The weekend’s media coverage on Benghazi brought in some notable quotes and points of interest:
Petraeus: talking points “essentially useless”
When the Benghazi talking points were being reviewed and revised by other agencies after the September 2012 attack, former CIA Director David Petraeus indicated that the revised talking points were “essentially useless.”
In emails obtained by ABC News, Petraeus is also quoted as saying, “I would just as soon not use them. But it’s their [the White House’s] call.” h/t HotAir
NY Times’ Dowd: admin’s behavior before and during Benghazi “unworthy of the greatest power on earth”
In a Sunday Op-Ed in the NY Times entitled When Myths Collide in the Capital, Maureen Dowd opines on Benghazi and it includes some harsh criticism for the White House:
The administration’s behavior before and during the attack in Benghazi, in which four Americans died, was unworthy of the greatest power on earth.
She describes the competing narratives as Déjà Vu reminiscent of the Clinton years. h/t Breitbart
THE capital is in the throes of déjà vu and preview as it plunges back into Clinton Rules, defined by a presidential aide on the hit ABC show “Scandal” as damage control that goes like this: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.”
NBC’s David Gregory: Carney’s explanation on revised Benghazi talking points “not accurate”
In an earlier post here at Legal Insurrection, we also noted that NBC’s David Gregory Called Carney’s Explanation on Revised Benghazi Talking Points “Not Accurate”. Gregory asks Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who has led the state department’s review of Benghazi, “is the administration guilty of playing politics with terrorism?” Watch the video.
Rep. Mike Rogers: “I do think we’re going to see more whistle-blowers”
Congressional Republicans called Sunday for depositions of high-ranking officials and more testimony from whistle-blowers, indicating that additional whistle-blowers have contacted congressional committees since three others testified last week. From FOX News:
Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told “Fox News Sunday” that more potential and self-proclaimed “whistle-blowers” might come forward after three of them – career State Department foreign service employees – testified last week before the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee.
“We have had people come forward because of the (hearing) and say we would also like to talk,” the Michigan Republican told “Fox News Sunday.” “I do think we’re going to see more whistle-blowers. Certainly my committee has been contacted; I think other committees as well.”
Rogers’ remarks came as Thomas Pickering, the former U.S. ambassador who helped write a report on security at a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, defended his assessment but absolved Clinton.
Robert Gates: some Benghazi critics have “cartoonish” view of military capability
Meanwhile, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates described some critics of Benghazi as having a “cartoonish” view of military capability. He scoffed at critics’ suggestions that the presence of an aircraft overhead might have served as a deterrent or that a small number of special forces could have been sent in to assist during the 2012 attack.
“It’s sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces,” he said. “The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm’s way, and there just wasn’t time to do that.”
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“He [Gates] scoffed at critics’ suggestions….that a small number of special forces could have been sent in to assist during the 2012 attack.”
And how long did just two men hold off 150+ attackers before finally getting killed?
Is there anything more despicable than placing politics before American lives?
Gates is full to the brim with horseshet.
A lot of those “cartoonish” evaluations come from the guys who have done this their whole career. This is what they train for constantly.
That was one of the things…Pinata’s lies about the military not having enough prep time…that made me certain they left those guys twisting in the wind.
The idea that we only go when we’ve sand-boarded the deal for a few weeks is asinine.
Within limits, I can forgive honest screw-ups, but this is a whole new level of ugly.
Nope.
David Petraeus has the ammunition to Blow the Whole Squalid Cowardly Lying Bunch outta the water. I believed it in mid-September and I believe it now. Time to step up to the Congressional Hearing plate, General.
This stuff from the utterly tepid Mo’Dowd is snicker provoking. Repeatedly in her May 11th vapid piece she sneers and disses Fox News. You know, B’yotch, the ones that have doggedly followed the story while your NY Times chorused rationalizations, excuses and LIES for His Infantile Majesty and his hideous Sec’y of State.
You really have to wonder if Petraeus was looking to a way to head for the door.
