The Other McCain: It has been a tough week for the guy who used to be somebody

That “used to be” being Charles Johnson of course. As I read Stacy McCain’s post on CJ, I was floored. Who knew Charles Johnson was still blogging? I thought maybe he had run off to join some cult that worships pony tails or something. But it turns out that Johnson is still around, and still making an ass of himself

The World’s Least Credible Blogger™ has been tying himself into laughable knots of hilarious self-contradiction lately, attempting to defend President Wiretap Benghazi Failure against . . . Well, facts.

Facts have always been optional with Obama, who has relied on his media-generated force field to survive all previous encounters with unfortunate reality. Obama’s fawning fanboy Charles Johnson fancies himself an apostle of Scientific Truth (and imagines his antagonists are all ignorant bigots), but the relentless drip, drip, drip of scandalous facts the past few days have been quite hard on CJ’s self-image.

Case in point: Diary of Daedalus catches CJ attempting to redefine the word “bogus” as “vastly overblown,” so as to dismiss as false or exaggerated the accounts of how Tea Party groups and other conservatives were targeted by the IRS.

So, Johnson falls back on the deny, deny, deny tactic. It does not matter that Conservative groups WERE targeted, or that the IRS ADMMITED that they targeted Conservative groups, not to Johnson.  Stacy gets in one more barb at CJ while directing us to a list of his recent failures

Scroll down Diary of Daedalus and enjoy the ridiculous failures. That is to say, if you still remember who Charles Johnson is. Or rather, was.

 

 

Michelle Malkin on the Obama scandals

*VIDEO* Judge Jeanine Pirro Verbally Bitchslaps Obama Regime Over Benghazi Lies

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Benghazi update. More whistle blowers looking to tell their stories

Potentially devastating

Jay Carney: Romney at fault for Benghazi story

It takes a special kind of ass hat to lie like that. Carney is a shoe in for an MSNBS gig after his days as Obama ‘s Chief of Propaganda

 

VIDEO- Crowder on Benghazi

Also, CNN is even reporting that Team Obama and Hillary lied like cheap rugs about Benghazi

Beyond partisanship indeed. the fact is Team Obama lied, this was not spin, it was complete and utter bullshit. They put political gains over the truth and the nation as a whole.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman: More Benghazi Hearings Coming

Exclusive: House Foreign Affairs Chair: More Benghazi Hearings Coming – Big Peace

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The day after the House Oversight Committee’s blockbuster hearing on the Benghazi terrorist attack of September 11, 2012, House Foreign Relations Committee chair Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) told Breitbart News that the Oversight Committee would hold more hearings:

The Committee continues its examination of the deadly Benghazi terrorist attacks so we can ensure that the bureaucratic failures that left State Department personnel vulnerable are not repeated. The Committee will continue to review the responsibility of senior State Department officials for the failure to provide proper security prior to the Benghazi attacks and needed improvements in embassy security.

Based on testimony in Wednesday’s Benghazi hearing that contradicted the rosy findings of the Obama-appointed Accountability Review Board, Royce has also introduced the Accountability Review Board Reform Act of 2013. He penned a letter to other House members on Thursday encouraging such reforms to the Accountability Review Board process. “Yesterday,” Royce wrote, “the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing that reaffirmed the flaws in the Benghazi ARB’s review. Specifically, the ARB found that the responsibility for the ‘systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies within the State Department stopped at the Assistant Secretary level. As we heard throughout the hearing, this was simply not the case.”

Royce’s proposed legislation would help sever the bond between the ARB and the State Department – currently, the Secretary of State “appoints four out of the ARB’s five members – a clear majority that could influence the outcome of any investigation.” It would change the ARB staffing so that it isn’t as reliant on the State Department. Board members with conflicts of interest would be banned. The Secretary of State would have to hand over a list of staffers to Congress. And the ARB report would have to go to Congress, not merely the Secretary of State.

“These improvements seek to strengthen future ARB investigations to help avoid disasters like Benghazi,” Royce wrote. “Please join me in co-sponsoring this legislation.”

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Click HERE For Rest Of Story

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Benghazi Talking Points Changed 12 Times By Obama Regime, Scrubbed Of Terror References

ABC Releases Big Benghazi Report: Talking Points Changed 12 Times, ‘Dramatically Edited By Administration,’ And Scrubbed Of Terror References – The Blaze

The talking points used by Amb. Susan Rice on the Sunday shows on the weekend after the 9/11/12 terror attack in Benghazi underwent at least 12 edits – including revisions by the Obama administration’s State Department – new emails obtained by ABC News show. Those revisions included scrubbing all references to an Al Qaeda-affiliated group and all references to previous CIA warnings about a terror threat.

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From ABC:

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl said on Friday morning that the talking points were “dramatically edited by the administration” and that State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland played a major role in them.

From the report:

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:

“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”

In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned…”

Karl explained the new information:

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In a addition, a new report by the Weekly Standard says then-CIA director David Petraeus “was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15″:

Before circulating the talking points to administration policymakers in the early evening of Friday, September 14, CIA officials changed “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda” to simply “Islamic extremists.” But elsewhere, they added new contextual references to radical Islamists. They noted that initial press reports pointed to Ansar al Sharia involvement and added a bullet point highlighting the fact that the agency had warned about another potential attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in the region. “On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the [Cairo] Embassy and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.” All told, the draft of the CIA talking points that was sent to top Obama administration officials that Friday evening included more than a half-dozen references to the enemy​ – ​al Qaeda, Ansar al Sharia, jihadists, Islamic extremists, and so on.

The version Petraeus received in his inbox Saturday, however, had none. The only remaining allusion to the bad guys noted that “extremists” might have participated in “violent demonstrations.”

