Benghazi Redux
Well, I guess we now know why Ms. Clinton was feeling “too ill to testify” before Congress this week.
Report on Libya attack cites ‘systemic failures’ in security, confirms no protest
If I were in her shoes, I certainly wouldn’t want to have to testify under oath about what went on, what I knew, when I knew it, and the like. Hell, I’d be doing everything I could to disassociate myself from this fiasco.
But she could be telling the truth about feeling sick. What I’ve read so far makes me feel pretty sick, too.
The Accountability Board Report on Benghazi can be found here. (The Executive Summary alone is pretty damning.) If you normally run your browser with with scripts disabled, you’ll have to enable them to view it.
Category: Foreign Policy
Gee, in 2017, she can do for the country what she did for the Department of State.
Enough of this sick note crap. Get her under oath and get her talking. Even if she needs a ride down to the farm in Virginia to get this done, then get it done.
The Democrats spent millions going after Scooter Libby because of something Tim Russert accused him of saying that had nothing to do with Valerie Plame. Why are we doing nothing here?
We are doing nothing because Obama is the Golden Boy of the Democratic party. He has the media so far in his pocket that they can hear his keys jingling. Not to mention, he is touting the party line which the lame stream media have been blowing across the airwaves so much that people are starting to believe it.
I’m pretty liberal, and I think citing a concussion as a reason for not testifying is pretty ridiculous. That excuse wouldn’t fly with countless other people, and shouldn’t fly with her either. If she needs a day or two, fine, but what’s next? I stubbed my toe so I can’t comment on these issues?
I am surprised at one element of the report, though – that there was apparently no protest whatsoever. I had assumed that there were protests, as done in other parts of the world on that day, and the attack used the protestors as cover. In light of this information, who were the people who dragged / helped Ambassador Stevens after the caravan was hit in that famous Reuters photograph? I’m willing to believe the ‘no protest’ bit, I just would like to understand this better.
The Clintons are shrewd resilient political operators…they’ve survived/overcome pretty much every sort of scandal. That said, even MSNBC commentators this morning were snickering and mocking Hillary’s suspicious concussion and stomach ailment excuse to not testify. Joe Scarborough on the Morning Joe show was even joking about what hospital Hillary was being treated at, so he could send flowers and get well wishes.
Have to say Hillary is just being smart not to “volunteer information” she REALLY badly wants to be President and she ain’t getting any younger…somehow, someway the Clinton machine is going to try to turn this against the Republicans for politicizing a tragedy and for persecuting Hillary because she is a woman blah blah blah…the GOP are so cowed by the MSM, are so scared of their own shadow these days it’ll probably work.
BTW, BO was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”. Guess Woody Allen was right about “80% of success is showing up”. Oh look, BO won the Nobel Peace Prize…for what who knows, its just cool the “post modern” President won it.
@3 – You say you were surprised at one element of the report – that there was apparently no protest whatsoever, and that you assumed there were protests, as done in other parts of the world on that day. When I say this, understand that I’m not picking on you, but the same assumption about a protest was made by the WH and the media before the blood had even dried in Benghazi, followed with Rice appearing on 5 Sunday AM talk shows to support that claim. At that point, NOTHING could have been confirmed and the administration jumped the gun without having all the facts. Given the seriousness and the gravity of the situation, Rice may have fared much better appearing on the talk shows saying something (in my opinion) like: “We don’t have all the details, and we decline to comment what spurred the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Ambassador Stevens and 4 other Americans due to security issues and because information is still coming in. Once that information is gathered and analyzed, we should have a bigger picture and clearer understanding of what occurred. There has been speculation that this was a terrorist attack. If evidence is found that this was a premeditated attack, this country will act accordingly and bring those who perpetrated it to justice.” The anti-Islam video they claimed to have caused such a stir in that part of the world was done in July, but the media (and the WH) led people to believe the protests were in response of that – in September. Why wouldn’t protests kick off in say, August instead? The protest argument was a pre-mature, or perhaps a plausible excuse without having the facts. The investigative teams from the FBI were hampered by gaining admittance into Benghazi for several days. Once they arrived, much of the scene had already been picked through, compromised or otherwise sanitized. That was bad. The whole thing is bad, so now damage control mode kicks in. That’s the issue. Too many unanswered questions. Alot of folks have… Read more »
Well, they all make ME sick. Just disgusting when you compare the honor and integrity of our Founding Fathers with today’s Administration. They aren’t fit to lick the boots of our troops.
