A guide to GOP's Benghazi obsession

A guide to GOP's Benghazi obsession

(CNN) -- What happened in Benghazi, Libya, was a tragedy -- not a scandal. And no amount of Republican witch hunting or wishful thinking will make it otherwise.

Now a new e-mail "reveals" what was already plainly known, that the White House participated in crafting talking points in the aftermath of attacks in Libya and around the globe. Republicans claim the White House "politicized" the talking points. The irony, of course, is that Republicans have been desperate to politicize Benghazi from day one. Fueled by the relentless conservative message machine, it can be hard to have a reasonable discussion about Benghazi, one that relies on facts. So let's try to have that conversation here.

What exactly are the Republican accusations regarding Benghazi?

The main Republican critique appears to be that the White House and State Department politicized talking points given to U.N Ambassador Susan Rice, who spoke about the attacks on American TV five days later. Republicans argue the White House deliberately downplayed the involvement of al Qaeda and played up the spontaneous nature of the protests as a reaction to an anti-Islam video, to avoid tarnishing President Obama's national security record in advance of the 2012 presidential election. This, despite the fact that the White House talking points matched those produced by the CIA.

Can't we have an honest, open investigation and settle this once and for all?

We have. Several times. And then some. So far, Politico reports, Republican congressional investigations on Benghazi have included "13 hearings, 25,000 pages of documents and 50 briefings." In a letter written in March 2014 responding to a request for information from a ranking Democrat in the House Armed Services Committee, the Pentagon notes:

"The department has devoted thousands of man-hours to responding to numerous and often repetitive congressional requests regarding Benghazi, which includes time devoted to approximately 50 congressional hearings, briefings and interviews which the department has led or participated in. The total cost of compliance with Benghazi-related congressional requests sent to the department and other agencies is estimated to be in the millions of dollars."

A bipartisan report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence determined that "there were no efforts by the White House or any other executive branch entities to 'cover-up' facts or make alterations for political purposes." The report did say the attack could have been prevented and blamed the State Department, military and U.S. intelligence community for failing to do so.
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My take:

It has been repeatedly confirmed that there was no dishonesty from the White House about the Benghazi incident. This latest committee hearing will also result in nothing. The many Republican hearings have confirmed this. However, they're determined to impeach a Democrat, and the Benghazi incident seems to be their best shot. An election is coming up, and the Republicans in Congress think that sustaining the fake Benghazi scandal, or merely suggesting an impeachment, will sully the Democrats enough to get them seats. In reality, the Democrats have steadily gained in popularity since the Benghazi hearings. While the Democrats have nothing to lose, two whole years of these useless hearings by the Republicans are costing tax payers and distracting Americans from much bigger issues.

 

WoW CNN isn't trying to pretend anymore. They should change the name to DNN.

 

Well if they told the truth, there is nothing to worry about. They aren't going to stop the hearings just because CNN and Democrats said there is nothing there. But listening to Hannity yesterday, he showed several Obama officials blaming it on those videos and one of them saying it was Clinton.

 

Ha! It's deja vu all over again . . . because during the 1990s it wasn't called the Clinton News Network for nothing . . .

 

While you still have a hard core group of fanatical Obama supporters inside the DNC hierarchy, on the whole those people are massively disappointed in what sort of president Barack Obama has been and -- I have no doubt -- long, long ago came to bitterly regret tossing Hillary aside in favor of a fellow who turned out to be all image and no substance.

My point being that if it came down to having to sacrifice either Obama or Hillary to the GOP investigations into Benghazi -- being able to save only one of them -- then the DNC would select the heir apparent crown princess Hillary Clinton to save, since she is their only hope of keeping the Dem Party in control of the Executive Branch at the end of 2016. They can't afford to let Hillary go down in flames over Benghazi-gate and so they would sacrifice Barack for her if it came down to making a choice between them. I . . . can't . . . wait.

Post Script: By the way, if the DNC does sacrifice Barack in order to salvage Hillary for the 2016 presidential run then I fully intend to call them "RACISTS!" at every opportunity . . .