In an email at 2:44 p.m. to Chip Walter, head of the CIA’s legislative affairs office, Petraeus expressed frustration at the new, scrubbed talking points, noting that they had been stripped of much of the content his agency had provided. Petraeus noted with evident disappointment that the policymakers had even taken out the line about the CIA’s warning on Cairo. The CIA director, long regarded as a team player, declined to pick a fight with the White House and seemed resigned to the propagation of the administration’s preferred narrative. The final decisions about what to tell the American people rest with the national security staff, he reminded Walter, and not with the CIA.

All of the information doesn’t seem to bode well for Press Secretary Jay Carney, who said back in November that only a “single adjustment” had been made.

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“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney said on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Still, Carney is standing by the remarks, and now seems to be carefully clarifying the difference between the White House and the “administration” and noting the CIA still signed off on them.

“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney told ABC. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”

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Click HERE For Rest Of Story

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The Left reveals it’s Benghazi defense strategy

A strongly worded letter? No Instead, they are just going to close their eyes tighter and chant “How dare you”

Robert Stacy McCain @rsmccain

Associated Press: Let’s Quote Democrats Dismissing the Testimony Before We Quote the Witness http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/05/08/house-republicans-seek-answers-benghazi-hearing/8CCL4XE24tnHJNqBXCa4YJ/story.html … | @vjmfilms

8:06 PM – 8 May 2013

“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’s hard for the American people to make sense of that, because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.”
– Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sept. 14, 2012, while standing over the caskets of the four Americans killed at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya

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?

Quite obviously, it makes a very important difference to Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) in their tireless efforts to convince Americans that Obama’s foreign policy is working, and especially to persuade us that the fine public servants at the top levels of the State Department did nothing wrong in the Benghazi affair.

When you point out the obvious facts — that the “Arab Spring” was a bad idea, that everybody in the administration lied through their teeth about Benghazi, and that the major media are enthusiastic volunteers in a partisan P.R. effort to assist in the cover-up — liberals go into fake indignation mode: How dare you?

The pathetic nature of the Democratic Party is astounding, but, they are what they are. Morality? Patriotism? Justice? Putting country first and finding out the truth? How dare we expect such upright principles from the Democrats!

 

Blow-By-Blow: How Obama & Hillary Left Americans To Die (Arnold Ahlert)

Blow-By-Blow: How Obama & Hillary Left Americans To Die – Arnold Ahlert

Wednesday on Capitol Hill, three impeccable witnesses offered the clearest evidence to date that the Obama administration’s response to Benghazi before, during and after the terrorist attack that claimed the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, State Department employee Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen A. Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods, was a deadly combination of ineptitude, political calculations, and outright lying.

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Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant Secretary of State for counterterrorism; Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya; and Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer in Libya, offered unshakeable testimony, despite efforts by several Democratic lawmakers to protect both the current administration and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, their party’s most viable presidential candidate for 2016. What the witnesses averred reveals a grim web of deceit likely orchestrated by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to cover up the order to ground U.S. rescue teams that could have easily saved our besieged countrymen in Benghazi.

Some of the most compelling and emotional testimony was provided by Hicks, who offered the House Oversight and Government Reform committee a damning blow-by-blow account of the September 11, 2012 attack: In Tripoli at the time, Hicks recounted how he had spoken with Stevens early in the evening, and there was no sign of unusual activity. After relaxing for a while, he got an alert that Benghazi was under attack. When he checked his cell phone he saw two numbers, one of which he didn’t recognize. He called that number first and got Stevens on the phone. “Greg! We’re under attack!” said Stevens, according to Mr. Hicks.

Later, when it became clear that Stevens was missing, the first concern was that he had been taken by terrorists. “We began to hear also that the ambassador’s been taken to a hospital,” said Hicks. “We learn that it is in a hospital which is controlled by Ansar al-Shariah, the group that Twitter feeds had identified as leading the attack on the consulate.” As this information was coming in, a “response team” from Tripoli arrived at the Benghazi airport, one that Hicks thought might become involved in a “hostage rescue” operation, even as officials worried they were being “baited into a trap.”

Hicks then spoke of the mortars that landed on the compound shortly after a group of Americans fleeing the consulate arrived at the annex. The first mortar landed among a group of Libyans who had helped bring the Americans to safety. “The next was short,” he said. “The next three landed on the roof.”

Those were the mortars that killed Doherty and Woods.

Hicks was visibly choked up when he recounted learning about Stevens’ death from the Libyan prime minister. “I think it’s the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life,” he said.

In one of the most stunning portions of the hearing, Hicks confirmed the chilling refusal of the Obama administration to send in readily available U.S. assets to stop the consulate slaughter. This order to “stand down” was given not once, but at least twice. Hicks also revealed that an explicit order from the chain of command prevented a four-man special forces rescue team in Tripoli from getting to the Americans trapped at the annex. He noted the order came from “either AFRICOM or SOCAFRICA” and that the team was “furious” when they were told to stand down. “I will quote Lieutenant Colonel Gibson,” said Hicks, referring to the officer on the receiving end of that command. “He said, ‘This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.’” Hicks’ testimony on this point directly contradicts recent statements from the Obama-run Pentagon. “There was never any kind of stand-down order to anybody,” said Maj. Robert Furman, Pentagon spokesman, on Monday.

Yet Mark Thompson also testified that he tried to get a Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) comprised of special ops and intelligence personnel deployed, and he, too, was told to stand down. According to a source interviewed by Breitbart.com, only President Obama, or someone acting on his authority, could have given the stand down order. As we know from testimony provided by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, President Obama met with the two officials on September 11 at 5 p.m. EDT for 30 minutes – less than an hour-and-a-half into the attack – and was supposedly never heard from him again for the rest of the evening. The very next day, Obama headed to a campaign fundraiser in Las Vegas.

