Kevin Graham wrote: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.
