David Rhodes (Brother of Ben “Talking Points” Rhodes) Said Day After Benghazi That Government Thought It Was a “Coordinated Effort”
CBS News President David Rhodes described what the “government” believed about the Benghazi attack the day after it happened, saying it was not just a “mob reaction” to a film. He also predicted the incident would quickly become part of a political battle between President Obama and Governor Romney.
. . . .
Rhodes interjected a parenthetical note about the “pretty alarming” situation saying, “Our government thinks that, you know, there’s a really good chance this was not just a spontaneous mob reaction to what some thought was an offensive film but actually a coordinated effort timed to the 9/11 anniversary.”
Yeah, but what does David Rhodes know about what the government thinks? Especially about Benghazi! It’s not like he has any connections to anyone in the administration, or at least anyone who would know anything about Benghazi!
Or . . . does he?
Ben Rhodes’s brother is of course David Rhodes, the president of CBS News — although, if you’re a CBS viewer, maybe I shouldn’t assume that you know that. . . . Two days later [after David Rhodes’s statement], Sexton reminds us, Ben Rhodes sent out an e-mail ahead of Susan Rice’s Sunday show appearances urging her “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”
Oh.
Astute readers will remember my post this morning, in which I said:
I think the next step is to examine statements by people close to Obama — or even people close to people who are close to Obama — just after the attack, to see if they were letting it slip, accidental-like, that the attack was a planned terrorist attack.
Which then led, in this morning’s post, to an abrupt and startling transition to a piece about . . . David Rhodes.
Coincidence? You be the judge.
There are no coincidences.
Patterico (9c670f) — 5/5/2014 @ 7:54 pmIt’s about time to return the press to the people. It is time to recognize that the established media no longer has any compunction to tell the real story.
As a journalist, I think we, as a people, need to understand the corruption of the national press. I think it’s time to stop listening to those who attend White House Correspondents Dinners and those who blare left and right propaganda centered on the small collective in Washington. D.C.
It’s time to stand up for the truth.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:16 pmThere are no coincidences.
Comment by Patterico (9c670f) — 5/5/2014 @ 7:54 pm
That’s weird. I just said the exact same thing to Mrs G!
Gazzer (c2c196) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:23 pmlying Plouffe poofter
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:44 pmTeh Penn Avenue Freeze-out
All Rhodes lead to Nome
I think anyone with two brain cells knew the Video did not do it in Benghazi.
Takes no coordination for two reasonably bright people to come to that conclusion sitting miles away from each other.
Rodney King's Spirit (ca9e04) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:46 pmtoo bad George Bush left the Mideast in such a mess…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:46 pmMove along, folks, nothing to see here.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:46 pmThe media needs a large fire lit under their lazy, biased asses.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:50 pmBen Rhodes… Ben Ghazi… coinkydink? I think not.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/5/2014 @ 8:54 pmMeanwhile that same day Carney was pointing the media on the plane to Vegas to the Bamsters interview with his favorite media fellater, Scott Pelley of CBS, in which Preezy Tiger Beat was blaming the demonstration over the nasty video and no hint of terrorism or preplanning.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:17 pmIt gets worse. CNN sent Nic Robertson to interview the brother of AQ “emir” Ayman al Zawahiri, Muhammad, and the relatives of the blind sheik at the protest/riot in front of the US embassy in Cairo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPszLCEyu-I
CNN knew what the protest about; releasing the blind sheik and other detainees in US custody.
Yet when the Obama administration put out the word the party line was going to be the protest was supposed to be about a “hateful video” CNN switched gears and dutifully fell in line. They ignored their own reporting. They ignored the fact that the only reason their reporter even knew to show up is because the organizers of the protest/riots were very public about their protest and what it was about, the blind sheik and detainees, because they wanted the press coverage.
The same reason every one else in Cairo knew to show up, basically. The organizers advertised the event to draw a crowd in addition to getting the desired media coverage.
But like good democratic operatives CNN stopped reporting what they knew to be true, and reported the propaganda garbage the Obama administration wanted Americans to hear. So keep in mind the media changed its reporting to advance the lie.