The Obama administration undoubtedly understood that its decision to leave defenseless Americans, including our ambassador, to needlessly die at the hands of al-Qaeda-linked jihadists would not go over well for a commander-in-chief in the throes of a presidential election and a secretary of state angling for the Oval Office in 2016. Hicks’ testimony affirmed suspicions that administration officials conspired to conceal the nature of the attack by concocting an absolutely fictitious account of events involving a “spontaneous” attack prompted by an anti-Islam YouTube video. Hicks testified that he had personally told former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the Benghazi raid was a terrorist attack at 2 a.m. that same night. He recounted that “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go,” a reality echoed by Libyan President Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had “no doubt that this was pre-planned, predetermined.” Magariaf made this assertion the very day before UN ambassador Susan Rice went out to peddle the lie that a “spontaneous demonstration” had gotten out of hand due to an Internet video.

When Hicks heard Rice, he was appalled. “My jaw dropped, and I was embarrassed,” he said.

Rice was a willing mouthpiece for the two biggest promoters of the Internet video lie: President Obama and Hillary Clinton

In reality, Rice was a willing mouthpiece for the two biggest promoters of the Internet video lie: President Obama and Hillary Clinton. In fact, the State Department spent $70,000 to run advertisements in Pakistan featuring the two of them rejecting the contents of the video, and promoting tolerance for all religions. Even more remarkable, despite committee Democrats implying that a thorough investigation was conducted internally by the State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB), Hillary Clinton was never interviewed by the ARB.

Hillary’s entire take on the matter can be whittled down to the infamous statement she made during the U.S. House Oversight Committee hearing on May 8, 2013. After being questioned as to why the administration misled the American people, Clinton became indignant. “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans,” she said. “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?”

Eric Nordstrom, who became emotional when he described his friends and other personnel who lost their lives in the attack, provided an answer to that question. “It matters to me personally and it matters to my colleagues – to my colleagues at the Department of State,” he said, his voice breaking. “It matters to the American public for whom we serve. And, most importantly, it matters to the friends and family of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods who were murdered on September 11, 2012.”

Nordstrom further testified in writing that Hillary Clinton waived security requirements for the Benghazi consulate despite high and critical threat levels in the six categories of security standards established under the Overseas Security Policy Board and the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999. The waiver can only be authorized by the Secretary of State, who cannot delegate that responsibility to someone else. “If the Secretary of State did not waive these requirements, who did so by ordering occupancy of the facilities in Benghazi and Tripoli?” Nordstrom wrote.

Nordstrom also offered his take on the ARB. “I found the ARB process that I was involved in to be professional and the unclassified recommendations reasonable and positive. However, it is not what is contained within the report that I take exception to but what is left unexamined,” Nordstrom wrote. “Specifically, I’m concerned with the ARB’s decision to focus its attention at the Assistant Secretary level and below, where the ARB felt that ‘the decision-making in fact takes place,’” he wrote.

State Department actively sought to intimidate witnesses

Hicks testified that the State Department actively sought to intimidate witnesses in order to prevent facts surrounding the Benghazi attack from being leaked. He revealed that a top State Department official called him to demand a report from his meeting with a congressional delegation and expressed unhappiness that a State Department lawyer was not present for the session. “I was instructed not to allow the RSO, the acting deputy chief of mission – me – to be personally interviewed,” he said. Later in the hearing, Hicks noted that State seemed especially concerned with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who has done yeoman’s work tracking down the survivors of the attack, kept under wraps by the administration. “We were not to be personally interviewed by Congressman Chaffetz,” said Hicks, who added that Cheryl Mills, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, “demanded a report on the visit” that did take place.

The State Department was caught in another lie yesterday as well. While the hearings were getting underway, Republicans revealed that Ambassador Thomas Pickering, co-chairman of the ARB, refused to testify. State countered that Republicans refused to let him. Frederick Hill, spokesman for Committee chairman Darryl Issa (R-CA), produced a letter dated February 22 inviting Pickering to testify. “Ambassador Pickering initially told the Committee he was not available on that date,” Hill told ABC News. “When asked about a different date, he said he was not inclined to testify.”

The State Department isn’t the only entity interested in controlling the flow of information in this tragedy. House Democrats embarrassingly struggled to distract from the proceedings with absurd non sequiturs and personal attacks. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking Democratic at the Benghazi hearing, told one of the whistleblowers to “protect your fellow employees.” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) suggested it was unpatriotic to challenge the administration’s narrative. “I find it truly disturbing and very unfortunate that when Americans come under attack, the first thing some did in this country was attack Americans,” she said. “Attack the military; attack the president; attack the State Department; attack the former senator from the great state of New York, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) blamed Republicans and congressional budget cuts for the terror attack, even as he apparently remains oblivious to the reality that it was Democrats who insisted the lion’s share of the budget cuts induced by sequestration come from the military.

Media are also shamelessly entrenched in the campaign to suppress the facts surround the Benghazi attack

Media are also shamelessly entrenched in the campaign to suppress the facts surround the Benghazi attack. Politico reports that CBS News execs are getting “increasingly frustrated” with premiere investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s stories on Benghazi, which they consider “dangerously close to advocacy.”

Dangerously close to honesty is more like it, which is exactly what CBS is worried about. As Washington Post explains, “While other media, particularly Fox News, have been similarly skeptical about the official narrative about Benghazi, Attkisson and CBS might put the story in a different light,” the paper reports. “As a much-decorated reporter from a news outlet often derided by conservatives as a liberal beacon, Attkisson and her network flip the usual script on this highly politicized story. That is, it’s hard to peg her and her network as Republican sympathizers out to score political points against a Democratic president.” With Attkisson, a self-described “political agnostic,” questioning the administration, Bengahzi can no longer be dismissed by the left as a vast right-wing conspiracy. “People can say what they want about me, I don’t care,” Attkisson says. “I just want to get the information out there.”

