It's been eight days since I posted "Susan Rice vindicated about her Benghazi comments." Now, reports have surfaced that make her even more vindicated, and her ridiculous Republican attackers even more wrong.
I'm following this issue because it provides a fascinating look into the reality-denying right-wing brain. It's been obvious for quite a while that Ambassador Rice was simply conveying talking points prepared by United States intelligence agencies.
Driving around today, I heard GOP Senator Lindsey Graham interviewed by George Stephanopoulus. Graham was asked exactly that: isn't it true that Rice was conveying talking points approved by intelligence officials?
He didn't answer.
Graham blathered on about some other aspect of the Benghazi attack. Graham refused to admit that his accusations about Rice were wrong. Reality had won, yet Senator Graham couldn't bring himself to admit it.
Here's some news and opinion articles I've been collecting that show how wrong the Republicans have been.
"Details of Libya attack edited: officials"
US National Intelligence authorities, in consultation with the CIA, decided to remove the terms "attack", "al-Qaeda" and "terrorism" from unclassified guidance provided to the Obama administration several days after militants attacked the US mission in Benghazi, a senior official says.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, relied on the so-called talking points when she appeared on several Sunday TV talk shows five days after the September 11 attacks in eastern Libya.
Regardless, this theory gained steam when David Petraeus said at a closed hearing last week that although the C.I.A. thought right away that Al Qaeda was responsible, specific references to terrorism were removed from public talking points after an interagency review.
Zounds! thought the conspiracists. The White House must have ordered this heinous deletion!
The theory lost steam when CBS and CNN reported that, actually, the Director of National Intelligence was behind the change, and the White House made no substantial edits.
"Rice Rejects Criticism of Her Remarks on Benghazi Attack"
“When discussing the attacks against our facilities in Benghazi, I relied solely and squarely on the information provided to me by the intelligence community,” Rice told reporters yesterday in New York. “I made clear that the information was preliminary and that our investigations would give us the definitive answers.”
"The GOP's Bizarre Attack on Susan Rice"
Though investigations are not complete, what has emerged so far suggests that the attack was staged by local jihadists, not ordered by the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. Officials believe that it was inspired in part by demonstrations that took place that day in Cairo. That is not so far from Ms. Rice’s explanation that “this began as a spontaneous . . . response to what transpired in Cairo.”
Republicans claim that Ms. Rice “propagated a falsehood” that the attacks were connected to an anti-Islam YouTube video. How then to explain the contemporaneous reports from Western news organizations quoting people at the burning consulate saying that they were angry about the video?
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Brian, have you heard if any of the attackers in Benghazi were killed or wounded? I have not heard anything about the attackers. There seems to be so little factual news on this subject and apparently some of the details have been labeled “classified.” Whether it was a mob reaction or a pre-planned retaliation on the anniversay of 9/11, it’s apparent to me that Lindsay Graham is only looking to prove claim that an Al-Qaida attack was covered up by President Obama a few days before the election.
James, I haven’t heard much about the fate of the attackers either. I’ve read that the Libyan government has done virtually nothing on the investigation. And that our own FBI isn’t much farther along. Given that the militias are more powerful than the formal Libyan army, apparently it’s difficult to get cooperation from witnesses. Sort of like testifying against the Mafia in the old days, I guess.
Since nobody knows who the attackers really were, it’s absurd for McCain and others to assert that we know they were Al Qaida. Wait for the outcome of the investigation, McCain. And if it turns out that nobody will ever know the identity of the attacker, just accept that “don’t know.”
“Zounds! thought the conspiracists. The White House must have ordered this heinous deletion!”
We now have fresh evidence that six weeks before the 2012 presidential election the White House did exactly that – ordered heavy revisions to the CIA talking points.
The talking point revisions are detailed in a 43 page email trail provided by the White House to Republicans in exchange for not blocking the Brennan CIA nomination. The revision timeline was briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and summarized by the “reality-denying right-wing brains” at the Weekly Standard at the link below, including the following:
“The talking points were first distributed to officials in the interagency vetting process at 6:52 p.m. on Friday. Less than an hour later, at 7:39 p.m., an individual identified in the House report only as a ‘senior State Department official’ responded to raise ‘serious concerns’ about the draft. That official, whom The Weekly Standard has confirmed was State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland, worried that members of Congress would use the talking points to criticize the State Department for ‘not paying attention to Agency warnings.’”
“In an attempt to address those concerns, CIA officials cut all references to Ansar al Sharia and made minor tweaks. But in a follow-up email at 9:24 p.m., Nuland wrote that the problem remained and that her superiors—she did not say which ones—were unhappy. The changes, she wrote, did not ‘resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership,’ and State Department leadership was contacting National Security Council officials directly. Moments later, according to the House report, ‘White House officials responded by stating that the State Department’s concerns would have to be taken into account.’ One official—Ben Rhodes, The Weekly Standard is told, a top adviser to President Obama on national security and foreign policy—further advised the group that the issues would be resolved in a meeting of top administration officials the following morning at the White House.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/benghazi-talking-points_720543.html?page=1
Richard, wow… ooh, someone, not in the White House, but the State Department, supposedly asked that some changes be made to the talking points.
Oh, I guess now Obama will have to resign or be impeached. Of course, unemployment is dropping and the stock market is at new highs. Maybe the market has spoken about how well Obama is doing.
Sorry to disappoint you, but if this is the Republicans’ best shot at Obama, they’re even worse shooters than Dick Cheney.
If your government lies about the killing of three beautiful, defenseless trees – this blogger will leave no stone unturned to expose it.
If your government lies about the killing of four brave, abandoned Americans – this blogger will leave no stone untouched to bury and deny reality.
Reality = Ben Rhodes = White House.
Reality = four Americans dead and their families still haven’t been told why. What are four dead Americans worth? A Dow 15,000 underpinned by Fed dollar devaluation? An unemployment rate illusion built on millions of newly underemployed, and millions more transferred to Social Security Disability?
Everyone move along. Go back to your Twitter. Go back to your Facebook. Go back to your food stamps. Four Americans are still dead. You don’t know why. Nor do you care.
Richard, I missed what the government lie was. LIke I said in this post, after the attack there were a lot of details left to be known. The nation’s intelligence agencies put together their best intelligence estimate based on available information.
Susan Rice conveys that intelligence estimate. That’s the story. Except for the imaginary one being whipped up by right wingers like yourself.
In a year, when you’re absolutely, completely proven wrong, come back to this blog and apologize to me. And the American people. The only lies being told here are being promulgated by Republicans. Remember the adage: “Reality has a liberal bias.”
(Because we liberals value truth.)