Greater clarity is slowly emerging.

Shawn Turner, spokesman for National Intelligence Director James Clapper:

"The intelligence community made substantive, analytical changes before the talking points were sent to government agency partners for their feedback," Turner said, referring to the White House, Justice Department, State Department, Pentagon and FBI. "There were no substantive changes made to the talking points after they left the intelligence community," he said.

More...

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, told CNN on Monday that Petraeus explained why the talking points were changed. "Gen. Petraeus made it clear that that change was made to protect classified sources of information, not to spin it, not to politicize it and it wasn't done at the direction of the white house."

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:DF, how do you know what the President did or did not know at a particular time?

Why, I take him at his word, of course!

He told the nation, during the second debate, that he called it "terrorism" the very next day.

So how does that prove he knew there was no demonstration, or who did it?

You're right. I should presume he's dumb, until he proves otherwise.

Again, the only reports of a demonstration were from telephone intercepts of conversations between AQ-affiliated terrorists. There were a couple of different video feeds. If, more than 5 days after the attack, the President of the United States does not know what's going on, he needs to fire nearly everyone who works for him.

Oh, yeah, there's a load of politics around this. But you are accusing a lot of people of lying, but all your evidence is from op-eds.

No, no it wasn't. In fact, the piece from Steve Hayes is not an op-ed. You may call Peters' piece an "op-ed" if you wish, but it is based on experience and contacts.

Today, CBS is reporting the DNI changed it.

That would not surprise me, even though Clapper has denied it. Clapper has made so many errors over the past few years that in any business he would already be unemployed.

My main issue, of several, is why was she sent out to say something known not to be true?

Look, if they wanted to say it's still under investigation, that's legitimate. If they declined to send someone to the Sunday shows because it was unclear, that would be legitimate. If they sent Clapper, Petraeus or Clinton to say "it's under investigation," that would be legitimate.

What was NOT legitimate is to send someone the President said "knew nothing about Benghazi" onto these shows to pretend that she knew something.

I've not mentioned the word.

No. You don't need to, it's blindingly obvious what the agenda is, now that it didn't do what it was intended to and cost the election. Time for the Republicans to double down and hope they can succeed where they failed with Clinton.

That is what you meant with Nixon, right? That he's got to resign or be thrown out?

So funny: you delight in whining when you say I've read into what you've written. You've done that x10 here.

It's not "blindingly obvious." I don't know more than 1% of the far right who think this is impeachable.

No, that's not what I meant in comparing him to Nixon. I believe Obama is an megalomaniac who will do or say anything in the furtherance of his rule because he's 100% sure that what's good for Obama is good for the country.

As I've said, they attended a previous briefing and learned nothing during it.

So how do they know the later one would not have anything new? They couldn't ask any questions during the briefing? It was more important to talk to the media?

On the sketchy basis of the three paragraph snipe freeman2 posted, I refuse to guess.

More to the point, what makes you think anyone here would be able to answer your questions?

That we don't know details of some of the most secure and classified information, or who saw and helped edit a single document doesn't prove anything. Least of all a conspiracy to rival Watergate.

I don't expect Redscape to answer the questions, certainly not those who take whatever the Administration says as divine revelation. However, the White House has acted as if there is nothing to see. If that is the case, then why not provide as many non-classified answers as possible? Why do we still not know what the President ordered done in the wake of the attacks? What could be so vital about that?

Purple wrote:Greater clarity is slowly emerging.

Shawn Turner, spokesman for National Intelligence Director James Clapper:

"The intelligence community made substantive, analytical changes before the talking points were sent to government agency partners for their feedback," Turner said, referring to the White House, Justice Department, State Department, Pentagon and FBI. "There were no substantive changes made to the talking points after they left the intelligence community," he said.

More...

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, told CNN on Monday that Petraeus explained why the talking points were changed. "Gen. Petraeus made it clear that that change was made to protect classified sources of information, not to spin it, not to politicize it and it wasn't done at the direction of the white house."

So, the questions remain:

Why Rice? (Why not the White House gardener, who had equal information)

Why not either say "we don't know, it's under investigation" or say nothing instead of sending a puppet out to say "Al Qaida has been decimated" and to spin a yarn about a demonstration gone haywire?

Schiff's interpretation of Petraeus does not explain the latter: the terrorists were not confused by the "demonstration" nonsense. They knew what happened.

To be clear: I don't care what group was named. Freeman2 has raised that red herring, as in "Do you expect them to name the group?"

No.

I expect them to say no more than is needed and true. Rice exceeded both. She said what was not helpful and she lied (inadvertently or not). The White House (President, press secretary, Secretary Clinton, etc.) told often conflicting stories. That was either dishonest or incompetent. I don't much care which.

There are certainly other issues: who was responsible for the shoddy security before the attack, in spite of repeated warnings of danger? Why was Stevens in Benghazi on 9/11? Why was the only finger lifted to help by operatives violating "stand down" directives and coming from Tripoli?

Interesting take from VDH. Final paragraph (after many questions):

Where does all this lead?

I think nowhere. Unlike in the cases of Watergate and Iran-Contra, there is no investigative press, given the media’s worry about endangering the second-term agenda of a progressive president. There is no special prosecutor salivating after a government official, as there was with Scooter Libby. “The fog of war” and accusations of “Conspiracy theory!” should be enough to bury the scandal and discredit those who seek the truth. Modifying a CIA analysis for political purposes is probably no crime. Quid pro quos are simply the polite, everyday — and legal — Washington version of blackmail. In the end, the only casualties in this sordid tale were the sterling career of David Petraeus — and four murdered Americans whose deaths were preventable.

Maybe true.

I hold out hope that somehow we'll get more truth than we have now.