Neo..Yep, what a(GASP!!)well timed outing that whole Paula what’sername thing was. I’m hoping Issa will bring the great warrior in for some unvarnished plain truth telling.
The Infantile Majesty looked just like Pinocchio at his Lie Fest yesterday.
That’s why there are emergency response teams that train, year after year, for scenarios similar to what happened in Benghazi. They exist to be sent in at a moments notice.
What we’re finding out now is that these units were ready to go, and were specifically ordered to stand down. Repeatedly.
Can’t very well talk about the demise of al Qaeda and the end of the war on terrorism in the last month of a campaign and then send a special forces team to stop an al Qaeda terrorist attack, can we? Good God, man, where are your priorities?
MARGARET CARLSON, BLOOMBERG NEWS: The other thing, back to your point, is that because the right wing went so far on this story, “it’s Watergate, it’s impeachable,” we couldn’t hear Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard. It did take somebody who is just a meat and potatoes reporter.
What’s the term again…???
Oh, yeah. “Epistemic closure”.
Or…”Unless it comes from my tribe, I can’t hear it.”
Helluva admission from a “reporter”.
Couldn’t ‘hear’ Hayes over the din of right wing screeching? Hayes’ seminal article was written, not broadcast, and her premise is as specious as they come.
Change that to epistemic seizure.
http://rightreactions.blogspot.com/2013/05/out-damned-spot.html
The willingness of and number of whistleblowers is directly proportional to the willingness of the media to investigate and report.
“… it is now generally acknowledged — was utilized as a flimsy excuse by the State Department in an attempt to distract from its embarrassing failures in the September attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.”
This has got to be the worst conspiracy of politicians and bureaucrats in at least this century. The goals were vague at best, and there wasn’t even any real “common good” that they were trying to protect, just a few sorry ass politicians. The odds were that if they merely mentioned that the security was “below par” and that they were now beefing up security worldwide” that this would have passed with their minions in the press.
Even the Watergate break-in had better intentions. Mark this down as “they did it because they could.”
It’s going quite well, actually.
Obama is Commander in Chief. He had a fiduciary obligation to act. Instead he went to bed to rest up like some child who had a school test the next day. I consider him and Hillary to be tantamount to murderers. I am certain they tried to blackmail Petraeus. They also threatened numerous military and state department employees.
Meanwhile, the leftwing media keeps watering down their language, spinning, and making noise, even as they pretend to be reporting. E.g., nonsense being circulated among unthinking ideologues — “Benghazi ‘debate’ sparks little formal lobbying” (WTF?).
I can’t comment further. I am having a very difficult time containing my anger and language.
P.S. A must-read to recognize and call bullshit on watered down “apology” and excuse-making language: Ken Pope’s Ethics, Critical Thinking, & Language: Using Words to Deceive (8 Bogus Apologies). “Mistakes were made” (but not by me)…
Rep. Mike Rogers: “I do think we’re going to see more whistle-blowers”
Right – because they found the others and they have been coerced “Judge Roberts-style”!
janitor: Who cares what the left says about anything? Are you doing to next get pissed off at rats for being dirty?
DON’T temper your rage — use it. If you have to curse, use @#$% language. But whatever you do, this is the chance we’ve been waiting for. POUNCE on it.
I said it many times: ‘Barack Obama’ is a house of cards. So is Hillary Clinton. Both are outrageous contrivances who in reality couldn’t run the proverbial hot dog stand.
Let’s keep yanking those bottom cards, and never let up.
We have the ABC News report on the 12 versions of the Talking Points posted now on CC…
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/05/abc-news-benghazi-attack-talking-points.html
I was struck today by a small insight.
It came from the synthesis of something Victor Davis Hanson wrote about the absolute social repudiation of terrorists…or not.
Barack H. Obama is a morally depraved person.
Imagine a political career started in the salon of the surviving Boston bomber and his wife.
You can take it from there. Your next stop might be opposing a law that would protect born-alive infants.
This should lead you inexorably to a night when an ambassador of the United States was missing, following a transparent terrorist attack on the anniversary of the worst act of terrorism in our history, and the first attack on our homeland since the British invaded.