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:36 pmthe children of America’s propaganda slut journalists are gonna grow up in the same fascist asscrack nation as the children of real Americans
i bet they get lots of tattoos and rationalize that they’re vegan cause of they can’t afford meat anyway
americans are so sad
happyfeet (8ce051) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:52 pmeven that awesome egg-flippin’ pansykid
he has no idea I bet how much more limited his horizons are thanks to his fascist propaganda slut mommy and daddy
And I’m not going to clue him in cause of it’s just not a priority for me.
happyfeet (8ce051) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:54 pmtell you what though, I’m switching to t-mobile
happyfeet (8ce051) — 5/5/2014 @ 9:55 pmhttp://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/05/04/bombshell-white-house-email-sent-muslim-brotherhood-agent/
Judy Eaton (213f13) — 5/5/2014 @ 10:19 pmThere is so much about this that insults the intelligence of anyone with two brain cells to rub together.
Like Mike Morrell testifying before Congress that his go-to analyst was not aware of the eyewitness reports.
I know turn to the generally useless John McCain:
http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=ceaa4483-b851-e4ab-3a4e-769032decb7e
Let’s examine what’s wrong with Morrell’s story.
1. As Deputy Director of the CIA he would have known that their were CIA operatives/contractors that had survived and would have been debriefed ASAP. He would have known exactly how many people survived, and he would have known who they were. They were his people. Yet he chose to present to US public a story of “best possible intelligence” that did not benefit from the debriefs.
2. In this world of electronic communications, the only reason they would choose to transmit those debriefs by carrier pigeon so they’d take several days to get to the “intelligence community” is that they didn’t want to know what the eyewitnesses had to say. Or, rather, they wanted to have no record that they had seen those reports before the administration sent Susan Rice out to lie because they knew what was going to be in them. And it didn’t fit their preferred narrative.
3. There is no way only the FBI debriefed those operatives. Lemme think, is there an intelligence agency that would like to debrief those CIA operatives/contractors? Oh, yeah, the CIA. If the CIA didn’t debrief their own, it’s because somebody stopped the CIA from doing what it would normally do. Again, because they didn’t want the information.
4. You’d think an intelligence agency would know that since it was a DoS facility that was initially attacked, the DoS might have some information about that attack. Especially because DoS is one of the members of he intelligence community, and it’s kinda sorta the CIA’s job to know that kind of thing. Apparently the CIA wasn’t interested in that information, either.
Every excuse this administration comes up with insults the intelligence of anyone with two brain cells or more.
It’s almost like they don’t care, like Obama rubbing his middle finger “unconsciously” through his hair.
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/5/2014 @ 10:29 pmFrom Judy Eaton’s link at #15:
ropelight (7769d0) — 5/6/2014 @ 4:18 amWell they were willing bystanders;
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/05/05/putins-human-rights-council-accidentally-posts-real-crimean-election-results-only-15-voted-for-annexation/
narciso (3fec35) — 5/6/2014 @ 5:12 amOh, don’t worry: the professional journalists will all rediscover their professionalism and their integrity, just as soon as a Republican is elected President.
The (unpaid) journalist Dana (3e4784) — 5/6/2014 @ 5:25 amthe point is to prevent that outcome.
narciso (3fec35) — 5/6/2014 @ 5:46 amDoes Remnick even realize he is being trolled;
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-biographer-world-seems-disappoint-him_791045.html
narciso (3fec35) — 5/6/2014 @ 6:22 amwhy it’s not ‘two years ago,’ dude;
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2014/05/06/scumbag-woodstock-leaders-of-at-least-three-al-qaeda-affiliates-are-now-in-libya/
narciso (3fec35) — 5/6/2014 @ 9:38 amA bit premature they were;
http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2014/05/saudi_dna_results_confirm_corp.php
narciso (3fec35) — 5/6/2014 @ 10:33 amThat’s correct.
They revised their position, as the week went on.
Knowing it was terrorism on September 12, didn’t mean that a person still knew it on September 16, because by September 16th, some people in the White House thought that was disinformation.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2u8e98x&s=5
Tommy Vietor:
That’s something that Mitt Romney didn’t understand. They got less accurate, not more accurate, with time. Romney did not understand this.