Attkisson notwithstanding, it remains to be seen whether the remainder of the mainstream media will now demand answers from the Obama administration on why it chose to needlessly throw American servicemen to the wolves in Benghazi and why, exactly, it was necessary to contrive a totally false account of events. The Obama administration is fighting hard to distract from the severity of the scandal. White House press secretary Jay Carney claimed that continued scrutiny of Benghazi is nothing more than an attempt by Republicans to “politicize” the issue. “This is a subject that has from its beginning been subject to attempts to politicize it by Republicans, while in fact what happened in Benghazi was a tragedy,” he said, adding that the incident has been “been looked at exhaustively.” Carney further noted that the ongoing pursuit is “part of an effort to chase after what isn’t the substance here.” The entire substance, according to Carney, is the reality that the consulate was attacked, four Americans were killed, and the president will make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Carney saved his most ridiculous assertion for last, claiming the administration’s editing of the talking points, in which wholesale changes and rampant deletions were made, (the details of which can be seen here) were “stylistic and not substantive.” “We’ve been very clear about the specific edits that were made at the suggestion of the White House.”

That is an utter lie. Version one of the CIA report included references to an “attack,” “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qa’ida,” the involvement of Ansar al Sharia and the fact that “wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in Libya contributed to the lethality of the attacks,” which were all completely removed. Furthermore, at no time did any of the versions mention an anti-Islamic Internet video as being the catalyst for the attack.

The Obama administration can try spin this debacle any way it likes

The Obama administration can try spin this debacle any way it likes, but it can’t spin away four dead Americans, two separate “stand down” orders and the State Department’s advanced knowledge of inadequate security. They can’t change the reality that no rescue was even attempted over the course of a seven-hour battle, that brave Americans were left to fend for themselves, or that the administration sat on the details of this story for eight months—two most crucial of which occurred prior to the 2012 election. Even now the administration continues to stonewall every effort to get to the truth.

But with the truth finally coming to the surface, the remaining question observers are left with is why the Obama administration abandoned Americans who were easily within reach. While the lies used to cover up this disaster are easy to explain, the rationale behind the unconscionable stand down orders must still be determined. As the facts stand now, the likely explanations do not bode well for President Obama. The circumstances suggest the decision was made by a callous and desperate president struggling with a re-election campaign, a central plank of which was that al-Qaeda had been decimated and was “on the run”—not something affirmed by news of al-Qaeda operatives’ murder of our ambassador and military personnel. Or perhaps our commander-in-chief was too busy being our campaigner-in-chief and simply didn’t care about the carnage unfolding on his watch, which he declined to prevent. In any case, it is incumbent on the Obama administration to provide a rationale for its disastrous decision. As persistent Americans have shown, the investigation will not cease until that occurs.

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*AUDIO* Mark Levin Berates Obama Lackeys In The News Media Over Their Lack Of Benghazi Coverage

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Obama Used Taxpayer Money In Benghazi Cover-Up (Video)

Obama Used Taxpayer Funds In Benghazi Cover-Up – WorldNetDaily

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As the House Oversight Committee hears from witnesses presenting a chronological timeline that starkly contrasts with initial statements by the Obama administration on the Benghazi attacks, it is instructive to recall how the administration spent $70,000 in taxpayer funds on an ad denouncing an anti-Muhammad film.

The ad aired on Pakistani television amid White House claims that the Benghazi attacks were caused by popular protests against an obscure Muhammad film released on YouTube.

It would later emerge that no such protests took place and that the Obama administration almost immediately had evidence the Benghazi attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The ads reportedly aired on seven Pakistani networks. They also came in response to protests in Pakistan that were reportedly a reaction to the film. However, it was the claim of popular protests in Benghazi at the time that garnered the biggest public reaction from the White House.

The Sept. 19, 2012, ads feature Obama and Clinton making statements against the film in the wake of the Benghazi attacks, which transpired one week prior.

“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation of respect, that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” Obama says in the ad, which is stamped “paid content.”

Clinton then denies any official U.S. involvement in producing the “Innocence of Muslims” video.

“We absolutely reject its contents,” she says.

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The Obama administration blamed the YouTube video for what it claimed were popular protests that engulfed the Benghazi mission.

On Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, three days before the ads were released, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five morning television programs to discuss the White House response to the Benghazi attacks. In nearly identical statements, she asserted that the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”

Rice’s spot on “Face the Nation” was preceded by the new president of Libya, Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had “no doubt that this was pre-planned, predetermined.”

Still, other Obama administration officials made similar claims about the film being behind the Benghazi attacks.

Scores of news reports, video and intelligence evidence that was immediately available to the government had demonstrated there were no popular protests outside the Benghazi facility and that the attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The claims about the anti-Muhammad film being behind the Benghazi attacks are also now called into question by a top State Department official who said he knew immediately the attacks were terror strikes, not a protest turned violent, according to interview transcripts released Sunday.

“I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go,” said Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks. “I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning.”

According to Hicks, “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go.”

Reacting to Rice’s television interviews blaming the anti-Muhammad film, Hicks stated, “I’ve never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day.”

In testimony yesterday, Hicks said he was “stunned,” his “jaw dropped” and he was “embarrassed” when Rice blamed the terror attack on an Internet video.

“The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya,” he stated.

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Team Obama launches “Smear the Whistle Blowers Campaign”

Reaganite republican has a breakdown of the depravity

• The head-of-the-snake Obama Administration engaged in an utterly shameful vengeance campaign: Operation Smear the Witnesses.

• Servile Obammunist lackeys in Congress attempted to blame the Benghazi debacle on Sequestration.

• Outside of Fox and Cheryl Atkins of CBS, televised MSM media all but ignoredyesterday’s SIX HOUR Benghazigate hearing while some milked details of the Cleveland sex-dungeon story as a handy-dandy smokescreen.

