Benghazi Email Dump Pours More Fuel On the Scandal Fire

[_bcspace]

The emails.

Some things we know from the emails, some things we already knew, some things we need to know but Obama and his henchmen aren't talking:

1. How hard was that? Why did it take so much time? The timing was obviously meant to distract.
2. Where are the emails from the two days after the attack?
3. We now know (as if anyone didn't already) that Jim Carney is a liar. From these emails, we know that it is absolutely untrue the White House and the State Department made only minor changes that Carney claimed was the case only six days ago.
4. The truth is that the CIA got it right the first time by referencing "Islamic extremists with ties to Al Qaeda".
5. John Brennan was personally involved in the editing process.
6. We know that:

"Victoria Nuland expressed repeated concerns about the talking points. The CIA says in the emails, “The State Department had major reservations with much or most of the document.” Under the pressure of a revised version, Nuland continued to push back writing, "These don't resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership.” Nuland's involvement also includes concerns that the original point about repeated warnings “could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings so why do we want to feed that either? Concerned..."

7. General Petraeus about the talking points: “Frankly, I’d just as soon not use this.”
8. Nowhere in the emails is there any mention of a YouTube video. What this means is that narrative did not come from the CIA. It was a desperate political decision.
9. Who gave the stand down orders and where was the President at the time?

[_Res Ipsa]

Yes it does. Republicans deliberately lied about the contents of the e-mails to the press. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2 ... ?ref=fpblg

By the way, why aren't you guys screaming for the ABC reporter who reported the republican lies as facts to be fired. You know, like you did with Dan Rather? Oh, yeah, I forget. It's never wrong when republicans do it.

When are you going to stop jumping up and down on the bodies of dead Americans to tell politically motivated lies?

[_Kevin Graham]

1. How hard was that? Why did it take so much time? The timing was obviously meant to distract.

The emails had been released to the media quite some time ago. However, Obama underestimated the power of Right Wing stupidity and their willingness to "summarize" those emails in a very dishonest way for their own purposes.

2. Where are the emails from the two days after the attack?

Ah, so now that your over-hyped sources have proven to be complete disasters, including both the "whistleblowers" and the emails, you're now going to imply that a smoking gun still exists, but that it has to be found somewhere in emails that haven't been released.

3. We now know (as if anyone didn't already) that Jim Carney is a liar. From these emails, we know that it is absolutely untrue the White House and the State Department made only minor changes that Carney claimed was the case only six days ago.

That's a stretch to say the least. You've failed to demonstrate any serious editing or a political motive for doing so. The Weekly Standard piece was already shown to be so incompetent, that it overlooked the fact that its own version of the emails refuted the main point it was trying to make.

4. The truth is that the CIA got it right the first time by referencing "Islamic extremists with ties to Al Qaeda".

It also got it right by referencing the CAIRO protests: "We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.”

Ya. Kinda like what Rice and company had said from the beginning. Your precious Right Wing media ignored this and declared a cover up based on this ignorance alone.

6. We know that:
"Victoria Nuland expressed repeated concerns about the talking points. The CIA says in the emails, “The State Department had major reservations with much or most of the document.” Under the pressure of a revised version, Nuland continued to push back writing, "These don't resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership.” Nuland's involvement also includes concerns that the original point about repeated warnings “could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings so why do we want to feed that either? Concerned..."

It is funny that you link us to the emails and then proceed to explain what's in them as if you've actually read them. But you obviously haven't or else you'd know that your citation is a complete fabrication by The Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes. And your exact quotation exists on only one other place on the entire internet: The Sean Hannity website!

This is what Hayes said: "According to the email, several officials in the meeting shared the concern of Nuland, who was not part of the deliberations, that the CIA's talking points might lead to criticism that the State Department had ignored the CIA's warning about an attack."

The email doesn't actually say that-- rather, it indicates that the concern was that the initial draft would lead readers to "infer incorrectly that the CIA had warned about a specific attack on our embassy." It makes no mention of perceived criticism of the "State Department."

The idea that Nuland's overriding concern was political -- and that her concern was shared by the White House -- is key to the notion of a "cover-up" by the administration. Hayes' articles came to that assumption based on incomplete information and misrepresentation of emails between agencies.

7. General Petraeus about the talking points: “Frankly, I’d just as soon not use this.”

Yes, but what your liars in the Right Wing media refuse to say is why he said this.

8. Nowhere in the emails is there any mention of a YouTube video.

You wouldn't know, because all you're doing is citing commentary from Hayes, the same guy who just lied to you about Nuland's email and now he is lying about this.

The Los Angeles Times noted of the emails: "Even the very first version of the talking points suggests that the attack was inspired by the protests in Cairo over the anti-Muslim video, a perfectly plausible supposition at the time. That undermines the Republican claim that administration officials concocted the notion of a Benghazi protest to protect the president from a perception that Al Qaeda was ascendant again." Indeed, the original version of the talking points produced by the CIA's Office of Terrorism Analysis stated:

The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. diplomatic post and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations

No surprise then, that Stephen Hayes, the guy who has been lying about this all along, is all over the FOX News shows speaking as an authority on this subject. Like Weekly Standard, you posted the evidence (the emails) proving your own argument was full of baloney, but you didn't realize it because you never actually read them. All you do is cut and paste the latest from the Right Wing propaganda bulletin.