That’s why he found it so hard to believe that Barack Obama had called it an act of error on September 12, 2012. (or to be really precise, implied it was, but in such a way so as to leave himself a bit of wiggle room)
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/6/2014 @ 12:02 pm4. Comment by Steve57 (e86077) — 5/5/2014 @ 10:29 pm
You’d think an intelligence agency would know that since it was a DoS facility that was initially attacked, the DoS might have some information about that attack.
Which is why I say there were moles in the CIA.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/6/2014 @ 12:04 pmWell, yeah, the story got less accurate as the week went on because they were lying their asses off. ‘Less accurate’ was the point.
East Bay Jay (a5dac7) — 5/6/2014 @ 12:59 pm“Which is why I say there were moles in the CIA.”
Sammy – Except you had flacks from the NSC and DNI at the White House directly involved with scripting the talking points to minimize the political damage to Obama. When Susan Rice and other refer to conclusions as the best judgement of the intelligence community that is all she says. She does not point to the CIA. She could mean what the spin doctors at the NSC are telling her or David “jihad” Clapper is telling her to say.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/6/2014 @ 1:11 pmSammy,
We cannot discount the statistical probability that aliens from Mars are responsible for some of this.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/6/2014 @ 2:59 pmAfter all, we can’t expect the Obama Administration to shoulder all of the blame.
Sammy @ 24 -Barack Obama had called it an act of error on September 12, 2012.
Is this a convenient typo or did he actually call it this?
Birdbath (716828) — 5/6/2014 @ 3:24 pmI think it was a video caused disaster since Obama defined terrorism out of existence at the beginning of his first term.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/6/2014 @ 3:37 pmThe story got less accurate as the weak went on… and on… and on…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2014 @ 3:42 pmdaleyrocks,
Obama may have caused Jihadist terrorism to disappear with the wave of his magic wand, but his presence has caused all sorts of other terrorism, including acts of terror such as by grazing cattle in western Nevada.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/6/2014 @ 3:42 pmSammy didn’t know how deep the conspiracy ran…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2014 @ 3:43 pmSammy, why do you suppose the world is conspiring to create difficulties for Barry Obama and Hillary Clinton ?
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/6/2014 @ 3:47 pmThat’s what they said in a public record, which is what official emails are.
But you’d have to be delusional to believe it. They were preemptively fabricating an alibi while they were fabricating the cover story. The FBI had debriefed the surviving DoS and CIA eyewitnesses on the 12th. They may have slow-walked the actual debriefs back to the intel community to provide themselves an excuse, but Holder would have known what the eyewitnesses said.
Just like Hillary! would have know what the DSS agent in the Benghazi TOC was reporting back to the DS command center during the attack no later than the morning of the 12th.
By the 16th they had even less reason to believe the fable about the “spontaneous protest” over a video than they did in the first 24 hours.
You’re right about one thing, Sammy. There was a mole in the CIA. That mole’s name is Mike Morrell. But no foreign government had a mole in the CIA, just the Obama administration.
They had moles in the DoS and DoJ, too. Their names are Eric Holder and Hillary! Clinton. But their jobs weren’t to mislead the Obama administration on behalf of a foreign power. Their jobs were to suppress the truth on behalf of the Obama administration.
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/6/2014 @ 4:51 pmSammy,
We want you to drink lots of Kool-Aid, but just not the Democrat flavor.
Signed,
W. Anthony Vernon
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/6/2014 @ 5:04 pmCEO, Kraft Foods, Inc.
So that missile strike, after that jamboree in Yemen, that we didn’t know about,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/6/2014 @ 5:07 pmI know I would have never thought in a million years that any type of violence was possible on U.S. soil on the anniversary of 9-11. Who could have seen that? Had it not been for that vile video all would have been great. BTW does anyone know of a single person on Earth who actually saw this video? How many hits did it get and from which nations IPs?
highpockets (d91456) — 5/6/2014 @ 5:41 pmWho knew Hillary “Vast RightWing Conspiracy” Clinton now stands w/the Founders and for compromise against “the extremists”! Hahahaha… HA!!!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2014 @ 6:01 pmYou have to be able to read what that email actually says.
