New Talking Point Revelations Should End Benghazi Witch Hunt

[_Kevin Graham]

Sorry Republicans, but your pedantic meltdowns over Benghazi is only making you look more pathetic by dragging it out further. The evidence is in, and you have nothing.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/05/15 ... gha/194092

Emails from Obama administration aides obtained by CNN should end the right-wing media's nine-month witch hunt regarding the creation and editing of talking points related to the September 2012 attacks on diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

CNN has obtained more than 100 pages of emails detailing the exchanges between CIA, State Department, and other Obama administration aides concerning what should be included in talking points for public appearances by members of Congress and administration officials.

Those talking points were used by U.N. ambassador Susan Rice in a series of interviews that were subsequently seized upon by conservative critics who claimed she downplayed the role of terrorism in the attacks in order to aid President Obama's re-election. On May 10 ABC's Jonathan Karl reported on what he later acknowledged were summaries of a handful of the emails of administration aides, triggering another wave of claims that the administration had engaged in a cover-up.

But while the right has spent more than half a year mired in scandalmongering over the talking points, the emails buttress what Gen. David Petraeus, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified in November: that the intelligence community signed off on the final draft of the talking points, and that references to terrorist groups in Libya were removed in order to avoid tipping off those groups and preserve the ongoing investigation.

Notably, while the right-wing media has expressed months of outrage over administration statements linking the attacks to an anti-Islam video, claiming that this was based on political desire and not the conclusions of the intelligence community, every version of the talking points stated that the attacks were "spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo," which had been triggered by the video. The emails contain no criticism of that statement.

CNN's Jake Tapper further reports that the removal of portions of the talking points dealing with warnings about the security situation in Benghazi prior to the attacks were supported by the CIA:

Senior administration officials say that long before the CIA heard concerns from the State Department about warnings being put in the talking points, CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell advocated for taking the warnings out, since he felt the talking points should focus on what happened in Benghazi on September 11, rather than the previous six months.

He also felt it was unprofessional and unfair for the CIA to cite its own warnings to the State Department, officials said. Victoria Nuland, then the State Department spokeswoman, raised concerns over the CIA's first version of the talking points, saying that they went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her briefings.

The emails include:

The director of the CIA's Office of Terrorism Analysis agreeing to remove a claim that extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attacks because it suggested culpability in the killings of U.S. personnel and "we do not know who was responsible for the deaths."

Concerns from the general counsel of the CIA that the original talking points could "conflict with express instructions from NSS/DOJ/FBI that, in light of the criminal investigation, we are not to generate statements with assessments as to who did this."

CIA's Office of Public Affairs suggesting language linking the attacks more strongly to the Cairo protests.

State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland expressing concerns with portions of the talking points that she said made claims about the perpetrators belonging to groups linked with al Qaeda that "we ourselves are not making because we don't want to prejudice the investigation. The CIA's Office of Public Affairs replied that "we are waiting to hear back from the [FBI]."

Deputy National Security Advisor Benjamin Rhodes making a single edit to the penultimate version of the talking points, changing the word "consulate" to "diplomatic post."

Petraeus's criticism of the final talking points because they did not sufficiently link the attacks to the Cairo protests.

[_Droopy]

Pure drivel. Go back to that Weekly Standard article and read it again. The game is up. We know the text was altered and we now know they were altered specifically to remove facts and evidence relating to the origin and nature of the attackers.

Media Matters is a George Soros-funded political whorehouse populated by shills who's sole function is to deceive and to generate what the Soviets once called disinfomatzia. Discoverthenetworks has rightly called it "a clearinghouse for leftwing outrage." who's core mission is " feigning outrage at perspectives that clash with the far-left prejudices of its directors."

Media Matters is a part of what the leading historian and critic of the Left in America, David Horowitz has termed "the shadow party," a vast and financially colossal network of foundations, think tanks, NGOs, 501(c)3s, and ink squirting machines like Media Matters, a substantial portion of which is dedicated to the generation of targeted propaganda.

Cover your children's eyes...

[_EAllusion]

No, the media matters link sums up the facts as they stand on this issue as reported by any number of independent, non-propaganda sources Droopy. Ironically - sorta - you are the one who prefers to cocoon yourself in blatant propaganda. The sad thing is that while you've bought into a thinly drummed up scandal, in the meantime it's become clear that the Obama administration has essentially used the broadest possible use of search warrants to blanket supeana huge volumes of information from the Associated Press, probably to go after sources for leaking information it didn't want leaked. That has all the shady, tyrannical behavior you want to pin on the Obama admin with other issues, but you choose to ignore a legitimate scandal because you just repeat what right-wing media tells you to repeat. And, unfortunately, the establishment right that controls those sources doesn't particularly care that the AP came under the thumb of legitimately chilling behavior because they'd do it too and would like to in the future. So that story takes a back seat to much less significant ones like Benghazi.

[_Droopy]

No, the media matters link sums up the facts as they stand on this issue as reported by any number of independent, non-propaganda sources Droopy.

As we now know, the talking points, as Jonah Goldberg has pointed out, were "sanitized, folded, spindled and mutilated to fit a political agenda." There is no doubt or argument as to this already established documentary fact.

Count your prayer beads, Delusion.

[_Res Ipsa]

That's the shame of the ongoing republican clown show: when you spend all your time trying to claim that everything that happens in the administration is a "scandal" or "worse than watergate," you lose the ability to distinguish between a real problem and phony ones.

[_Kevin Graham]

So much for the "Liberal media" refusing to criticize Obama....

