So writes Michael Hirsch, who evidently missed the portion of the testimony where we learned that a State Department official emailed the Libyan government on September 12 that the consulate attack was in fact a terrorist operation — specifically identifying Ansar al-Sharia in the email.
And as the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, who broke the story on the Benghazi talking points, notes in today’s TWS podcast, this means that the CIA, the Libyan government, the consulate staff, and now the State Department — which provided the information to the Libyan government — were all aware that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist operation and that there was never a spontaneous “protest” sparked by a YouTube video. And it reinforces Hayes’s earlier revelations that the CIA’s talking points were altered at the direction of the White House and State Department — which the White House now maintains was the change of a single word for “stylistic” reasons.
UN Ambassador Susan Rice would have known that the Benghazi attack was perpetrated by Islamic terrorists days before appearing on Sunday morning news shows; Hillary Clinton, whom Gregory Hicks in his testimony today claims he briefed on the attacks (and the nature of the attacks) at 2 AM that morning, would have known this before standing over the casket of Ambassador Stevens pretending that anti-Muslim hate coming from inside the US prompted the attack that killed the Ambassador and ultimately the two SEALS involved in a rescue effort; and most certainly Obama would have known this, even had he gone to sleep in preparation for his night with Beyonce.
And at least Obama, if not the rest, would have known that a special forces team was available and en route to help rescue remaining personnel before being ordered to stand down — something that Panetta has suggested wasn’t possible given the fluid nature of the events.
Making that money we spent in Pakistan running commercials apologizing for the anti-Muslim HATE that prompted the “protests” during which our Ambassador was murdered a very material attempt at both a cover up and a financial fraud: taxpayer money was spent to perpetuate a known falsehood for the purpose of misleading the American public and adding layers to a lie. That is, to promote a cover story. Which, I would suggest to Mr Hirsch, is one of the premier warning signs that a cover up is afoot.
Hirsch, however, wants us to believe that today’s revelations “deepen the tragedy, not the scandal.” And I suspect his spin will be the preferred tack taken by the mainstream press, whose function these days, when they aren’t pushing for gun control and “comprehensive immigration reform,” seems to be to provide Obama with cover from any suggestion that his motives were political. The strategy is coupled to a strategy the Democrats have already shown they are preparing to use: claim that the GOP is on a political witch hunt, demonize those looking to find the truth, and claim that, despite what you yourself have heard, “nothing new” came from the testimony today.
Meanwhile, the “filmmaker” the Administration scapegoated sits in jail on parole violation charges; Hillary Clinton ponders a 2016 Presidential run; Susan Rice is presented as the victim of a racist Republican smear campaign; and Obama continues fundraising for the Democrats, hoping to retake the House in 2014 so that he can once again have a one-party government with which to push through his policies aimed at “fundamental transformation.”
The behavior of this Administration is bad enough. But when the political press endeavors to run interference for the Administration in order to salvage a particular partisan agenda, it is clear we no longer live in a country that can function effectively as a representative republic. Manufacturing consent and massaging perception — all in a cynical effort to raise plausible deniability anywhere and everywhere — has become the function of an activist, largely progressive-minded press.
We mustn’t allow this to go on. Doing so means we’ve surrendered, wholly and finally. And I’m not ready to do so just yet.
These bastards all need to be held to account.
Related: Hicks’s full account of the atttacks
Also, Hillary, over the Ambassador’s casket: “This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing do to with.”
It will be interesting to see what demands Clinton makes to take this fall alone.
(via Jim Geraghty)
Today’s hearing was just the place for the Democrats, almost to a man and woman, to announce that the single take-away from this “tragedy” was, all Move On™-like, how to prevent such unfortunate things happening again in the future.
Government’s job being to learn and to correct itself like the responsible little public servant it is and has always been, free from the unfortunate encumberances of outdated terms like justice.
This piece of stinking mendacity was even taken to its logical conclusion by the Democrat from Nevada, one Steven Horsford, who announced with some agitation that since 1) the goal of preventing such “tragedies” had been established as the only pertinent fact just moments prior — it replacing culpability — naturally 2) the Party responsible for Benghazi was none other than the Republicans … who are about to be to blamed for trimming down international security expenditures in future budgets.