When all these people involved in these email chains say “disinformation” or “wrong information” they mean “the truth, and it’s damaging.”
For instance, here’s one of Ben Rhode’s emails:
CNN exclusive: White House email contradicts Benghazi leaks
I can’t copy any text because it’s in something like this. You will note the reference to “wrong information.” We already know what that means. But a couple of other lines stand out.
The reference to the investigation is how the Obama administration buries the truth. And nobody can talk about something when it’s under investigation. Which is not true as a legal matter. It’s just that the WH dodge to avoid saying anything to the press and above all Congress in the hopes it will eventually be ignored by the press and then they can just let it go away.
Charles Krauthammer notes this obvious point.
Krauthammer – Indignant Obama hiding behind investigations and Rice
So that means, “shut up and quit putting things in writing.”
Then the final line in the email.
And that means, “Don’t put anything else on the record. We’ll talk about it off the record face to face.”
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/6/2014 @ 6:03 pmSammy… still waters, like conspiracies, run deeeeeeep.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2014 @ 6:03 pm*I can’t copy any text because it’s in something like
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/6/2014 @ 6:05 pmthisSCRIBD.http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/05/is_tom_donilon_the_key_to_benghazigate.html
narciso (3fec35) — 5/6/2014 @ 6:31 pmnarciso @43, Pat Caddell was talking about Donilon being the political hack behind the Benghazi lie on Fox Political Insiders on Sunday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np8I_Rf4N3w
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/6/2014 @ 7:36 pmYes, he did, it wasn’t a new conclusion,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/6/2014 @ 7:46 pmAccording to your article, when ex-Reagan administration Jeffrey Lord wrote his piece for The American Spectator he cited Pat Caddell.
I just thought people might like to see Pat Caddell in action. Caddell’s contempt is clearly on display when he talks about Donilon. It’s good to watch.
Steve57 (e86077) — 5/6/2014 @ 8:34 pmThis may be unfair to David Rhodes. A New York Magazine article says he was strongly behind the career of Lara Logan – and Lara Logan attempted a story about Benghazi.
My opinion is that story was a trap.
It focused on not sending help that night – which I think is the issue that the people who did wrong want us to focus on, and which actually probably has a perfectly reasonable explanation: They thought it all over several times, and were being lied to by people ion the Libyan government.
Well, maybe not so reasonable.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/7/2014 @ 2:51 pmYes, he did, he was the wunderkind behind McGovern,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/7/2014 @ 3:32 pmin penance for giving us Carter, and once tried to pawn Jerry Brown on us, but otherwise.
the cost of undermining the supposedly allied govt in order to ratify the lie, has been high;
http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2014/05/05/feature-01
narciso (3fec35) — 5/7/2014 @ 3:46 pmIf Tom Donilon was the chief of staff to Clinton Secretary of State Warren Christopher that’s not a good recommendation at all.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/7/2014 @ 3:56 pmComment by highpockets (d91456) — 5/6/2014 @ 5:41 pm
BTW does anyone know of a single person on Earth who actually saw this video? How many hits did it get and from which nations IPs? </i.
Very few people saw the video. The jihadists publicized it in Egypt a few days before September 11, 2012. I believe the CIA sent a cable (mentioned by David Petraeus but omitted from all the versions of the talking points) that warned the Cairo embassy there would be a demonstration about the video and the result was the tweets the embassy sent. The demonstration was apparently actually about freeing the leader of the world trade Center bombers.
I believe the CIA was orally arguing this could have warned the people in Benghazi but either were careful not to put in writing or all such claims are still classified.
The only people in Benghazi who knew about the video were the attackers who posted guards around the property and told he crowd they attracted by claiming Americans had shot peaceful demonstrators that there was this terrible video and that's why they attacked. (the shooting story was inoperative)
http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/09/ansar_al_shariah_issues_statem.php
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/7/2014 @ 4:07 pmthe origins behind Ansar Al Sharia in Yemen, were ‘spontaneously’ in response to a cruise missile strike, against this fellow,
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/05/aqap_notes_death_of.php
in the village of Marjala, he was nowhere in site,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/7/2014 @ 4:14 pmand there was extreme collateral damage,
Sorry for the italics.
