, at this point, does it make?"
Or...as the Breathless Mass Media would say: It's Hilary's time now, isn't it? Please say it is. We're going to be spending the next few years telling you all how phantasmagoric she is. What....are you afraid of a woman in the White House?
I just keep remembering her response to the question that could have made her seem...oh...I don't know...responsible. "What difference, at this point, does it make?"
Profiles in Leadership.
As I've noted, there were 2 reaction forces ready to go to save those guys and the "compassionate" Lefties in the Administration did nothing.
Undoubtedly, they didn't want a big foreign policy scandal right before the election, but this just doesn't die and the W word keeps coming up.
Funny if Zero were to be impeached and Shotgun Joe judged incompetent (assuming he wasn't impeached, also). Lessee now, who would become POTUS?
All those lies, vote fraud, all for nothing.
This is going nowhere, unfortunately. Clinton proved long ago that no matter what a Dem president does and what laws are broken, he cannot be taken down without the help of the MSM - which will never happen here. Case in point: the Senate hearings set for this week will be closed door, thus allowing the Dem members to come out and state that they heard nothing to change their belief that both Hillary and Obama are blameless. This will be reported widely, and everything else ignored. And so on.
But hey, gay marriage.
Although this could act as a drag on Zero's presidency, it's really more important to Hillary now.
This will be a good litmus test for how far gone America is. If America is not too far gone:
1. This will end Hillary's political career
- and possibly -
2. Obama could have articles of impeachment proposed on the grounds of dereliction of duty and/or giving comfort to the enemy.
Told that the embassy was under attack and the ambassador was missing, he supposedly went to bed with a Do Not Disturb order, to , one can assume, husband energy for the fundraiser in Vegas
Unfortunately Strelnikov is utterly correct..
Someone
1. Could hurt Hillary. Even her Democrat challengers might use this against her. She and Bill would surely use it against someone else.
2. Zero will not be impeached. End of story.
that senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about..... ANYTHING.....DUH.
They mislead us all the time. Not just the Obama administration, although they seem to be the champions of mislead and deflect, but all political administrations and governmental agencies. ALL of them. They lie all of the time.
I expect an apology. Not holding my breath though :-)
My interest at this stage is in in observing how news is made.
A few weeks ago a congressman stated that more hearings on Benghazi were coming. Since then, things were on a slow boil and confined to the conservative blogosphere until two days ago when Drudge linked to an article that named the three witnesses. Now we have Stephen Hayes' blockbuster article which is forcing Democrats to respond; see Stephen Lynch's comment from earlier today. By Wednesday evening I guess things will be at fever pitch.
Will there be any real consequences for the Obama administration? I seriously do it; the Republicans haven't shown that they have the guts to really go after him.
This will end Hillary's political career
Janet Reno ordered tanks to raid a "compound" which ended up killing children.
Her career flourished afterwards.
Democrats don't do "accountability" it isn't their thing.
See, the community based reality has convinced themselves that Republican "budget cuts" let to Hilary reducing security at that Consulate.
So that's, that.
Worst POTUS of my lifetime, and I voted for the asshole in 2008.
The State Dept. is desperate to shut down any questioning about Benghazi, but I still think it is not so much about Benghazi per se as about Benghazi being an opening to start a wider inquiry about the whole Libyan "war of liberation," and how it came about.
Not only did Janet Reno give an order which killed a bunch of little kids** she also hung around long enough to order sending an 8 year old to communist Cuba at gun point.
**The idea that these people care about 20 dead school children is silly & obscene.
Benghazi? Did something happen in Benghazi?
The whole Benghazi affair was simply both Obama and Hillary didn't take the 3 AM call. They hid it so Obama could be re-elected. Yes Obama lied and people, Americans, most certainly died.
But then he will blame it on the Republicans or aides or military or well see it just ain't his fault ever!
Remember they calling Bush Hitler? And how he was a murder and incompetent chimp?
Well see folks, all of you who voted for him, he makes Jimmy Carter look like Von Bismarck in foreign affairs and a Reagan in domestic.
Three more years of this vacation president the nation will have to suffer with. No wonder Obama is pushing gun control again. Anything, just anything to take our eyes off what he has really done to America.
Hope & change and soylent green is people (for all Obama cares.)
Democrats don't do "accountability" it isn't their thing.
Accountability, Female Democrat Style.
Didn't Ann recently post something about why we needed big newspapers? Let's see if the NYTs has the equanimity to do a real story on Benghazi.