• As thanks for her principled journalism, Atkins is already being treated like an unprofessional pariah 
  by her own network.

• Predictably, goofy lib bloggers are flailing-away with puerile ’arguments’ and attempts at mockery of the hearings, and will continue to do so until those wackadoodle Republicans drop all this unpleasantness and join them in a chorus of 
  ‘What Difference Does It Make’.

So is that it? Hardly- there’s now a rising call that a Select Committee on Benghazi be convened- but like most things we need to get done these days, that’s going to require 
some prodding of Speaker John Boehner: I encourage all to
do just that today.

 

7 Things We Learned From The Benghazi Whistleblower Hearing

7 Things We Learned From The Benghazi Whistleblower Hearing – PJ Media

The Republicans mishandled the Benghazi whistleblowers’ hearing. What should have been stretched across several days to give the nation time to digest it all, was instead packed into a single day filled with an overwhelming amount of information. The media’s attention span is not that long. The verdict in the Jodi Arias trial came along in the afternoon and blew Benghazi off the networks, most of which didn’t want to cover it at all. Even Fox joined the drive-by media, taking Benghazi off the air in favor of the irrelevant Arias trial. Following the announcement of the Arias verdict, charges were read in the Cleveland kidnapping case. Those were aired live as well, relegating Benghazi again.

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Nevertheless, for those who slogged through the entire day of hearings and ignored local crime stories, new information was there to be learned.

1. There were multiple stand-down orders, not just one.

Special operations forces were told, twice, by their chain of command not to board aircraft to Benghazi to rescue the Americans then under attack. The U.S. deputy diplomat, Greg Hicks, testified that the military commander, Lt. Col. Gibson, had his team ready to go twice. They were on the runway about to board a flight to Benghazi in the middle of the attack. They were ordered to stand down and remain in Tripoli to receive wounded who would be coming out of Benghazi. One of the orders came in the middle of the attack, the other came toward the end after Hicks’ team had traveled from Tripoli to Benghazi. The fact that Hicks’ team was able get to Benghazi before the end of the assault strongly suggests that the special operations team could have made a real difference.

At the same time, the State Department’s commander on the scene, Hicks, ordered his personnel into Benghazi and went there himself. Hicks testified that Gibson never told him who issued the stand-down orders. He commented that Gibson told him that the military stand-down was a shock: “This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than someone in the military.”

Hicks also testified that the U.S. government never even requested military overflight to support the Americans in Benghazi. The U.S. had an unarmed drone overhead and could have gotten permission to fly fighters over the scene, at least, but never asked.

2. Ambassador Stevens’ reason for going to Benghazi has been cleared up.

Hicks testified that Ambassador Stevens traveled to Benghazi to fulfill one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s wishes. Despite the fact that security was worsening in Benghazi for months leading up to the 9-11 attack, Clinton wanted to make the post there permanent. Her State Department had denied repeated requests from the U.S. team in Libya to upgrade security there, but she wanted to use the permanent post as a symbol of goodwill. Stevens was committed to that goal and told Clinton he would “make it happen.” He was in Benghazi on 9-11 furthering Clinton’s goal. She had denied requests to beef up security at Benghazi and then blamed his death on a YouTube movie. Hicks’ testimony raises the question of Clinton’s competence and grasp on reality, strongly suggesting that she put political perceptions ahead of the facts on the ground in Benghazi.

3. Clinton was briefed at 2 am on the night of the attack, was never told that a movie had anything to do with the attack by those on the ground in Libya, yet blamed the movie anyway.

Hicks also testified that he was shocked when Ambassador Susan Rice blamed a YouTube movie for inspiring the 9-11 attack. He testified that he had briefed Secretary Clinton directly via phone at 2 a.m. and told her that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. He never mentioned a YouTube video, which he never once believed had anything to do with the attack. But Clinton shocked him by blaming the movie on Sept 12. She would blame it, again, while standing before the coffins of the slain Americans, on Sept. 14. During the attack, Clinton told Hicks that no help would be on the way to relieve the Americans under sustained assault.

4. Whistleblowers were intimidated into silence.

Hicks testified to a pattern of behavior that leads to the reasonable conclusion that many officials within the State Department wanted him to remain silent after the Benghazi attack. He said that on the night of the attack he was personally commended both by Secretary Clinton and President Barack Obama. But he later questioned why Ambassador Rice blamed the YouTube movie, and from that point on his superior, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, questioned his “management style” and told him directly that no one in State should want him on their team in the field again. He was eventually demoted to a desk job after having been deputy to Ambassador Stevens, and remains in that post. Hick also testified that the Accountability Review Board, convened by Clinton last fall allegedly to determine the facts of the attack, never had stenographers in the room during his tw0-hour interview. Nordstrom concurred. Thompson was not even allowed to testify to the ARB despite having direct knowledge of the attacks due to his position on the U.S. Foreign Emergency Support Team. Thompson testified that the FEST was designed to go from zero to wheels up very quickly but was not deployed at all. He wanted to tell his story to the ARB, but was not allowed to. Hicks also testified that for the first time in his career, the State Department assigned a lawyer/minder to attend witness interviews with the ARB. He also testified that Jones told him not to be personally interviewed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican House member who was investigating the attack on behalf of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. It all adds up to a pattern of witness control and intimidation.

5. “The YouTube movie was a non-event in Libya.”

Hicks directly testified that the YouTube movie, for which a man remains in jail, was not in any way relevant to the attack in Benghazi. Why Obama, Clinton, Rice et al blamed that movie for the attack remains an unanswered question. Hicks said that no American on the ground in Libya that night believed the movie was to blame. He also testified that there was no protest prior to the attack. When the attack began, he was in Tripoli. He texted Stevens, who was in Benghazi, to advise him of the riot in Cairo at the U.S. embassy. In that riot, jihadists had stormed the walls and replaced the American flag with the black flag of Islam. Stevens had not been aware of the Cairo situation at all, but shortly after Hicks texted him about it, Stevens called and told Hicks that the Benghazi consulate was under attack. He never mentioned a protest.