Because the future always precedes the past and because once again, surely if there’s anything we can “learn” from Benghazi from witness testimony today it is that it could have been prevented with a little more cash spent months ago from tomorrow’s budget.
I am ashamed of my country beyond words. It has installed these damnable lying criminals in these places of power for them to shit on reason, accountability, and our own heads. I can only imagine the shock and the gasping and the shattered hearts of the families of the dead but I can still feel it from here.
Seven Things We Learned from the Benghazi Whistleblower Hearing
You wingers think you’ve found something, but I’ve been informed by an economist that Issa is a charlatan.
I’ve also been blocked by said economist.
#GoFigure
But Hirsch knows a cover-up is on. Hirsch has chosen to lie: to join in; to become part of the cover-up.
Why? (Who cares?) On the other hand, we can safely dismiss him as a source of any news or further opinion regarding this story.
remember the val gal scandal. “good” times
Rep. Ann Wagner: Only President Gives the Stand Down Order (Video)
Your new friend, Mr. Peretz, is cocooning like a true champion of epistemic closure, di.
What irritates the most is how much of this was apparent before the election. Yet, it made no difference in so many minds.
It’s a bit like Fast and Furious that way. Some things are profoundly telling in ways that other — also important — things aren’t.
“What irritates the most is how much of this was apparent before the election.”
nbc radio “news” @ 8 pm : cleveland, phoenix chick kill, ben ghazi, dow 15000 in that order. remember the val gal days.
Who was the National Security advisor at the time? Thomas Donilon, no? Political hack, not a security professional. Look at him. But notice, his name is never mentioned.
Your new friend, Mr. Peretz, is cocooning like a true champion of epistemic closure, di.
He’s memorized half the lines in Tyranny of Clichés, too. Check this out:
“We’re better people”
“The only good Republican is a dead Republican” (With bonus name-dropping!)
“We’re better people” redux
Credentialism
Projection
’twas amusing/depressing in its predictability
Oh, and Compassion.
Benghazi – During Attack Denis McDonough and Tom Donilon Replace President Obama and VP Biden…
When you add the hipster glasses, it’s apparent that he was sent directly from Central Casting.
you should only goof on the proggtarded. like ask your friend if he looks at baracky’s daily schedule. fore ward!
Regarding Donilon, shit, Fannie Mae is practically on the front lines, sdferr. (Which works both as a joke and as the truth in a different way.)
are the castro bros. cleveland that much different than obama, biden, clinton?
you know what might could get to the bottom of this is a special prosecutor
that is just a helpful suggestion
orangeman
Effort for Benghazi Select Committee gains momentum but Boehner balks
Boner is against the hearings? Shocker!
The lack of a bottom-up party move to replace Boehner and his ilk most damns the GOP.
Unworthy men do rise above their abilities all the time but it’s only in unworthy parties/companies/entities that they’re able to remain there for so long.
oh geez, di, how did you stand that so long?
It’s like boilerplate … the names of the Leftwinger windbags change, but they all blow the same fetid air.
Obama/Biden/Clinton have us trapped for only 8 years, so a difference of degree rather than kind.
Wow, di. Peretz is really a juvenile nitwit.
It’s like boilerplate
Like?
Check out the timestamps on these two:
12:41 PM – 8 May 13
2:46 PM – 8 May 13
These aren’t human-attended accounts: there’s a bot on the other end that spits out talking points at random. The sad thing is that the bots serve as a plausible stand-ins for lefty interlocutors.
Fooled every time…
So egregious is this situation that I’m willing to use the standards the progs are offering: Obama is incompetent. He apparently believes fairy tales about economic and social fairness, spends most of his time playing games, and he pouts like a child when thwarted. Hillary is incompetent. She has been repeatedly caught in public lies (pointless childish lies) like the origin of her name and being “pinned down by sniper fire”. The Obama administration is incompetent (with a healthy dose of corrupt), so much so that even the prog base is complaining loudly of a lack of results, and because of that incompetency, Obama has to go.
Furthermore, as is being portrayed by the Left, our primary goal should be to keep this from happening again. The way to do that is to explore the hidden murky depths of this administration, uncover the problems, punish the criminality, and spread the information far and wide, because we don’t need another President who has never lead anything but a protest. We don’t need another codependent Secretary of State, whose only real appeal comes from pity because of the sleaze she married, but yet refuses to leave for the political gain he brings. We don’t need any more mathematically-challenged utopians of any party in DC.