Face the nation did Jason Collins again. The owner of the basketball team said the reaction of most people was "Yawn." Somebody else compared him to Jackie Robinson. So that's the disconnect between liberal ideology and reality. They have no idea what is news now.
They will not cover Benghazi any more than they will cover the people who died under Fast and Furious, or the people who died from drone strikes, or the people who died in Gosnell's abortion clinic. They will not cover bad economic news or bad employment numbers. They will not cover the Obamacare train wreck. And they will wonder where all their viewers went, and why their magazines and newspapers went bankrupt.
It is dissociation of risk which causes corruption. It is dreams of instant gratification which motivates its progress. I wonder why Obama thinks there are no consequences for his actions.
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
he supposedly went to bed with a Do Not Disturb order, to , one can assume, husband energy for the fundraiser in Vegas
Worse... What he says he did:
I can tell you that immediately upon finding out that our folks were in danger, that my orders to my National Security team were do whatever we need to do to make sure they’re safe. And that’s the same order that I would give anytime that I see Americans are in danger, whether they’re civilian or military, because that’s our number one priority.
If that was true, he should have awoke and had somebodies A$$!!
Now we get the see the left pivot from "wait until all the facts are in" to "this is old news and only those interested in partisan politics are still interested". I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that there's never a point at which criticism of the actions that led to 4 preventable deaths is considered legitimate.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped forward to take the blame for the Libya consulate debacle, some think it ended her political career. It was reminiscent of 1993, when Attorney General Janet Reno took responsibility for the Branch Davidian raid. This could reflect a trend for women in politics: taking the heat when men refused to step up to the plate.
Thanks for that link, Dante.
It is a laugh riot.
SaintCroix:
His most ardent supporters have passed the point of no return. However, they still expect a return on their investment.
On the other hand, there are others who are beginning to think outside the hype, and are at least making an effort to distinguish between cause and effect (or symptoms).
Study: Giving People Government Health Insurance May Not Make them Any Healthier
Promises of instant gratification without actual gratification are, apparently, not so sweet.
The question at this point is how much - if any - of this was directed by the political types in the WH and how much was is people on their own manipulating things.
Time for the, "How much did he know and when did he know it?" questions.
I can see people under Obama doing this without his approval. That's the way White Houses - Democrat or Republican - operate. Deniability, et cetera.
But that's going to be harder to argue as more of this comes out.
"This was no boating accident."
On what planet did "Clinton take responsibility for Libya.?
What exactly happened to Hillary to demonstrate this?
Newspapers need to shift ideologically with every administration. They should hire a Republican editor-in-chief with every Democrat White House, and vice versa when a Republican is in power. They have to do this, because the vast majority of the media is unable to overcome its ideological biases.
I love the Democrat version of "take responsibility"
They show up at a hearing, say they're responsible, ask "What difference, at this point, does it make?" tell everyone to shut up about the incident they've "taken responsibility" for, and that is that, folks.
Isn't being a Democrat nice?
Paul:
I think it's worse than that. I believe it was the NYT which reported ex post facto that this administration was arming "rebels" in Libya. This is different than the real-time reporting which was done during the Bush administration. There was more afoot in Libya, and Benghazi, than a missed call.
The cover-up doesn't surprise me: "You can tell they are lying, because their mouths are moving"
What I don't understand is the DoD reaction. In my experience, when the alarm goes out, every unit with a possible connection to a possible mission goes into prep mode and starts forces moving to Sigonella.
Panetta's response was: We didn't send anybody because it was over before they could have gotten there.
The rebuttal is that you don't know how long it is going to last, so unless you get forces moving into the area, they won't be there if the battle goes 8 hours (as it did) or 8 days...
The question, at this point, it which rug this gets swept under, because its going under a rug somewhere.
So where are Inga and Ritmo (and Garage et al.)?
Is phx going to chime in about how the repubs are being whiners over their charge of a lack of coverage and the media double standard, like he always does.
It's the intelligence folks at State that are gonna hang Hillary out to dry. Payback for enduring the muzzies can do no wrong reign of Hillary/Huma for years.
@jr565,
They don't have their talking points delivered yet.. They are awaiting orders from the higher ups. One of their ilk was on Fox vociferously repeating that this was all to embarrass Obama and his administration. That is it, evil Republicans are out to embarrass Obama again, never mind the whistleblowers are career professionals without a party. I supported Hillary strongly but Benghazi broke my trust about her. She may be made a scapegoat if not already by some Repubs in view of 2016 and by Obama minions to protect him. But she has not defended herself against possible scapegoating by either, and if anything her silence speaks volumes.