Hicks also testified that blaming the movie had strongly adverse real-world effects. According to him, it humiliated Libya’s president, who had correctly stated that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Blaming the movie, Hicks said, did “immeasurable damage” to our relations with Libya and delayed the FBI investigation. On Sept. 12, Ambassador Susan Rice told the first of her many untruths, claiming in an email that the FBI investigation into the attack was already underway. It would not actually get underway for 17 days after the attack, by which time the scene of the attack had been compromised and contaminated.

We still do not know who decided to change the original CIA talking points and blame the movie, but the finger is pointing directly at Hillary Clinton. She was briefed by Hicks during the attack, the movie was never mentioned, but in her first public statement on September 12, she blamed the movie. Her subordinate, Ambassador Susan Rice, also blamed the movie the following weekend. The fact that Obama himself blamed the movie repeatedly, though, strongly suggests that he took part in the decision as well.

6. Democrats were uninterested in getting at most of the facts, but were very interested in destroying Mark Thompson.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) set the tone for the Democrats’ angle on the hearings in his opening remarks. He used his opening to attack the committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, and to pre-question the witnesses. Most of the Democrats who followed him failed to ask many questions of the witnesses. Instead, they delivered speeches or blamed budget cuts, an argument that has already been debunked by the State Department itself. One sadly hilarious moment came during Rep. William Clay’s questioning. The Missouri Democrat blamed the repeated denials to enhance security at Benghazi on budget cuts. Issa reminded him that the State Department has debunked that line, in the person of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb. She testified last fall that budget cuts had not impacted the decisions not to enhance security at Benghazi. Clay claimed not to remember Lamb’s testimony, then moved quickly to cite the ARB, which backed his side. His selective memory proved politically, if not factually, reliable. Mark Thompson, member of the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) testified that his section had been cut out of decision making during the attack.
The Democrats consistently circled on him to try to get him to contradict himself or attack his boss, Daniel Benjamin, who has claimed FEST was included throughout the attack. They never really succeeded, and now Benjamin will be called to testify in a future hearing to clear up the dispute. The heads of the ARB, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, will now be called as well.

7. House hearings are a poor way to determine who did what and why during and after the attack.

The Republicans, as I said, should have broken today’s hearing out across several days. When they did question the witnesses, they kept their speeches short and focused on getting answers. Their Democratic counterparts consistently gave speeches and raised red herrings. They were able to waste time and stall long enough for the Arias trial to push the hearing off the TV, and for energy to flag and boredom to set in. The Benghazi attack needs to be properly investigated by someone outside the political process and outside the Obama administration. State cannot be trusted; its own investigation failed even to interview Clinton. Defense may also have officers and political appointees to protect. A special prosecutor is in order and should be appointed.

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Related article:

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Benghazi Continues: Hillary De Medici – Roger L. Simon

The Benghazi scandal is not over. You will be told that by a lot of people. There is no smoking gun, etc. (Actually, there are many.)

Some folks on the right, because they have been so accustomed to failure in the face of a monolithic media, will be ready to throw in the towel.

That group is particularly disturbing because they are the very people who should be pushing this forward. Without realizing it, their proclamations of pessimism are a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I urge them to overcome it for the sake of our country, because – trust me – Benghazi is not over. It has only just begun.

Anyone paying attention to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearings Wednesday would have plenty of reasons for optimism. To begin with, the testimony underscored (and how!) what we already knew – that the events of September 11, 2012, were a terrorist attack and not a demonstration over a YouTube video.

Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, told the committee that Ambassador Stevens said precisely that – that he was “under attack” – when he made his very first emergency phone call from Benghazi to Hicks on that fateful night.

But don’t take Hicks’ word for it. Take the word of one of his superiors – Beth Jones, the State Department’s own acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs.

In the closest thing to a coup de théâtre at the hearing, Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) revealed a September 12 email from Jones to Hicks, State Department officials Victoria Nuland and Patrick Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton’s personal counsel Cheryl Mills, stating that she (Jones) had informed Libyan leadership that the attack at Benghazi was the work of Ansar al Sharia – one of the world’s most well-known Islamic terror groups.

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This was four days before Ambassador Rice appeared on five Sunday shows and lied to the American people by blaming the events on the YouTube video and long before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton repeated that lie, he in front of the United Nations, and she in front of the very Chris Stevens’ coffin with family and friends in attendance.

Hillary de Medici, indeed.

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Click HERE For Rest Of Story

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*VIDEO* Complete Benghazi Whistleblower Hearing

…………………….Click on image above to watch video.

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Things are hard out there for serious journalists like Sharyl Attkisson

Lonely Conservative has more

Emmy award winning reporter Sharyl Attkisson has been battling not only the Obama administration over the coverage of the Benghazi scandal, but also her own bosses at CBS News. This was pointed out by Politico in response to a WaPo piece.

Farhi’s piece places Attkisson in a David-vs.-Goliath narrative, wherein the Obama administration is Goliath: “Attkisson, who holds a third-degree black belt in taekwondo, takes a fighting stance when she feels she’s being stonewalled. Which is exactly what she thinks the White House has done to her on Benghazi,” Farhi writes.

But from where Attkisson is sitting, there are actually two Goliaths, one of which is almost entirely absent from the Post profile.

The second Goliath is CBS News, which has grown increasingly frustrated with Attkisson’s Benghazi campaign. CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue, network sources have told POLITICO. Attkisson can’t get some of her stories on the air, and is thus left feeling marginalized and underutilized. That, in part, is why Attkisson is in talks to leave CBS ahead of contract, as POLITICO reported in April. (Read More)

Shameful!