Ruh-roh!

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.

No evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September.

But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government.

Nope, no evidence that the weapons killed the Americans at the Consulate. I'm sure the jihadis were very careful not to use the weapons the Administration provided to do such a horrible thing.

It's so nice of the NYT to start reporting this now. Maybe we'll get all kinds of good reporting now that the President has four more years?

If Obama created fish and loaves and gave it to the poor, you would complain that he was creating a sense of entitlement..Overall, Libya is still a success story except for those who expect absolute perfection, especially compared to the fiasco in Iraq. 5,000 Americans died in Iraq and tens of thousands sustained serious injury in an unnecessary war, yet you complain incessantly about 4 deaths in Libya. A sense of proportion would seem to be in order

freeman2 wrote:If Obama created fish and loaves and gave it to the poor, you would complain that he was creating a sense of entitlement.

And, you would THEN refuse to worship him!

Overall, Libya is still a success story except for those who expect absolute perfection, especially compared to the fiasco in Iraq. 5,000 Americans died in Iraq and tens of thousands sustained serious injury in an unnecessary war, yet you complain incessantly about 4 deaths in Libya. A sense of proportion would seem to be in order

They still don't have a government. You don't know how it's going to turn out.

I am not complaining about 4 deaths. I am complaining about the lying the Administration is doing to avoid telling us what happened. There are many unanswered questions here.

And, stop trying to pin Iraq on me. I never favored it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the cover-up of this Administration's incompetent and dishonest handling of Benghazi.

Gosh, I wish we had the Redscape archives for the heated arguments about the Iraq War that occurred back them. I don't recall your posts criticizing Bush II, but then my memory fails me as to what you argued back then. You would think the shock of your criticizing Bush would have been memorable, but I just can't recall. What I recall is arguing that there were no WMD and certainly no nuclear weapons, so there was no reason to go to war. I never realized we were on the same side of a political issue before...

I thought there were WMD, but I opposed the invasion.

I also thought Bush spent way too much.

That has nothing to do with Obama lying.

freeman2 wrote:Gosh, I wish we had the Redscape archives for the heated arguments about the Iraq War that occurred back them.

I would do anything to get those old threads back on this site somehow, especially the threads concerning that immoral, illegal war.

dag hammarsjkold wrote:

freeman2 wrote:Gosh, I wish we had the Redscape archives for the heated arguments about the Iraq War that occurred back them.

I would do anything to get those old threads back on this site somehow, especially the threads concerning that immoral, illegal war.

Dumb, yes.

Immoral? What war is "moral?" WW2 . . . and?

Illegal? No.

Saddam invades Kuwait. US and coalition liberate Kuwait. Bush 41 orders end of war after 100 hours. Saddam agrees to ceasefire, including no-fly zone. Saddam repeatedly violates no-fly zone. Saddam also refuses to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors.

Each and every time Saddam's troops fired on our planes was a violation of the ceasefire and a justification for a military response. He lost the Gulf War, signed a ceasefire, then violated it. How could the invasion have been illegal? Based on what?

The report on the events before the attack is out. I don't think it's pretty.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat ... ory_1.html

Will we ever get to find out why they lied to us afterward?

Hillary Clinton on many of the critics of what happened in Benghazi:
"they just will not live in an evidence-based world" Ouch!
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/e ... ence-based

freeman2 wrote:Hillary Clinton on many of the critics of what happened in Benghazi:
"they just will not live in an evidence-based world" Ouch!
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/e ... ence-based

4 Dead Americans.

Lots of lies from the Administration.

Obfuscation from the Secretary of State.

She's got a lot of nerve, but little competence or integrity.

Shocking.

Graham managed to elicit a number of damaging statements from the two. Not one aircraft had been deployed during the attack; not one boot left the ground outside of Libya. As far as the 281 concurrent threat reports that Panetta and Dempsey claimed kept them from considering Benghazi a special threat, Graham asks how many of those cables came from US Ambassadors stating specifically (as Stevens’ did) that an American installation was incapable of defending itself against a sustained attack and that government buildings nearby were flying al-Qaeda flags — “because I want to know about them, if they do,” Graham adds. Dempsey tries to push that off to State, at which time Graham informs Dempsey that Hillary Clinton claimed never to have seen that cable, even though Dempsey clearly had, which he admits is “surprising.”

SEN. GRAHAM: Are you surprised that the president of the United States never called you, Secretary Panetta, and say, ‘how’s it going?’

SEC. PANETTA: I — you know, normally in these situations –

SEN. GRAHAM: Did he know the level of threat that –

SEC. PANETTA: Let — well, let me finish the answer. We were deploying the forces. He knew we were deploying the forces. He was being kept updated –

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, I hate to interrupt you, but I got limited time. We didn’t deploy any forces. Did you call him back — wait a minute –

SEC. PANETTA: No, but the event — the event was over by the time we got –

SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Secretary, you didn’t know how long the attack would last. Did you ever call him and say, Mr. President, it looks like we don’t have anything to get there anytime soon?

SEC. PANETTA: The event was over before we could move any assets.

SEN. GRAHAM: It lasted almost eight hours. And my question to you is during that eight-hour period, did the president show any curiosity about how’s this going, what kind of assets do you have helping these people? Did he ever make that phone call?

SEC. PANETTA: Look, there is no question in my mind that the president of the United States was concerned about American lives and, frankly, all of us were concerned about American lives.

SEN. GRAHAM: With all due respect, I don’t believe that’s a credible statement if he never called and asked you, are we helping these people; what’s happening to them? We have a second round, and we’ll take it up then.

So, the President did nothing and the Secretary of State was oblivious, or she lied.

Pathetic.