As I've noted, there were 2 reaction forces ready to go to save those guys and the "compassionate" Lefties in the Administration did nothing.
What I think must be remembered is that this sin of omission is really a sin of commission.
Apparently, according to standing orders, on the night of 9/11/12, forces throughout the region went onto high alert, including those quick reaction forces, in response to the messages by Ambassador Stevens. They were ready to go, and needed one thing in order to execute, and that was the President's approval. One word, and it never came. And, he cannot claim ignorance, since by necessity he is informed immediately of this sort of thing. Not the next morning, but within minutes. He would have been notified of the attack on the embassy at once, and probably given strike options within a short time later. He never gave the order to execute one or more of the alternatives that would have been presented to him, but there is no evidence either that he turned them down. Instead, he went to bed early, to rest up for his fund raising trip the next day, apparently secure in the knowledge that our consulate there was burning and the ambassador missing, if not dead.
My point about the sins of omission and commission is that his dithering, dawdling, and leading from behind, was the equivalent of signing the death warrants for at least two of the Americans who died that night. As one of his predecessors pointed out, the buck stops at his desk. This decision was not above his pay grade, but rather precisely why he is paid so generously, and given perks that only billionaires and very successful movie stars can afford.
(continuing my previous comment), I fear in making Hillary the target, Obama might just get lucky as he always does, that he will be let off the hook. Nothing will stick to him. Nobody will ask where he was during those 7 hours or what he did or why he lied to American people about the talking points and other things. He will not be held accountable for anything. That will be a shame.
Tank said...
2. Zero will not be impeached. End of story.
Don't count on it. The news is getting out, from Black Rock yet and all you need is a Republican House.
If the Senate flips, then things get to be fun.
pm317 said...
(continuing my previous comment), I fear in making Hillary the target, Obama might just get lucky as he always does, that he will be let off the hook.
The SoS doesn't order troops into combat. POTUS with the advice of DoD (which puts Panetta in the mix) does.
This one's his.
Bruce,
I see two different issues.
1. Absolutely, you are right that the POTUS is going to need to issue what is called CBA: "Cross Border Authority". That likely is implicit, but needs to be explicit in his statement: "do whatever we need to do to make sure they’re safe"
2. The other part, that doesn't need approval is the positioning of forces forward, so that when the POTUS orders, they are within range.
So where are Inga and Ritmo (and Garage et al.)?
Licking each others wounds? [ducks]
Not surprised that Hillary! has lost the trust of some of some of her long term supporters here. She is the one person who has some identifiable culpability before, during, and after the night of 9/11/12 in regards to Benghazi. It was State department policy that caused the U.S. to side with those overthrowing the stable regimes in Egypt and Libya, that were very quickly taken over by Islamic militants, many sympathetic to, if not working with, al Qaeda. And, this result was not just foreseeable, but also was widely foreseen. And, it was her State Department that greatly downsized security in Libya in general, and Benghazi in particular, despite opposition from those there (including Ambassador Stevens) and significant information that parts of Libya were becoming less secure, not more secure. This decision to greatly downsize security appears to have been done for political, and not operational reasons - it furthered the narrative. In short, Americans were greatly endangered in order to not bring the Administration's responses to the "Arab Spring" into question in the months right before an election.
In Hillary!'s defense, many of these decisions were probably made in the White House, and at lower levels in the State Department. While Obama himself probably was pretty aloof from such, there are a lot of indications that much of foreign policy during his first term was being run by his closest advisers in the White House. Instead of actually making and executing policy, it looks more that she was going through the motions, setting a record for miles traveled and countries visited, but never really had nearly the power that her immediate predecessors had had (esp. Condi Rice, who had been GW Bush's foreign policy brains even before his election to the Presidency). Still, it happened on her watch, it was her people who screwed up(with both the Arab Spring and the downsizing of security), and her people who died.
Secondly, on the night of 9/11/12, she was, by necessity, informed of what was happening in Benghazi, probably almost as quickly, if not at the same time, as the President was. It was her people dying there. They were either her employees, in the case of Ambassador Stevens formally reporting to her, or American contractors to her department. She let them die, without appearing to have lifted a hand in their defense, or in retribution. She should have been on the phone with the President, the Sec. of Defense, etc., probably all through the night. There is no evidence that she really talked to any of them. She went along to get along, and four Americans died on her watch.
