BREAKING: The president knew the truth about Benghazi

[The_Grand_Illusion]

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ri...5445_blog.html


BREAKING: The president knew the truth about Benghazi

By Jennifer Rubin, Published: NOVEMBER 16, 5:18 PM ET


In a blockbuster report, John Solomon, the former Associated Press and Post reporter, has ferreted out the president’s daily brief that informed him within 72 hours of the Sept. 11 attack that the Benghazi attack was a jihadist operation.

Citing officials directly familiar with the information, Solomon writes in the Washington Guardian that Obama and other administration officials were told that “that the attack was likely carried out by local militia and other armed extremists sympathetic to al-Qaida in the region.”

He adds:

The details from the CIA and Pentagon assessments of the killing of Ambassador Chris [Stevens] were far more specific, more detailed and more current than the unclassified talking points that UN Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials used five days after the attack to suggest to Americans that an unruly mob angry over an anti-Islamic video was to blame, officials said.

Most of the details affirming al-Qaida links were edited or excluded from the unclassified talking points used by Rice in appearances on news programs the weekend after the attack, officials confirmed Friday. Multiple agencies were involved in excising information, doing so because it revealed sources and methods, dealt with classified intercepts or involved information that was not yet fully confirmed, the officials said.

Solomon cautions that there were bits of evidence pointing to a spontaneous attack but, as Eli Lake of the Daily Beast and others have reported, he writes: “Among the early evidence cited in the briefings to the president and other senior officials were intercepts showing some of the participants were known members or supporters of Ansar al-Sharia — the al-Qaida-sympathizing militia in Libya — and the AQIM, which is a direct affiliate of al-Qaida in northern Africa, the officials said.”

How could the president and his senior staff then have allowed (or rather, sent) Rice to go out to tell an entirely different tale to the American people on Sept. 16 on five TV shows?

This report indicates that the president certainly knew that Benghazi wasn’t a rogue movie review gone bad. He had information that plainly spelled out what was later confirmed by additional intelligence. If this information was too confidential to share with the public, at the very least the president and others should not have mislead voters.

This is a full-blown scandal, and in light of this information, the press corps’s slothful indifference to uncovering the truth at Wednesday’s news conference with Obama is all the more shocking. It is time for the president to come clean. The scandal has now enveloped the Oval Office and will define his second term, if not resolved satisfactorily.

The irony of this is that Rice may well have been used as a patsy, unaware that she was sent out to spin a misleading tale. My colleague Dana Milbank recounts Rice’s long-standing inability to get along with others and to be circumspect in her pronouncements:

It’s true that, in her much-criticized TV performance, she was reciting talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies. But that’s the trouble. Rice stuck with her points even though they had been contradicted by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ just before Rice, said there was “no doubt” that the attack on Americans in Benghazi “was preplanned.” Rice rebutted the Libyan official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning. . . . Obama can do better at State than Susan Rice.

Frankly the same could be said of many national security positions at this point. The American people made their choice in November on the president, but it now appears they were duped regarding the real facts concerning Benghazi. What are we going to do about that?

[The_Grand_Illusion]

Originally Posted by Brock

I love how you think you're the only person who's paying attention to anything. What were you saying about arrogance?

You don't see me pop in on every thread constantly jumping folks I don't agree with like I see you do when it comes to your liberal views. I seriously believe this country is in a whole lot of trouble and it comes from experience. If you don't agree fine, so quit arrogantly trolling me about it.

And getting back the the topic at hand, I love you you libs attack the messenger, but that's par for the course. Attack the messenger if you don't like the message. You might not like what is turning up about Benghazi, but this is not going to go away and there is so many questions that need to be answered.

TGI

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by The_Grand_Illusion

Trolling me again, huh?

TGI

Just helping to put your description of "liberal views" into context. Your birther status says a lot about you. Just be up front about it and people will know who they are dealing with.

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by The_Grand_Illusion

You don't see me pop in on every thread constantly jumping folks I don't agree with

There are plenty of great posters here who I disagree with. I mainly pop up when someone is completely full of shit.

[The_Grand_Illusion]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

Just helping to put your description of "liberal views" into context. Your birther status says a lot about you. Just be up front about it and people will know who they are dealing with.

Which you are distorting. Given your liberal media track record recently. If they can hide so many issues before an election, they can hide anything.

TGI

[Brock]

Originally Posted by The_Grand_Illusion

You don't see me pop in on every thread constantly jumping folks I don't agree with like I see you do when it comes to your liberal views. I seriously believe this country is in a whole lot of trouble and it comes from experience. If you don't agree fine, so quit arrogantly trolling me about it.

