Patterico's Pontifications

5/19/2014

Lefty Fact-Checkers: Sure Enough, Hillary’s State Department Did Indeed Reduce Security at Benghazi

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:18 am



When even a lefty hack organization can’t deny the facts, you’re left with, well, the facts:

Johnson said that before the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, “the State Department not only failed to honor repeated requests for additional security, but instead actually reduced security in Libya.”

State Department headquarters in Washington did refuse repeated requests from its ambassador in Libya for more security personnel. And it decided not to accept an offer from the Defense Department to extend the stay of one of its security units in Libya, reducing the level of security that was available.

We rate Johnson’s statement True.

Whatdifferenceatthispointdoesitmake? I’m more worried about Karl Rove talking about brain injuries than I am about this nonsense over a handful of dead Americans.

/lefty shill

161 Responses to “Lefty Fact-Checkers: Sure Enough, Hillary’s State Department Did Indeed Reduce Security at Benghazi”

  1. At this point, just what difference does it make?

    askeptic (8ecc78)

  2. When Hillary Clinton said “what difference does it make?” she was talking about the “talking points” and related matters.

    What difference does it make, she claimed, what they said on September 11, September 12, or September 16, 2012?

    The key point she claimed, was that 4 Americans had been killed. And we must fill in, they now, presumably, had the story straight, and knew, sort of, that it was done by a terrorist group.

    The point ofthe questioning was why didn’t she object to the public position of the Administration including statements she knew were untrue.

    She knew there were no demonstrations in Benghazi prior to the attack. And why did she go about disclaiming any U.S. government association with the video, and basically apologizing for our constitution and freedom of religious expression.

    She knew, or should have known, that that was both futile and abasing.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  3. 2. Debka is notoriously inaccurate but at least we know that Prince Bandar is out of the picture.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  4. PolitiFact should check their own facts. The linked article claims:

    Ambassador Chris Stevens was based at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, 400 miles west of Benghazi. He decided to visit the Benghazi mission on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when U.S. embassies around the world were on alert for terrorism.

    Stevens didn’t decide to walk into the trap that killed him, he was instructed to be in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11. Stevens had been in Europe and was in-flight on his way back to Tripoli when he received instructions from the State Department to proceed to Benghazi.

    Security had been withdrawn, the attack force was trained and assembled and Stevens was instructed to put his head on the chopping block. The fix was in an Hillary was pulling the strings.

    ropelight (aae05a)

  5. Sammy,

    What Hillary actually was saying is what difference does it make if the 4 Americans were killed by terrorists, or by people just causing trouble in the streets who happened to want to kill Americans.
    She was trying to give cover to the “spontaneous protest” narrative.

    The irony, is that the Obama Administration were the ones who insisted that it did make a difference that it was a “spontaneous protest” elicited by a YouTube video, rather than a planned terrorist attack.
    In other words, the fact that a YouTube video was “the cause” was important because Obama had been claiming during the campaign that he already had Al Qaeda on the run.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  6. I was pointing out ‘the heck of a job,’ they’ve been doing since, one could bring up that Tantoush fellow, who is in control, of an anti terror base

    narciso (3fec35)

  7. Comment by ropelight (aae05a) — 5/19/2014 @ 12:35 pm

    The fix was in an Hillary was pulling the strings.

    No, Prince Bandar, the head of Saudi intelligence. What reason would Hillary Clinton have to get him killed?

    Prince Bandar was in charge of the saudi response to the Arab Spring and specifically in charge of Saudi policy in Syria. He’d had those assignments even before they made him head of intelligence.

    He’d been made head of intelligence because of that, probably.

    The problem for Prince Bandar was that Ambassador Stevens was (per State Department instructions that came directly from President Obama) was interfering with the shipment of Manpads to Islamist Syria rebels. That was what the whole CIA presence there was for.

    Not to get them there, as has been leaked, but to STOP them.

    Obama actually didn’t even want any kind of weapons to go to any group in Syria, but especially surface to air missiles that could shoot down a plane, especially if they could wind up one day with an al Qaeda backed group (as supposedly had happened in Afghanistan.)

    You know Hillary later pretended to misunderstand a perhaps deliberately inartfully worded question about shiping Manpads to Turkey. She doesn’t want to clarify that whole issue, which is all probably very highly classified.

    Hillary, if she opposed Obama’s policy on Syria, and wanted more military aid given, and given to Islamist groups, didn’t need to get the Ambassador killed to reverse it.