Finally, as to the cover up, her department appears to have been in the center of it, helping tailor the news that the Americans received to paint the Administration in the best possible light. And, she was evasive when questioned about her own part in the cover up (even ignoring her part in the run up, and the actual fire fights). And then, she dismisses the entire thing with "who cares?"
What is interesting to me is that so many Dems are already pushing her candidacy for the Presidency in 2016, despite a string of dishonest acts and omissions all the way back to her Watergate days (where she was fired for dishonesty), up through her part of Benghazi. It is hard to believe that they can't find a less damaged (and younger) candidate.
Drill Sgt. - you are much more the expert there, but that was what I was trying to point out. That multiple different forces would have been activated and maybe even started towards Benghazi, awaiting Presidential approval. The one question or qualification I had though, which is why I didn't go into the cross-border authorization there, is that there was some suggestion that there were other forces in Tripoli that might have been committed, and weren't. There have been conflicting stories here since 9/12/12. Still, I think that the biggie here is that cross-border authorization which was almost assuredly never given.
Correct me if I am wrong, but what Drill Sgt. is talking about is that only the President can authorize our military personnel to cross a foreign border like Libya's (I assume things are less formal when dealing with formal allies, such as in NATO countries, during routine operations). The fact that forces were activated, and yet, never crossed that border is extremely strong indicia that such permission was not forthcoming from President Obama. Moreover, this time he can't say that he didn't know - because he had to know in order to give or deny permission. The military would not have spooled up all those resources and then just waited on the off chance that the President might call and tell them they had permission. Rather, my understanding is that he would have been given his military options, and then asked which one(s) to execute and to give permission for them to cross the Libyan border.
Of interest, the chief sanitizers appear to have been Victoria Nuland at State and Mike Morrell, career CIA who was Deputy at the time, then became acting CIA Director when Petraeus resigned.
1. Victoria Nuland is wife of master jewish neocon Robert Kagan. A courtier to the inner circles in both Republican and Democrat administrations...knowing what the bosses wat coming from her mouth.
2. Morrell is career CIA, and a "political" one - meaning he too rose on being a courtier to the true powers.
It is unlikely either made extensive cuts without orders from above.
Who so ordered them? Only a very few within the Obama Administration could get both Nuland and Morrell convinced their asses were covered if they helped cover up and their careers would be further enhanced.
(Obama, Clapper, Hillary, Dave Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett)
And it is looking more and more like Susan Rice was not in that loop and was trotted out for destruction to help save the election.
Panetta's response was: We didn't send anybody because it was over before they could have gotten there.
While someone like you has a hard time believing this sort of thought process, it has a ring of truth with me. Not that they couldn't do anything, but rather, that they viewed this from a prism of people who had never served in the military. It was a bad decision, esp. since it allowed at a minimum two of the Americans to die. But, I kinda believe that was their thought process.
Hayden - "(Hillary) setting a record for miles traveled and countries visited, but never really had nearly the power that her immediate predecessors had had (esp. Condi Rice, who had been GW Bush's foreign policy brains even before his election to the Presidency)."
The bios and memoirs coming from the Bushies do not conform to that. They cast Rice as window dressing, a rather weak and hapless figure that lost every policy battle where she was on the other side of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Duncan Hunter, and Tenet.
Not sticking up for Hillary, but Rice is the wrong example to use of an influential SOS.
So the wife of a Jewish "neocon" was covering up Islamic/AQ terror?
Let's watch Dr. Cedarford do his work with this one, shall we?
This will be, er, interesting.
Ah, for the good ol' days...
"You don't know how to lie," Nixon told a political associate."If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere."
[expletive deleted]
"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
"Once the toothpaste is out of the tube it's going to be very hard to get it back in."
Ron Ziegler
And...What did President Obama not know and when did he stop not knowing it?
Good one.
Oh, i suspect that all the media, including your buddies at Fox, knew about this at the time it happened. Why they didn't disseminate this to the American public is beyond me.
Vicki from Pasadena
@Victoria: Such suspicions were raised at the time in the media. But you should recall the heat of the election and the fact that most of media shamefully behaved like a creepy candy crawler.
You tea party kooks need to shut up about this!
It obviously isn't important.
You know what is important? An NBA player you've never heard of announcing to the media he's gay!
That's what.
Wingnutz!!
SMGalbraith said...