 

Noted dimwit: GOP Trying To Blame Obama For “This Thing Called Benghazi”…

Chris Matthews obamgasming legs keep shorting out his brain

He even pronounces it incorrectly, as if he has never even heard the word before. He does this on purpose to make it seem like a non story.

 

*LIVE STREAMING* House Benghazi Whistleblower Hearings – Wednesday, May 8, 11:30 AM (Eastern Time)

THIS EVENT HAS ENDED.

Click HERE to watch the hearings on video.

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……Click on the image above to watch the C-SPAN3 live stream.

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Witnesses scheduled to testify:

Mr. Mark Thompson – Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism (State Department)

Mr. Eric Nordstrom – Diplomatic Security Officer and former Regional Security Officer in Libya (State Department)

Mr. Gregory Hicks – Foreign Service Officer and former Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affairs in Libya (State Department)

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Click HERE to visit the official website of the U.S. House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform.

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Thanks Barack… Terrorist Group Linked To 9/11 Benghazi Attack Operates Freely In City

Terrorist Haven In Libya – Washington Free Beacon

The Ansar al Sharia Brigade, the Islamist terror group linked to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, continues to operate freely in that Libyan city, according to U.S. military officials.

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The group remains active in the Mediterranean port city, operating patrols and checkpoints, and earlier this year reached an agreement with other Islamist groups allowing it to operate openly, said military officials familiar with intelligence reports from North Africa.

The group “continues to spread its ideology in the Benghazi area, particularly targeting youth,” said one official, who noted that the lack of central government security was the key reason the militia has not been suppressed.

The officials disclosed details of the group’s activities on condition of anonymity.

Ansar al Sharia also is using Facebook to publicize its activities, including charitable work in poor areas, and is constructing some buildings. It also claimed to be operating a medical clinic in Benghazi. Other activities include repairing schools and holding conferences for local youth.

According to the officials, the group successfully exploited the weakness of security authorities in Benghazi and Libya in general to boost its presence. The group is attempting to reinvent itself as a humanitarian and charitable organization after the Sept. 11 attack.

A series of terrorist attacks in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11 killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and government employees Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty. The U.S. Special Mission was destroyed and later abandoned during the attack, which featured mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and assault rifles.

President Barack Obama said the day after the attack that the United States would pursue the attackers. “Make no mistake, justice will be done,” he said.

However, at least one of the suspects in the attack was detained in Tunisia and released before the suspect could be captured or questioned by U.S. investigators.

According to news reports from the region, Ansar al Sharia leader and former Guantanamo Bay prison detainee Sufian Ben Qumu was the target of an assassination attempt on April 14 and was wounded in the shootout with unidentified gunmen.

Days earlier, an Ansar al Sharia commander, Yahya Abdel Sayed, was reportedly killed in Sirte.

Fox News reported May 1 that the mastermind behind the attack has been identified and is free in Libya.

The FBI last week posted photos of three men wanted in connection with the attack on the diplomatic compound and asked for help in locating them.

State Department officials are scheduled to testify on the administration’s handling of the attack during a congressional hearing set for Wednesday.

According to an interim report by the House Republican Conference made public last month: “The attackers were members of extremist groups, including the Libya-based Ansar al-Sharia (AAS) and al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).”

The House report said the State Department Operations Center issued an alert Sept. 12 that stated, “Al Qaeda linked Ansar al Sharia (AAS) claimed responsibility for the attack and had called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.”

Additionally, the CIA had drafted talking points for members of Congress to use in discussing the attack publicly that initially mentioned the terrorists had “potential links to Ansar al Sharia,” the House report stated.

The military officials said the Ansar al Sharia Brigade was formed from Islamists who were part of the 2011 revolution to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in early 2012 as an offshoot of the February 17 Brigade.

The goal of the organization is to create a state in Libya run by fundamentalist Sharia law. The name means Supporters of Sharia in Arabic.

Like other Islamist groups, it is committed to conducting jihad or holy war against the United States and Western interests in pursuit of its objectives.

According to a Pentagon-sponsored study of al Qaeda in Libya, the Pakistan-based central al Qaeda terrorist group does not have a formal affiliate in Libya. However, that report said Ansar al Sharia “could be the new face of al Qaeda in Libya.”

After the Sept. 11 attack, protesters drove out Ansar al Sharia from a base it operated in Benghazi and as a result the group assumed a lower public profile.

The Brigade reached an agreement with other Islamist militias in Benghazi in January 2013 to set out clearly defined areas of the city where the militias conducted patrols and operated vehicle checkpoints.

The agreement coincided with reports that Ansar al Sharia was seeking to brand itself as a humanitarian relief organization and to play an open role in Benghazi. The group has downplayed its military activities and played up its social service work.

It opened a women’s clinic in late 2012 and has reported on its Facebook page that it delivered food to needy families in regions outside the city. The group also hosted youth conferences.

An insignia used by the group and posted on Facebook states “Ansar al Sharia Patrols/Your Sons At Your Service.” Among its boasts online were claims the group has intercepted illegal immigrants and seized shipments of illicit drugs from patrols and checkpoints.

News reports from Libya stated that in February Ansar al Sharia commanders were said to be negotiating with the Libyan Interior Ministry on an agreement to hand over detainees to Tripoli government.

According to the officials, the weak central government fears Ansar al Sharia and lacked adequate security and police personnel. As a result, the group has been able to increase its access to both territory and local populations.

Ansar al Sharia militants in March raided the Benghazi European School and searched for textbooks they claimed contradicted Sharia law.

The private school is mainly for children of non-Libyans and raised concerns about the group’s Islamist agenda.