 

Just another leftist attempt to get the bloodhounds off Obama's scent and you can gauge the effectiveness of a charge by how many progressives post disingenuous crud trying to plead there's nothing to see, though we can all see it anyway.

 

Regardless of their feeble attempts to marginalize, the truth on Benghazi will come out. There was a major failure of leadership at the State Dept that lead to the death's of 4 Americans including the first American Ambassador to die in the line of duty since 1979. A whitewash at this point serves no one especially the families of the dead and the American people as a whole. What disconnect at the State Dept of it's leadership did it take to get from..............this........

to 09/11/2012?

Hillary Clinton's State Dept actually REDUCED security in Benghazi, despite pleas from Ambassador Steven's and others to INCREASE it. Liberals and Democrats want to frame the Benghazi attack as beginning when the attack did, so there was nothing that could be done. Nothing could be further from the truth. A Benghazi terror plot had been thwarted as far back as 12/2011, a FULL 9 months before the attack. There was plenty of time to execute an exit/defense strategy. In order for this never to happen again, it is necessary to closely examine the breakdown in leadership of Clinton's State Dept. This would be relatively easy if they were forthcoming with all information. Unfortunately, the Democrats have chosen the path of secrecy instead of the transparency President Obama promised us would be the touchstone of his administration.

[video=youtube;72g7qmeP1dE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72g7qmeP1dE[/video]

This could be over in a few weeks if the President just ordered the State dept to fully cooperate with the investigation. But that's not what's happening, so it will become an unfortunate spectacle as the Republicans must drag the truth out of Obama's touchstone.

In my opinion, the Democrats have circled the wagons in an attempt to save Hillary Clinton for 2016 from her royal screw up. To that end they are smearing their whole party instead of cutting their losses and let her go under the bus due to her own failures. It's quite sad really. But at the end of the day, if she couldn't handle the State Dept well enough to ensure the first American Ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979 ...WASN'T, why would anyone even dream she could handle being President of the United States? The only thing that can possibly save the Democrat party would be a young Democrat firebrand willing to step up in a Bi-Partisan way and clear the deck of the Democrat old school that would bring this down on America, bringing forth a new progressive party that believes in accountability over Dynasty.

 

It's easy to make a 'shrug it off' article when you really don't care to know the truth.

 

Yes, it's an attempt to issue the Dem Party base with patented talking points, which in the face of the latest memo and Mr. Ultra Cautious Beohner finally feeling confident enough about the amount of material uncovered to create a dedicated House panel to investigate, the Left has got way more problems to deal with than just issuing Dem voters their patented talking points.

Psssst . . . on the other hand now would be a great time to be an accomplished defense attorney for crooked politicians and for staffers who might just get hung out to dry.

 

How ridiculous?!?!? Why should anybody care about their president comitting treason?

 

13 hearings on Benghazi, yet not one hearing on the countless killed in Iraq!!

The sad fact is at this point Republicans will never give up they have already dug their heels in and convicted Obama on everything. So let them have their hearing as for the 14 times and waste more money. This will never end. Bunch of (*)(*)(*)(*)ing crybabies this is what happens when you let the Tea Party run everything.

 

It's rather laughable how certain Dems think that Benghazi is such a "waste of time," when they had no problem with the 3 or 4 years "wasted" on the Valerie Plame investigation.....which did not include 4 Americans and a U.S. Ambassador being killed in a PLANNED terrorist attack. A PLANNED terrorist attack that even before it was over THIS administration began spinning and trying to save their political butts. That was more important to them than saving those guys over there.....especially the two who were still alive at the same time Obama and Hillary were planning their political strategy on a late-night phone call. The Commander-In-Chief was awol.

You got one thing right...."The report did say the attack could have been prevented and blamed the State Department, military and U.S. intelligence community for failing to do so." That's damming enough. But then you add the FACT they tried to spin it and blame it on somebody other than themselves......brings in the attempt to "cover-up." In the process, they LIED to the American people. Not a little lie; a HUGE lie....and right before an election, depriving the American people of knowing how all that Obama had been telling them on the campaign trail....'we got bin Laden and al Qaeda is on the run," just wasn't the facts. It was not the 3rd rate burglary that ended Richard Nixon; it was his involvement in the lies and cover-up afterwards.