The fact is that by any standard (even these phony dodge attempts by the Democrats), this situation ought to be grounds for a thorough investigation, and serious repercussions.
This might be why they so strenuously avoid the very notion of standards, mondamay.
“The lack of a bottom-up party move to replace Boehner and his ilk most damns the GOP.”
hey kids look squirrel
Eric Cantor sets repeal vote on health care law for next week
hey kids look squirrel
More like an amoeba on a mite on a flea on a tick on a squirrel, if you ask me.
that gets a “chop chop”
it’s almost summertime, that puddlewonderful time of year when the odds lengthen against the having of impactful hearings
we need one special prosecutor to rule them all and in the darkness bind them i think
Darleen says May 8, 2013 at 7:46 pm
I’ve always suspected cloning tanks a la Kamino from the Star Wars prequels…
“when the odds lengthen against the having of impactful hearings”
rethuglicans only deal with such tacos
republicans are sorta special Mr. newrouter
they target a very narrow demographic
I’ve always suspected cloning tanks
Good lord, legions of leftwing Duncan Idahoes …
Well, at least this time, the Republican witch hunt isn’t about sex.
It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that what they were covering up was there incompetent handling of the attack on our diplomatic personnel in Benghazi.
I’d even be willing to believe they believed the attack was demonstration that got wee-wee’d up, in spite of what the folks on the ground in Libya were communicating back to Washington. After all, Bin Laden was dead, GM was alive, Al Qaida was on the run, and that despicable cowboy Bush had been replaced by the lovable cosmopolitan Obama. So how could this be a terrorist attack?
Does anyone know what was going on with the CIA people at the annex? Not among the public, so far as I can see. Is this even an interesting subject for the Republican committee members? Not that I can see.
I hear lots of aimless speculation about what was happening at the annex. But never hear any serious approach to questioning what was going on there, at least not from Congress. They’ve apparently bought in on it, if they even have knowledge of it.
There do seem to be occasional approaches to interviewing the 5 survivors among the State Dept security people who were manning the “consulate” compound. But I don’t hear any interest from Congress to interview the CIA people at the annex. None.
The way I see it, the incompetence was in the coverup (too). It’s one of those “the answer is ‘both'” kinds of conundra.
And then there are the security people who flew to Benghazi from Tripoli, along with Glen Dougherty. Ever hear any suggestion they should be interviewed by the committee in public session? Does the committee even know who they are?
Did anyone in the hearing today mention the purpose of Steven’s visit with the Turkish diplomat prior to the attack on Sept. 11th?
There might be some value to be found in collecting these open questions until they were answered.
Neoneocon making a helluva lotta sense:
(via Glenn Reynolds)
Does the committee even know who they are?
No, I don’t believe they do. I read somewhere the White House refuses to identify or allow questioning of any of the survivors due to “security” reasons.
Oh, this is interesting: I’m listening to Prager’s show from earlier today, and HE had people e-mail him and ask about all the people killed at embassies during the Bush admin.
AND WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE!
Prager says he couldn’t find information about anyone killed at an embassy during the Bush admin.
I knew it was a talking point, but a flat-out false one?
Cripes!
Did anyone in the hearing today mention the purpose of Steven’s visit with the Turkish diplomat prior to the attack on Sept. 11th?
Hillary was hoping to create a permanent post in Benghazi, so he was scoping the place out.
What?
The Turks had naught to do with it?
Huh.
After the consulate was raided and the people slaughtered these security concerns should, in the main, fade away like the privacy concerns of a dead man.
As in, they don’t exist any longer.
Silly cheesehead, it’s not lives they’re worried about protecting, it’s phoney-baloney jobs! (As I’m sure you very well know.)
Now, how about a harrumph with my brat?
harrumph
Prager says he couldn’t find information about anyone killed at an embassy during the Bush admin.
I made a point of looking that up sometime back. One diplomat was killed in Baghdad, an FSO (like the witness today, Nordstrom) hit by a mortar strike (at random) in the Green Zone. The security in Iraq was in general terms, outstanding.