@6: I agree that there are some unanswered questions, but let me add that I didn’t assume the protests happened because they happened in other parts of the world, I assumed they happened because that seemed a reasonable initial assessment by our intelligence community, something which I believe was backed up by various spokespeople.
I don’t think this was the President and his cabinet coming up with a ridiculous lie, I think it was what was understood at the time – and, frankly, it made a lot of sense. Hell, if I were a smart bad guy, I’d have done the same. Get a lot of non-violent protestors around to cause confusion and provide crowd cover and you know our ROE won’t easily allow return-fire.
There are questions that remain, and I’ve just heard a number of people have now resigned from State after this report came out, but given what was going on in other parts of the world, the initial assessment isn’t indicative of a scandal to me, it’s merely indicative of the uncertainties in intelligence work. We got it wrong this time; learn from that and move on. Other aspects of things? Sure, LOTS of lessons to be learned from our response, or preparation, and our methods of assessing things in real time. But I’d lay 10-to-1 odds on the fact that the President gave the reason his intelligence advisers provided, not something he ‘made up’ on the spot.
‘I’ve just heard a number of people have now resigned from State after this report came out’.
Considering everything involved in the disaster at the Benghazi embassy and the abominably sloppy way the entire thing was handled (or addressed or discussed — whatever you want to call it), if people are leaving jobs in the State Department now, there is likely to be considerable SH and IT waiting in the wings.
Look, Nixon could only things for so long. If it had not been for Deep Throat, it might not have been discovered until long after he left office. He taped everything that was said and discussed in the Oval Office and incriminated himself with it, but if Deep Throat (Mark Felt) hadn’t gone to Woodward and Bernstein, Nixon might have got away with all that.
So can the shoe be on the other foot now? Anything’s possible.
Hey, they resigned BUT only after the report came out. Clinton was fine with their being on the job–until the report came out. I can’t get worked up about this crap any longer. I really can’t.
@8 – Understood. I just think the initial assessment, whether it came from the intelligence community or not, was VERY premature. Things were still developing on the ground, and folks were figuring out what was happening (and what HAD happened). I think it has been evident that there was no spontaneous protest to begin with, but that was the story that was being headlined – hence the danger of relying on getting information from the media. I understand and appreciate your perspective, though. Initial intelligence is usually vague until it can be pieced together and analyzed to get a clearer picture. That takes several days/weeks depending on the source and creditability. From that perspective, I think the initial announcement the WH and State Department made were premature. I don’t want to “arm-chair quarterback” this, and I haven’t tried to, but initial reports just didn’t jive with what was developing on the ground. I’ll give you that if you were a “smart bad guy”, you’d cause a ruse with protesters so you could carry out an attack. That’s what terrorists do – like any other criminal – they adapt to the environment they’re operating in. I just strongly feel this administration jumped the gun, is all I’m saying. Yes, people have resigned and rightly so. Why they elected to do so upon the release of the initial report is uncertain to us, but I think the reasons are fairly evident at this point. Benghazi was a failure, and people were killed. Those who have resigned have done so to escape responsibility or further scrutiny, perhaps. (If there is justice, they just may be reigned back in to testify) The SECRET report likely has even more damning information, which likely opened the door. As far as the President goes, I give blame to his advisors for jumping the gun. If, on the other hand, they advised against it, and he ignored them, then the responsibility lays solely on the President. I wasn’t there, and am not privy to conversations and all the details, but I’m a patient person and am willing to… Read more »