But don't worry; I doubt Obama would EVER be impeached no matter what he does. He could walk up in front of the Democrat leadership AND the mainstream press, shoot someone in the face killing them, and they wouldn't care.

 

or....STATE-RUN MEDIA. At least when a Democrat is president. Otherwise, they are just the opposite.

 

Um . . . Democrats endorsed the war against Iraq -- something that REALLY pissed me off at the time, by the way -- and so you actually expect them to investigate themselves?

 

The Democrats controlled Congress in 2009 and 2010, you'll need to ask they why they didn't chase shadows.

 

The Valerie Plame scandal investigation was a good riddance since the scandal revealed the Bush administration was not concerned with facts or the truth, but only respected and reciprocated the loyalty and obedience towards your political friends and superiors. Plame was punished by the Bush administration for publishing a fair and objective report based on her husband's findings during his trip to Niger when he could not establish uranium trade links between that country and Iraq which ran contrary to what Bush said. So the truth did not matter, only what the boss said, for the sake of the cause. The Benghazi investigation likewise should be good for democracy.

 

The truth will be told, again. No wrongdoing will be found, again. The Republicans will not be satisfied, again. They will start an investigation, again.

Actually, these latest accusations are the weakest sauce yet. They're going to investigate whether or not talking points were passed from the CIA, to the White House, then to officials.

Spoiler alert: we already know where the talking points came from.

And yet the Ambassador still chose to go there despite the risks.

The White House should be given a warning that reckless Ambassadors choosing to go to dangerous regions will be blamed on them.

Wonderful... please enlighten me and tell me your conspiracy.

 

The Obama Administration sent in a security force 25 minutes after learning of the situation. How is this being "AWOL"?

 

What conspiracy? You think for a second that if Obama and his administration really did lie about it (it looks more and more like they did) and tried to spin it to minimize the impact, and then lied about lying about it, that Democrats would want that to come out?

Do you really think the same people who covered it up to begin with want the investigation to be successful? That's why they are trying to conceal e-mails right?

 

That's your big conspiracy?

I guess by your logic, Romney cheated on his taxes that he didn't release. You know, guilty until proven innocent. Meanwhile, the White House did release the emails and there's nothing damning in them.

 

Um.... yes, he probably did. I cheat on my taxes. Who doesn't?

What's that have anything to do with this?

And we dont know what was in the e-mails because they have been altered and edited. Someone will talk though. Someone kept a copy. And the walls will come tumbling down.

Most transparent administration ever huh? You think that's been true so far?

 

GUIDE FOR BENGHAZI APOLOGIST

STEP ONE: When people point out that personal on the ground knew right after the aftermath of the attack on the consulate was a organized attack, and not a demonstration turned violent-

Stick fingers in ears, stamp feet on the ground, and scream "Nah ah, that didn't happen."

STEP TWO: When critics point out that Obama, Susan Rice, and other talking heads intentionally mislead the country by spewing a false narrative surrounding the attack on the consulate in Benghazi-

Stick fingers in ears, stamp feet on the ground, and scream "You hate the president because he's black."

STEP THREE- When critics point out that email that where turned over two years after the Benghazi attack highlights a link between Whitehouse political operatives preping Susan Rice to blame the YouTube video and the attack on the Benghazi, and not a policy failure has been made public-

Stick fingers in your ears, stamp your feet on the ground, and scream "But...but...but...Bush."

Ya, I could do this all day long.

 

It's an example of your logic. "If you can't prove it wrong, then it must be right" is an appeal to ignorance fallacy.

Do you think that the Obama Administration should hand over private information at the whim of a Republican?

As for emails being edited, does this look like it has been edited? It's what all of the fuss is about, and the only thing I see edited is Rhodes' email. Scandalous!

 

If their's nothing to hide then their's nothing to worry about. So why all the worry?

 

There is no worry. The whole thing is goofy. It's like the whole birther nonsense.