I should amend to say, one US diplomat, seeing as the UN compound was practically annihilated. But then, as I recollect, that security was the UN’s doing.
That’s because Republicans have to get it right. If they get it wrong, the media won’t be there to help them cover up their incompetence.
There’s another way that’s liberating of course. If you’re going to get crucified anyways, you might as well get crucified trying to do the right thing.
I doubt the Bush administration would have wasted any time worrying about negative optics should the rescuers need rescuing, for one thing. Or about a bunch of “protesters” getting shot-up, for another.
It’s sad to have to say they “have to get it right” when it just so happens that even without pressure from an unjust media, they wanted to get it right, not least because they’ve actually learned lessons from earlier failures. Like Beirut. And etc.
An inconvenient truth?
And therein lies the hazards of positing the reality of maufactured consent, so to speak.
I mean, just because you’re convinced that it’s nothing but a bunch of disaffected yutes feeling put upon by American arrogance, and cultural insensitivity doesn’t mean that they don’t really hate you, and entirely for reasons of their own devising.
Stupid cow (he said mock-insultingly) they died for America’s sins.
And wasn’t the Administration’s restraint, damn near heroic? Why, we could have been sucked into another quagmire with no timetables and no exit strategy!
By the by, I think the closest the Republicans are going to come to a “win” in this investigation is if they succeed in forcing the Democrats to take a line something like that.
It’s almost the truth.
oh.
I was thinking maybe a win could be measured later by whether or not one or several of Hillary’s primary opponents used Benghazi against her
that would be sort of winnish anyway
Never going to happen.
Her likely opponents would have arrived at the same non-decision decision in the same way.
i suspect you’re right
but it’s fun to think about
Pentagon: “You will get nothing. And like it.“
2016, Hillary will be too damaged to run. The Democrat ticket will feature two who switched parties to run.
Bloomberg/Christie. Self-financing by the top of the ticket, saving money for those lower down, and with the newly thin, proclaimed as sexy to all genders, VP candidate.
So we’ve gone from “given Susan Rice’s amazing credentials questioning her ‘it’s a youtube video sparked riot’ account of 9/11 is only explainable as racism” to “yeah she’s a dumb ass and wrong as hell but she meant no harm and you can’t prove she did. ”
And the people moving on to the 2nd line obviously KNOW it sounds like total shit to everyone.
At this point, what difference does it make?
But how can we claim incompetence when the responsible film maker was arrested within a couple of days and is still in jail? If he wasnt he would have been on the top of that FBI ‘most wanted” poster that was released recently. I suspect we will soon be hearing about some new evidence found at his place…..AKs and empty diesel fuel cans….that will put this shameful “incompetence” talk to rest.
[…] is a record that may well come … Discussion: Speaker.gov, Daily Mail, Outside the Beltway, protein wisdom, The Moderate Voice, American Power, National Review and Most […]
Well the FBI is good at finding the things they’re looking for.
Washington FreeBeacon: Democrat: No News in Benghazi Hearing — ‘[The hearing was] a complete waste of time in my view’
I’m surprise Rep Cartwright wasn’t surprised to see the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of the dead men of Benghazi foaming at the mouth to get at that bastard Nakoula!
Tom Bevan begs to differ with the Honorable Mr. Cartwright:
The Gentleman from Pennsylvania must have missed that. Perhaps he was distracted by the edged of his seat digging into his tender buttocks.
(stole it from Instapundit)
distracted by the edged of his seat digging into his tender buttocks.
And here I was thinking that Pennsylvania should take a great pride in having produced such a
servile robotman.This is all just normal operating procedure for the ruling class. Covering up is what they do.
I suppose, since it was obvious to anyone paying attention last September that the administration was lying about Benghazi, it is in fact “old news” that they lied about Benghazi.
And certainly not “news” that a distinguished career foreign service officer would be demoted for questioning the premise that an internet video had caused the destruction of the US presence in Benghazi, let alone forced a blip of an interruption to the savior Obazm’s progress to reelection, this demotion business being merely the standard operating procedure as reward for [faithless] public service [the the savior].
to the
This latest coverup has me wondering if they ever resent having to lie all the time.
e.g. If it wasn’t for all the flag-waving, bitter-cling, mouth-breathing, inbred, unenlightened ignoramouses in Flyover Jesusland, we wouldn’t have to make up excuses about why it’s America’s fault this happened. They’d know it was America’s fault.