I notice the quoted excerpt from Ansar al Sharia Sept 12 doesn’t specifically say it was the video.
That might have been in the earlier Facebook post that the U.S. government circulated internally at 6:07 pm EDT Sept 11, 2012, which Ansar al Sharia later disavowed.
I don’t seem to be able to find the text of the Sept 11 2012 Facebook post, but I did read that
that Facebook post also claimed there would be a follow-up attack in Tripoli. (disinformation)
It seems to be clear that it was the attackers who claimed it was the video that prompted it and there was probably other SOOPER SEKRIT INTELLIGENCE from more than one source backing that up.
All disinformation, which extended even to staging demonstrations in multiple other countries from Sept 13 through Sept 16, 2012 that were unmistakeably ostensibly about the video.
Now the CIA is denying that it ever suggested that the video was a cause. Liars..
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/7/2014 @ 4:15 pmI really do need to update this blog:
http://narcisoscorner.blogspot.com/2014/01/some-further-details-arose-re-some-of.html?view=classic
Sammy you really should get one,
narciso (3fec35) — 5/7/2014 @ 4:28 pmhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-benghazi-emails-idUSBRE89N02C20121024
This mentions the Tripoli attack that never happened as being in the claim of responsibility on Facebook.
I read somewhere that this might have mentioned the video too.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/7/2014 @ 4:30 pm“I believe the CIA sent a cable (mentioned by David Petraeus but omitted from all the versions of the talking points) that warned the Cairo embassy there would be a demonstration about the video and the result was the tweets the embassy sent.”
Sammy – I don’t believe the CIA warning to Cairo on 9/10 mentioned the video. Instead it was about the protests being ginned up on social media by Zawahiri’s brother. If you’ve got something different, let us know.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/7/2014 @ 4:51 pmSammy,
Not even MTV plays videos anymore.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/7/2014 @ 5:10 pmLet’s not pretend the entire Muslim world was ginned up by a silly video that they didn’t even know was out there.
the tape that matters is they one they never mention, because it contains the AQ all stars;
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/11/_defending_al_qaeda.php
narciso (3fec35) — 5/7/2014 @ 5:18 pmWe seem to arming both sides;
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/05/07/two-hundred-little-maids-from-school-are-we/#more-36525
narciso (3fec35) — 5/7/2014 @ 9:30 pm“I believe the CIA sent a cable (mentioned by David Petraeus but omitted from all the versions of the talking points) that warned the Cairo embassy there would be a demonstration about the video and the result was the tweets the embassy sent.”
Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/7/2014 @ 4:51 pm
Sammy – I don’t believe the CIA warning to Cairo on 9/10 mentioned the video. Instead it was about the protests being ginned up on social media by Zawahiri’s brother. If you’ve got something different, let us know.
I don’t know, but I strongly suspect that that cable did not mention releasing Sheik Omar Abel Rahman as what the protest in Egypt was about, but rather the video.
The contents of that cable or even that cable was sent is still apparently highly clasified. How do I know it exists? Because Petraeus mentioned it. He mentioned a cable to the Cairo embassy in the context of “warnings” that the CIA gave about Benghazi – and in his mind this was the most important = timely one; and because the Cairo Embassy tweeted all about the video on the day of September 11, 2012.
Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4) — 5/18/2014 @ 4:43 pmComment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/7/2014 @ 5:10 pm
Let’s not pretend the entire Muslim world was ginned up by a silly video that they didn’t even know was out there.
That’s one of the cover stories the terrorists wanted people to believe, and I think they had help from moles in the CIA, and elsewhere maybe.
Once this theory seemed to be working, demonstrations against the video were organized all over the Moslem world from Sepptember 13 through September 16, 2012.
Too many people do ndeed believe this kind of nonsense. I saw a letter in the Wall street JOurnal last Tuesday (unless it was the Tuesdy before) that used the idea that Moslems do bad things because of cartoons or a video etc.
Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4) — 5/18/2014 @ 4:47 pmA general in Libya has made a half-coup against the government because he says the government is not fighting the militias or terrorists in Benghazi.
Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4) — 5/19/2014 @ 6:33 am