http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...628-story.html
The administration looked for an official to go on the Sunday morning talk shows Sept. 16. Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, sent a request to Clinton but never heard back. The thankless job fell to Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Rice had little knowledge of the events. She relied in part on background information from Rhodes.
Here the report gets at the politics of Benghazi, because it shows that among Rhodes' talking points to Rice was this specific goal to communicate to the viewing public: "To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."
In other words: In mid-September 2012, in the wake of a terrorist attack in Libya, with Obama up for re-election in two months and Clinton's own presidential aspirations at risk, the White House sent a lesser representative (Rice) in front of the cameras. Armed with bad information, she insisted that four Americans died as the result of a spontaneous protest — not because of Washington's failure to anticipate a terrorist attack on an isolated U.S. compound in unstable Libya on the anniversary of 9/11.
According to the report, several Libya experts at State flipped out when they heard Rice peddling the demonstration story. "Off the reservation on five networks!" wrote one. "WH (White House) very worried about the politics. This was all their doing," wrote another.
Obama, too, went uncorrected publicly by Clinton when, in several public appearances, he conflated Arab world protests about the video with the terrorist attack in Benghazi. In a Sept. 25 speech at the U.N., Obama cited the video six times.
In my opinion, Gowdy and company soft-pedaled this "lapse". They simply presented these facts as they occurred. First, when it was time to face the media, Clinton we're told, wasn't available when the White House Staff (Rhodes) was calling to coordinate a response. So, the gang that couldn't shoot straight brought out a "lesser representative": Rice.
The fact indicate that the
State Dept knew early on that this wasn't a spontaneous uprising in reaction to a video: "still in the early hours of the activity" they knew. The YouTube video narrative appears to have come from Ben Rhodes, who gave it to Susan Rice because the White House wanted to "underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."
Rice, armed with the video story fiction, spread it all over the media in Sunday morning. I remember watching it, and at the time I was thinking that her story was not at all credible, and wondering why in the hell there were riots going on over a YouTube video that no one had ever hear of before.
We're asked to believe that this was all a great big misunderstanding or miscommunication. Some less than discriminating folks here apparently apparently subscribe to that notion as well:
Yet, this "little misunderstanding" continued long after. Obama spewed the fiction all over the UN over a week later. The State Dept KNEW it was BS. Obama and Hillary appeared together and lied to the families about the attack being about a video as the bodies of the victims arrived back in the US:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSooz2wXpes
Why? It can only be concluded that there was a decision to pedal a lie for political expediency. Rhodes didn't work for Clinton. He worked at the White House. Clinton worked for Obama. Obama would have been fully briefed by the State Dept - Clinton and staff - about what happened in Benghazi, probably almost in real time assuming he answered the phone.
For Obama and Clinton to be willing to pedal such a bald faced lie because of concern over their owner personal political fortunes, to continue to do it as the bodies of the victims are being off-loaded right in front of both of them, and continue to do it afterwards, is just about the most disgusting behavior imaginable.