Rachel Maddow called out President Obama for "sort of changing his mind" on the issue of a federal shield law once he became president.

Maddow reacted to what she called the "bombshell revelation" that the Department of Justice secretly obtained the phone records of AP journalists. The Justice Department was investigating a leak that was responsible for an AP story on a thwarted Al Qaeda terror plot that was published around this time last year.

"Who knows what kind of irrevocable harm this has caused," Maddow said, adding that confidential sources would probably question speaking to the AP again, after knowing that the Justice Department obtained the news organization's phone records.

Maddow said that while a senator, Obama supported a federal shield law and co-sponsored 2007 legislation that was eventually killed by a Republican filibuster. Once he became president, the only actions Obama took surrounding federal shield law legislation was to limit that protection when it came to issues of national security.

On Wednesday, the Obama administration asked Sen. Schumer to reintroduce federal shield law legislation from 2009. In response to that legislation, Maddow said, "Yes, right. That is a good start. Keep going."

This "shield law" should be something that interests you EA. I didn't realize this was something Obama once supported.

[_bcspace]

As we now know, the talking points, as Jonah Goldberg has pointed out, were "sanitized, folded, spindled and mutilated to fit a political agenda." There is no doubt or argument as to this already established documentary fact.

That is correct. There is no way to spin out of blaming an obscure youtube video now. They had to lie because it was right before an election.

[_EAllusion]

So much for the "Liberal media" refusing to criticize Obama....

Obama is worse that George W. Bush on civil rights abuses by a decent amount at this point, including with respect to this issue. The blanket spying on journalists is quite frightening, actually. Feel free to point out anywhere near the the outrage at this fact that George W. Bush received from the same media sources for less aggressive curtailing of civil rights. Relatively tepid criticism after outright campaigning for Obama doesn't exactly answer the charge that Obama gets a relative pass for being Richard Nixon's dream president simply because he has a D after his name.

[_Tarski]

As we now know, the talking points, as Jonah Goldberg has pointed out, were "sanitized, folded, spindled and mutilated to fit a political agenda.

Making this at most a relatively minor instance of what happens EVERY time talking points are produced by any political party or virtually every other institution especially previous republican regimes and those were often much more than just sins of omission!

[_Kevin Graham]

Obama is worse that George W. Bush on civil rights abuses by a decent amount at this point, including with respect to this issue.

EA's made these kinds of claims before but I haven't seen much by way of compelling evidence. I think he referenced a Salon article, but it mostly complained about the fact that people have been imprisoned for leaking classified information. As far as I'm concerned, they should be punished and made an example of. If there were no repercussions for spilling classified information to the outside world, then everyone would be doing it just to get on TV.

As far as this issue is concerned, we're talking about intelligence agencies doing what they could to get information about terrorists who were in communication with the AP. Maybe I've watched too many episodes of 24, but I agree that some exceptions have to be made when it comes to National Security. And this is in the context of National Security, it isn't like this is the general rule. And I'm just not that upset that some terrorists are US citizens who've been deprived of their constitutional rights in the sense that they've been denied a speedy trial by jury, etc. As far as I'm concerned, they forfeited those rights when they decided to betray their country.

I'm no expert on this matter, but I'm sure war time related arrests are treated differently, or at least they should be in my opinion. But for some folks who are hypersensitive about any kind of "civil right" infringement, I suppose this could be the mother of all sins. Apparently, this is how EA sees it. But saying Obama is worse that Bush on civil rights, while ignoring everything he has done for equality in America (i.e. gay rights) is probably just rhetoric to get a rise out of folks like me. I mean does anyone really think our intelligence agencies would have done anything differently if Bush were President? What about Reagan? Or maybe even Clinton? We're at war for God's sake and their job is to do what's necessary to defend the nation. I'm not at all upset that they tried to snoop into some emails to find out how the AP knew of terrorist plots. The worst thing about all of this is that someone leaked this information, and so now terrorists aren't likely to be in communications with the AP anymore.

Folks like EA seem to think that when Obama pledged to make this the most transparent administration ever, that he meant he would share all information considered highly classified, and that all confidentiality laws will no longer be enforced.

The blanket spying on journalists is quite frightening, actually.

Frightening? Come on.

Feel free to point out anywhere near the the outrage at this fact that George W. Bush received from the same media sources for less aggressive curtailing of civil rights. Relatively tepid criticism after outright campaigning for Obama doesn't exactly answer the charge that Obama gets a relative pass for being Richard Nixon's dream president simply because he has a D after his name.

Obama is getting a pass in what sense? He is getting grilled right and left. And I don't remember when the AP revealed during the Bush years that it was in direct communications with terrorists. I don't think the intelligence agencies were as interested in what the AP was saying so much as they were interested in trying to track the source of their communication so they could then begin making terror related arrests. Hey, it makes perfect sense to me.

Tell me EA. If your daughter (assuming you have one) was kidnapped one day and she required daily medication or else she'd die, and you knew for a fact that she was being held in one of the houses on your street. Would you respect the civil rights of everyone in your neighborhood and let your daughter die, or would you kick down every door on the street?

If you can't understand why I'm asking this question, or simply refuse to answer it, then you have no business pontificating about the sacrosanct nature of civil rights. There is a reason why Obama, a man who campaigned on civil rights as a Senator, has not gone overboard and done all the crazy things you had hoped he'd do (i.e. ignore confidentiality laws). I think the reason for this has nothing to do with him suddenly changing his mind about civil rights, and everything to do with him learning, appreciating and understanding what it takes to be Commander-in-Chief during times of war.