Don’t stop there.
I have never gone past Grandma being killed off the evening before the election.
There you go AGGAAAIIIIN, Rags. Next…What… You’ll be thinking(in that pesky, paranoid Righty Mind)that The Bama would use the IRS on conservative organizations and..WHAT.. A corpulent, lying Sec’y of State with a bottomless appetite for power weaving absolute falsehoods face-to-face with grieving families of Benghazi victims..?? Naw..They’d NEVER be dishonorable,’Yo.
Let’s explain this so even a Detroit public school student can understand it. This is the equivalent of getting hit by a bus when crossing the street and when they call 911, it’s decided that you’ll probably be dead before the ambulance gets there so why bother sending it at all. If that seems preposterous, you’re 100% correct. So why wouldn’t we send help no matter how far away they were? Good question. Maybe they checked with the IRS and found some Tea Party connection. Thugs.
We could have stopped it rapidly. We had Africom assets within easy reach of the area and more in the Middle East and Europe. Far more than is being reported. This is insane. It makes me sick. Obama didn’t want to draw attention to the mess He’s made in the Middle East before the election. No new information is now coming out. Just more confirmation. Anyone with half a brain should have seen what was going on. The media refused to cover it. Instead they stalked titillating irrelevancies about Petraus to divert attention and made dingbat women at McDill AFB the news, remember? Why don’t they cover Barry’s gay liaisons with the same damn fervor.
Wayne:
You left out an important point that is emerging. Loosely, it’s this: it is emerging that the reason Hillary Clinton did not want to send in troops to the Benghazi victims is that she wanted to be seen in a MacArthur-like fashion being the first high official coming ashore to Libya after she helped yank Ghadaffi out.
So to continue your analogy: the victim would be lying in the street and help was never sent because the Mayor wanted to be photographed stepping in as the hero that saved the day, and 911 responders would have usurped her moment — and she was out of town at the moment.
THAT’s what’s going on.
One possibility raised soon after the scandal concerns the reason Stevens was in Benghazi on 9/11 when he knew there wasn’t sufficient security. It had nothing to do with promoting the idea that Libya was a safer place than it was, he could have gone the next day and left before dark.
He did meet with the Turkish envoy, which is odd since most diplomats work in and out of Tripoli. Were they trying to figure out how to get back all the MANPAD hand-fired surface-to-air missiles we gave the rebels and get them to the Syrian rebels?
If this was the reason, it also might explain why no rescue chopper or F-16 overflight: they were afraid our aircraft might be shot down with our own weapons, and that would look very bad seven weeks before an election.
Look, guys, our president is black with a Muslim name and upbringing. None of this talk about Benghazi and the IRS matters. Our president is always talking about Lincoln and Reagan. We have a centrist president. We have more change, great new jobs, a new attitude to people from other parts of the Americas who want to live in our part of America, the world respects us and likes us.So, Benghazi and the IRS really doesn’t matter. I mean, let’s focus on the wonderfulness of The One We’ve Been Waiting for … our president is black with a Muslim name and upbringing.
Didn’t Hillary also promise the Afghan women she/we would never leave them vulnerable to the Taliban … so they could feel free to come “out of the closet”?
Hillary has a bad habit of leaving others behind, making idle promises.
[…] (H/T: Legal Insurrection) […]
I used to sit on the steps of my CHU in the evening and watch the Navy/Marine F18s come out of the sky, dive down towards Sadr City (my last tour was during the violence from the Golden Mosque bombing), pull up while hitting the afterburners, and leave a powerful sonic shockwave as they flew out of sight. It was effective on the ground, or so I was told. Apparently no one told Gates.
How cool would it be to have a SecDef that knew something about the military. I guess we’ll never know how cool it would be as long as we have a Democrat CinC.
[…] Benghazi scandal. For more links on recent events in the scandal, see Legal Insurrection‘s Weekend Wrap-up of Benghazi Coverage. And if the whole thing is getting a little too complicated for you, this .pdf file from ABC News […]