What this means is that narrative did not come from the CIA. It was a desperate political decision.

No, it means you're too lazy to read the emails which prove your preferred sources are liars.

7. General Petraeus about the talking points: “Frankly, I’d just as soon not use this.”

Again, this is a failure to cite his concern in context. The fact is he didn't like the talking points because they didn't do enough to connect the attacks to the video. In context he said, "We couldn't even mention the Cairo warning. But it's their call.'"

9. Who gave the stand down orders and where was the President at the time?

There were no such orders.

[_Res Ipsa]

One correction, Kevin. Congress has had the e-mails for some time. The media just got them in the last couple of days.

[_Kevin Graham]

Some reporters were privy to the emails at an earlier time thanks to Republican Congressmen leaking them, and it was their previous "summaries" of those emails that led to so much misinformation. Now that they have been officially released to the public, everyone can see just how badly they were misrepresented by the Right wing media.

[_Res Ipsa]

I agree about the misrepresentations. The problem was that the media didn't have the e-mails and relied on their republican sources to summarize them accurately. And the ABC reported quoted the inaccurate summaries as if he were quoting the actual e-mails. Still waiting on all the Rather haters to demand he be fired.

[_Kevin Graham]

And much to the chagrin of Republicans, Susan Rice was right all along.

Here are four media reports from Libya that link the attacks to the anti-Islam video.

[_Kevin Graham]

I agree about the misrepresentations. The problem was that the media didn't have the e-mails and relied on their republican sources to summarize them accurately. And the ABC reported quoted the inaccurate summaries as if he were quoting the actual e-mails. Still waiting on all the Rather haters to demand he be fired.

Yes, you're right. So to better answer bcspace's question, the fact is these emails were released to members of Congress, which hardly suggests Obama was hiding something. This also means Republicans in office were certainly privy to the details and could have created a scandal out of this by going to the media with these crazy theories. But instead, they leaked carefully selected and "summarized" excerpts to some media outlets and let the scandal-mongering machine do their work for them.

[_Res Ipsa]

And much to the chagrin of Republicans, Susan Rice was right all along.

Here are four media reports from Libya that link the attacks to the anti-Islam video.

I still don't know that she was right. There has been lots of conflicting information, and I don't think the conflicts have been resolved yet. It's instructive to go back and read how the news broke to place what was said in context. The first news that broke was Cairo, and it was widely reported that the demonstrations there were in response to the video. So, by the time government officials were making comments about Benghazi, the video was front page news all around the world. Also, as you've pointed out, the media was reporting information from individual present at the attack that the attack was motivated by the video. The CIA also reported sources saying that the attack was in response to the video. In the meantime, you had conflicting information from the Libyan government: the president said it was a planned attack by Al Queda (or wannabes). Another official (foreign minister?) said it was pro-Ghaddafi holdovers.

The information was a mess. To some extent, it still is. We still don't know who did it or the events that led up to the attack. Maybe the FBI does. If it does, I wan't them to keep their damn mouths shut until they capture or kill them. We didn't get Bin Laden by announcing to the press that we'd tracked him down and then announcing that an attack was under way to capture/kill him. I want to get the killers. The clown show wants to get Obama and Clinton.

[_Kevin Graham]

Good point, Brad.

In other news:

Republicans Altered Benghazi Emails, CBS News Report Claims

One day after The White House released 100 pages of Benghazi emails, a report has surfaced alleging that Republicans released a set with altered text.

CBS News reported Thursday that leaked versions sent out by the GOP last Friday had visible differences than Wednesday's official batch. Two correspondences that were singled out in the report came from National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

The GOP version of Rhodes' comment, according to CBS News: "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation."

The White House email: "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."

The GOP version of Nuland's comment, according to CBS News: The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda."

The White House email: "The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings."

The news parallels a Tuesday CNN report which initially introduced the contradiction between what was revealed in a White House Benghazi email version, versus what was reported in media outlets. On Monday, Mother Jones noted that the Republicans' interim report included the correct version of the emails, signaling that more malice and less incompetence may have been at play with the alleged alterations.

In that April interim report on Benghazi (which Buck noted), the House Republicans cited these emails (in footnotes 56 and 57) to note an important point: "State Department emails reveal senior officials had 'serious concerns' about the talking points, because Members of Congress might attack the State Department for 'not paying attention to Agency warnings' about the growing threat in Benghazi."

Despite the White House's Wednesday move to release emails, Republicans continued to call for more information on Thursday.

"While these hundred are good and they shed light on what happened, we have nearly 25,000 that they haven't released," Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Fox News on Thursday.