So the wife of a Jewish "neocon" was covering up Islamic/AQ terror?
Let's watch Dr. Cedarford do his work with this one, shall we?
===================
I already did. Power, career, and advancement of career matter more to "Courtiers" like Nuland than ideology.
And boosting his wife's prospects makes a neocon (also out wooing the rich and powerful) puts the ideology of an opportunist like Robert Kagan as a secondary matter to yet another "DC Power Couple".
There is no reason Robert Kagan cannot cultivate power and wealth and influence as readily under a Democrat Administration as in a Republican one. His board seats and speakers fees to conserviative warhawk groups actually go up when a Hillary or Obama is running the show.
As for the 2nd Courtier, Michael Morrell...a different power gaining dynamic is at work. Betray the facts of an attack that killed underlings of his at the CIA, if it means gaining new powerful backers at the very top of US politics - is conductive to his own rise in DC.
Though it seems like with any courtier, going back to the ones that curried the favor of Roman senators and Chinese emperors, through Versailles and the Court of Elisabeth, all the way to the incestuous ways of America's new Imperial City.....one must be careful that the obvious truth does not emerge.
It is very bad for courtiers shown by true facts regarding their polottings - to care more of themselves than the nation or rulers they serve.
I bet you Nuland is more protected than Morrell from any fallout. She knows more people who matter.
The bios and memoirs coming from the Bushies do not conform to that. They cast Rice as window dressing, a rather weak and hapless figure that lost every policy battle where she was on the other side of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Duncan Hunter, and Tenet.
I finished Rumsfeld and am reading Cheney. Condoleezza is next, and I am curious to see what she has to say about the other two.
Just a little correction that applies to several of the comments above--we've already learned from multiple sources that the rapid response mission was pre-greenlighted when a top-tier government asset is in mortal danger (of which a US Ambassador is one.) That night, someone issued a "Stand Down" order. And that person would be the POTUS/CINC--unless he were unavailable.
I have not gotten to the part(s) where Cheney is talking about Condoleezza yet, but Rumsfeld did not deescribe her as "hapless." He only said that while "bridge-building" and "finding compromise" is what the provost at Stanford is supposed to do, he did not think that was what the NSA should be doing. However, Rice worked for George W., not Rumsfeld, and W. must have thought she did just fine as he then went ahead and nominated her for Secretary of State.
Rumsfeld also said he does not understand why we have an NSA and a DNI, since he understood that advising the President about intelligence matters is what the director of the CIA is supposed to do.
However, the NSA can go on the Sunday shows and joust with the media twits, and Condi was good at that, and the DNI can go before Congress and B.S. the various committees, which then allows the CIA director some time to actually run the agency and advise the President?
and, oh, yeah, as Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice also worked for George W., not Cheney, and certainly not Cedarford!
How much does it suck that all we can do is grouse about how our once revered 4th estate will not do it's job? It makes the whole concept of participatory democracy suck. Low information voters indeed! We didn't teach our kids to question the evening news. It's our own fault for thinking that journalism was an honest profession. What a goddamn joke! I can't bear this anymore. It has no chance of changing. We've gone down the rabbit hole and there is no coming back. Integrity means nothing anymore. I'm so f'ing depressed that people like Jon Stewart supply my grown kids with their concept of what's actually going on.
WH Rule #1: Lie.
#2: Lie again.
#3: Blame BUSH!!!11!!!!
BTW, didn't the NYT used to break these kinds of cover-up stories? Back when they had more credibility and more circulation?
Darrell said...
...And that person would be the POTUS/CINC--unless he were unavailable.
He was preoccupied with a Colorado fundraiser, IIRC.
Cedarford said...
Of interest, the chief sanitizers appear to have been Victoria Nuland at State and Mike Morrell, career CIA who was Deputy at the time, then became acting CIA Director when Petraeus resigned.
Sure, at the national, real world level that meant something. But I can still clearly recall you and Inga as the chief shills for the official line coming out of the WH in the days after the attack.
Just don't forget that one, C-4.
I owe an apology to Face the Nation! Apparently they led with the Benghazi story. I only caught the second half of the program. So hopefully my cynicism is unwarranted, and the Benghazi story will receive the coverage it deserves.
This Sept. 11, I will wear the T shirt I wish I had worn to vote last Election Day: a white T shirt, with BENGHAZI in big black letters on the chest, all spattered with blood.
Our college has a 9/11 remembrance and now it's about Benghazi, too. I will see to it.
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