The group is also attempting to generate support for Islamists in Gaza and Syria and has conducted demonstrations demanding the release of Libyan terrorists held in foreign prisons, including Iraq, Russia, and the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay.

A second military official who specializes in the region said militias of all types are rampant in Benghazi and Libya because of the weakness of the central government.

“The first problem is capacity: They have none,” he said of the central government in Tripoli. “They can’t even control events in the capital of Tripoli.”

Recently, there was a militia standoff at the Libyan Foreign Ministry with militiamen demanding the removal of officials linked to the ousted regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

“Until the Libyan government is able to stand up a reliable and independent security force of army and police, they will not be able to control Benghazi or anywhere else,” the official said.

Another problem hampering efforts to control militias is the great reluctance of the new Libyans in power to use force against other Libyans, unlike the Gaddafi regime, which cracked down ruthlessly on opponents.

“There is an incredible reluctance on the part of the Libyan government to put themselves in the position where they might draw the blood of Libyan citizens,” the official said. “Nobody in the new government wants to be seen playing the same role as Gaddafi.”

Among the various militias currently operating are the Islamist militias, several rogue militias, and even criminal militias. Some of the militias are pro-government and working with Tripoli.

The official said the pro-government militias are weak or not strong enough or willing enough to impose stability.

The Benghazi attack continues to be the focus of attention on Capitol Hill after a State Department review panel made public in December it found “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department.”

The Obama administration has sought to play down the deadly attack, initially identifying the attack as a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Islam video. White House spokesman Jay Carney said May 1, “Benghazi happened a long time ago.”

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Report: Special Forces Team ordered not to help in Benghazi

Via The Daily Caller

As the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya raged on for more than seven hours, a team of U.S. special forces in Tripoli was blocked from flying in to attempt a rescue, according to a top American diplomat who was in the region.

In previously secret testimony given by Gregory Hicks — the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya — to congressional investigators last month, Hicks revealed two possible courses of action that could have saved American lives that night: allowing U.S. special forces to enter Benghazi and flying a fast-moving U.S. military aircraft over the scene of the attacks.

“So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the [Special Operations Command South Africa] commander, his team, you know, they were on their way to the vehicles to go to the airport to get on the C-130 when he got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, you can’t go now, you don’t have authority to go now,” Hicks told congressional investigators, “and so they missed the flight,” which would have gotten the team inserted prior to the second attack on the CIA annex.

If this is true, then I do not recognize my country anymore

 

Timeline exposes Benghazi lies

Via the Weekly Standard

As intelligence officials pieced together the puzzle of events unfolding in Libya, they concluded even before the assaults had ended that al Qaeda-linked terrorists were involved. Senior administration officials, however, sought to obscure the emerging picture and downplay the significance of attacks that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The frantic process that produced the changes to the talking points took place over a 24-hour period just one day before Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her now-famous appearances on the Sunday television talk shows. The discussions involved senior officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House.  

The White House provided the emails to members of the House and Senate intelligence committees for a limited time and with the stipulation that the documents were available for review only and would not be turned over to the committees. The White House and committee leadership agreed to that arrangement as part of a deal that would keep Republican senators from blocking the confirmation of John Brennan, the president’s choice to run the CIA. If the House report provides an accurate and complete depiction of the emails, it is clear that senior administration officials engaged in a wholesale rewriting of intelligence assessments about Benghazi in order to mislead the public. The Weekly Standard sought comment  from officials at the White House, the State Department, and the CIA, but received none by press time. Within hours of the initial attack on the U.S. facility, the State Department Operations Center sent out two alerts. The first, at 4:05 p.m. (all times are Eastern Daylight Time), indicated that the compound was under attack; the second, at 6:08 p.m., indicated that Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya, had claimed credit for the attack. According to the House report, these alerts were circulated widely inside the government, including at the highest levels. The fighting in Benghazi continued for another several hours, so top Obama administration officials were told even as the fighting was taking place that U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives were likely being attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. A cable sent the following day, September 12, by the CIA station chief in Libya, reported that eyewitnesses confirmed the participation of Islamic militants and made clear that U.S. facilities in Benghazi had come under terrorist attack. It was this fact, along with several others, that top Obama officials would work so hard to obscure.

The Other McCain has more

So, it was CIA vs. C.Y.A. at the State Department which, quite frankly, has been infiltrated by Edward Said-influenced Arab specialists to such an extent that it was practically a Muslim Brotherhood outpost even before the Obama administration took over.

Seriously, you can ask Bush administration people about this: Middle Eastern scholarship within academia is so dominated by anti-Western views that, insofar as anyone has the credentials to qualify as a specialist in the field — i.e., to get hired into and promoted within the bureaucracy — they’re certain to have been saturated in ideas about “Western imperialism” and the legitimacy of Arab/Islamic grievances. And while this has also been a problem at the CIA and the Pentagon, the State Department is absolutely chock-full of such people in staff positions, so that even with hawkish neocons in the political appointee roles during the Bush years, the pro-Arab/pro-Muslim culture at Foggy Bottom never really changed.

I feel the need to point this out now because some of my well-meaning conservative friends, who (quite correctly) complain about the dubious influences within the Obama administration, often neglect to discuss the larger problem, which pre-dates Obama. However, there is good reason to think it is more of a problem now:

In 1998 Obama attended a speech by [Edward] Said, in which the scholar called for a nonviolent campaign “against settlements, against Israeli apartheid.” In a well-publicized photo, Obama and Said can be seen talking over dinner at this pro-Arab event.
According to the Los Angeles Times, in the early 1980s Obama had been one of Said’s students in an undergraduate English class at Columbia University.

None of this is necessarily related to the Benghazi cover-up — I don’t mean to feed anyone’s conspiratorial paranoia — but it does highlight the nature of the larger problem, what Jeanne Kirkpatrick rightly called the “Blame America First” mentality.