I think the “news” there is supposed to be that he’s a disgruntled ax-grinder who’s not to be trusted.
he’s a disgruntled ax-grinder who’s not to be trusted.
Truly so. That’s where Cartwright intends “We look into every kind of conceivable misdeed or misstatement made by the government. That’s part of our job.” to go. He’ll be getting to the bottom of Hicks’ lack of faith with the American people and the treacherous self-regard Hicks would presume.
[…] Jeff Goldstein cites the important testimony that “a State Department official emailed the Libyan government on September 12 that the consulate attack was in fact a terrorist operation — specifically identifying Ansar al-Sharia in the email.” But why bother with facts? What difference, at this point, does it make? […]
Boehner was just on teevee and says they aren’t done investigating.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but that there will make me sleep easier knowing Justice™ will be done.
SEC. CLINTON: Was it because of a protest [this thing that didn’t happen], or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans [or that other thing that didn’t happen]? What difference, at this point, does it make [that we use either of these two things that didn’t happen to distract from what really did happen]? It is our job to figure out what happened [by which we mean, you never find out what happened, because we already know what happened and it isn’t to our political benefit that you should know] and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again [by which we mean continue on not learning from the past, just as we’ve done up to now], Senator.
– Hey, she learned from the best.
It’s a lot easier to just say the witness is a liar.
Jeffrey Lord: From Bimbos to Benghazi
It is as predictable as the tide. And it will work.
I think I understand your cynicism Silver Whistle, but I don’t think I’m ready to join you in it. If only because the bloodlust of the families of the slain hasn’t achieved the death by hanging of Nakoula quite yet. Until they’ve got him underground, I don’t believe we’ll be hearing the end of this affair.
And certainly not “news” that a distinguished career foreign service officer would be demoted for questioning the premise that an internet video had caused the destruction of the US presence in Benghazi
Remember when a president (with an R after his name) firing 8 Attorney Generals (all of whom you may recall serve at the pleasure of the president) was a BFD, got tons of media copverage and required a full investigation?
Good times.
If that was GWB they were U.S. Attorneys. Different animal — but your point stands just the same.
Without a vengeful media baying for blood 24/7, what will happen to this ‘story’, sdferr. You can put inverted commas around it. That’s how stuff happens in our world.
what will happen to this ‘story’
I’ve heard tales that have vengeful families taking matters into their own hands, even. Wouldn’t be strange to find just such things happening again, would it? That is, if human beings still exist in the world. But then, who knows? Maybe we come to learn that they don’t (still exist).
Oh, I remember – Innocence, The Fall, Repentance, Redemption. There is no Redemption for the Republic in this morality play. This act is still The Fall.
The Fall never ends when it’s The Abyss into which you fall.
Whoops. US Attorneys, not AGs. Thanks, McGehee.
Dubya was following precedent. Almost all modern presidents have fired all the US Attorneys when they take office. Clinton did it too, but not a peep from the media about that.
[…] Jeff Goldstein cites the important testimony that “a State Department official emailed the Libyan government on September 12 that the consulate attack was in fact a terrorist operation — specifically identifying Ansar al-Sharia in the email.” But why bother with facts? What difference, at this point, does it make? […]
I thought Clinton was the first one to do that, that he did it to conceal the fact that he only wanted to fire the U.S. Attorney for Little Rock in order to stymie the White Water investigation, and, for that reason, Bush firing a mere 8 proved he up to something nefarious.
so powerful the doublethink
I remember reading up on it when it happened it seems there were others before Clinton, although Clinton did let all of them go. I agree it may have been to cover up the firing of the Little Rock US Attorney, but I am loathe to drag out all my books about Whitewater and Madison Trust.
Clinton was the cutting edge of double-think. It’s rather ironic that Hills was on the Watergate prosecution team back in the day (What did the President know and when did he know it?) and is now under the microscope herself (What difference does it make?!) And nearly 40 years ago exactly.
The story about Bush and US attorneys was that he dismissed and replaced some (only seven) mid-term, not that he fired a lot of them and put his own people in.
Although if he’d fired them en masse on entry and put his own people, they’d have squawked about that too.