And getting back the the topic at hand, I love you you libs attack the messenger, but that's par for the course. Attack the messenger if you don't like the message. You might not like what is turning up about Benghazi, but this is not going to go away and there is so many questions that need to be answered.

TGI

Nay, good sir. I will continue arrogantly trolling you about it. All I ever did was ask you to be specific about how statism drove your business into the shitter, and you predictably wrote a two paragraph screed about statism and inflation. I've laughed at you a couple of times about your birth certificate nonsense, but other than that, I don't remember wasting much time on you. Don't act as if you were interested in doing anything other than posting some vague anecdote about how the country is going down and then got outraged when somebody questioned you about it.

[The_Grand_Illusion]

Originally Posted by Brock

Nay, good sir. I will continue arrogantly trolling you about it. All I ever did was ask you to be specific about how statism drove your business into the shitter, and you predictably wrote a two paragraph screed about statism and inflation. I've laughed at you a couple of times about your birth certificate nonsense, but other than that, I don't remember wasting much time on you. Don't act as if you were interested in doing anything other than posting some vague anecdote about how the country is going down and then got outraged when somebody questioned you about it.

I guess then I'll just have to ignore you if all you want to do is troll. I don't post that often but with what's happening today and really, the 16 trillion dollar gorilla in the room, don't cause you libs any concern, for all of us and our children, well I guess we are just going to get the country we deserve. Keep your head in the sand.

TGI

[Brock]

Originally Posted by The_Grand_Illusion

I guess then I'll just have to ignore you if all you want to do is troll. I don't post that often but with what's happening today and really, the 16 trillion dollar gorilla in the room, don't cause you libs any concern, for all of us and our children, well I guess we are just going to get the country we deserve. Keep your head in the sand.

TGI

Sure, I'll leave the intellectual heavy lifting to the misunderstood geniuses like yourself. Here, have a pat on the head and a sucker.

[The_Grand_Illusion]

Originally Posted by Brock

Sure, I'll leave the intellectual heavy lifting to the misunderstood geniuses like yourself. Here, have a pat on the head and a sucker.

The next round of government goodies that go through next year and we're looking at a 20+ Trillion Gorilla in the next few years. At some point, that is going to destroy us. Is that the country you want to leave for your children? I know I don't.

TGI

[Brock]

Originally Posted by The_Grand_Illusion

The next round of government goodies that go through next year and we're looking at a 20+ Trillion Gorilla in the next few years. At some point, that is going to destroy us. Is that the country you want to leave for your children? I know I don't.

TGI

There isn't anything you can do about it.

[The_Grand_Illusion]

Originally Posted by Brock

There isn't anything you can do about it.

Ok, so maybe you are starting to get what many of us are very concerned about. The right has been warning about this for years but it fell on deaf ears. There have been people in America that had that insatiable appetite for more and more government in some manner or another. People are going to have to wake up, the Democrat party for the most part, has been the party of big government for not quite a century now. The vote-for-us-we'll-dole-out-the-government-goodies mentality has led to the wrecklessness of the huge debt we have now and getting worse. What's alarming to many is now we have a majority that see this as OK. I too am not sure if there is anything we can do about it but at least we can identify the problems and go from there. We can not just blame Bush for this mess, although he did spend like a liberal Democrat at times that many were not happy with like myself. If there is nothing we can do about it, then it's just better to prepare.

TGI

[|Zach|]

What is in this thread...hilarity.


What is not in this thread...a clear argument for how statism hurt TGI's business.

[The_Grand_Illusion]

Originally Posted by |Zach|

What is in this thread...hilarity.


What is not in this thread...a clear argument for how statism hurt TGI's business.

I explained, you're distorting what I said, quit trolling me.

TGI

[Cave Johnson]

Originally Posted by ROYC75

I deal with a lot of construction and winter time firewood to the bigger cities.

Right now the TransCanadian % Keystone Pipeline is on hold and peoples pockets are hurting, not enough $ for a lot of people to buy the wood for night time fireplace burning.

Those two things are entirely, and by that I mean 100%, unrelated.

[Brock]

Originally Posted by The_Grand_Illusion

I explained, you're distorting what I said, quit trolling me.

TGI

You never did explain it.

[The_Grand_Illusion]

Originally Posted by Brock

You never did explain it.

I guess it continues to fall on deaf ears. That's too bad.

TGI