    Surely she could think of better, safer, less newsworthy, ideas?

    She could even get him named Ambassador to China or something.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  8. 263. Comment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/19/2014 @ 12:29 pm in the International Day Against etc. thread:

    Yet Karl Rove demonstrates some concern for Hillary’s head injury, but he is pilloried for being insensitive to head injuries. Or women with stocky legs. Or something.

    Karl Rove said yesterday on Fox News Sunday, he’d been saying this thing about Hillary for six months. (evidently to small closed groups, that came to hear his political wisdom.)

    It was apparently always in the context of:

    1. Don’t assume Hillary Clinton will run for President in 2016. Hillary Clinton might very well not run for president because of this injury, which might have been much more serious than she let on.

    2. He didn’t know exactly what had happened to her, but if she ran for president, she’d have to make the medical records public.

    Then Bill Clinton suddenly mentions “6 months of rehabilitation” and when reporters ask questions, he and all his people clam up.

    I think Bill Clinton is trying to make her condition sound worse than it was. Could be several reasons.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  9. What seems unforgivable here is that these security reductions and/or outright denials for increased security, seem, based on what I’ve read, to have been less the result of abject indifference or incompetence, and, more the result of a crass self-interest and a transparent political calculation intended to bolster the Obama Administration’s carefully-cultivated narrative that the “Arab Spring” was bearing tangible fruit, in the form of a compliant and peaceable local population in Libya, and to undercut criticism that the Qaddafi’s overthrow had actually made things more bloody and unstable. A substantive security presence would (rightfully) be interpreted as evidence that the situation was fraught with danger for U.S. personnel, a tacit admission (in the middle of an election contest) that the U.S.’s clumsy intervention in Libya had backfired. That was an admission that Obama and the State Department were loath to concede.

    Guy Jones (df6cf0)

  10. Unfortunately, due to the poor Obama economy I’ve had to close down my little bright blue cottage with the sign out front that says “Madame Elissa’s Predictions and Fortune Telling”. However, my skills are intact. I predict Hillary will not run, but that she is the fly-paper while other leftist candidates stay out of the fray and out of the public eye until it is more clear who the R nominee might be.

    elissa (164cf6)

  11. Trying to get the truth out of Hillary Rodham Clinton is a task equaled in difficulty only by trying to get the specks of fly droppings out of a tablespoon full of ground black pepper. Put another way there’s damned little truth in the Hildebeast and what there is is hard to find.

    Skeptical Voter (12e67d)

  12. Comment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/19/2014 @ 12:38 pm

    What Hillary actually was saying is what difference does it make if the 4 Americans were killed by terrorists, or by people just causing trouble in the streets who happened to want to kill Americans.

    Everybody was admitting was that it was terrorists. What they were saying was – and still say – is that maybe the terrorists took advantage of an opportunity that suddenly presented itself.

    What they didn’t want to say, was that the attack had been planned well in advance.

    The whole point about blaming it on the video – the reason the terrorists and some foreign “intelligence partners” blamed it on the video, was that, since the video was supposedly not known about by anyone more than day in advance, and nobody in Libya had heard about it before the protest in Cairo, if the attack was stimulated by the video, the attack in Benghazi couldn’t have been planned!!

    If it was planned, on the other hand, it follows, that somebody who knew that the Ambassador would go there, and probably caused the ambassador to go there, because September 11th was a date that would never have been chosen becuase of the supposed interest of al Qaeda in aniversaries, was involved.

    Now you ask why in that case was Sept 11th chosen as the date for the attack?

    A. As an “explanation” And revenge for al-Libi was another one. And the video was yet another red herring. But only useful if people would believe that it hadn’t been planned. If that failed, then say they did it becausie of september 11, or because of al-Libi.

    Not, of course, the real reason, which was to stop American interference with the shipment of weapons fropm Libya to the ISlamic rebels in Syria. Of course to stop that they hadf to panic the United states into remiving its entire presence in Benghazi. Which they did. But the United States still stopped the shipment of weapons anyway.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  13. If people accepted that the attack was “spontaneous” that would mean:

    …That nobody would have to look any further, for its genesis, and certainly not outside of Libya.

    ….which would protect Prince Bandar and Saudi intelligence.

    …whom Hillary probably knew, by the point, had done it.

    And if Prince Bandar was disgraced, or faced disgrace, he might very well then tell other things, or threaten to.

    And since President Clinton had covered up his murder of Vincent Foster, that oput her career in danger, if any kind of serious adverse proceedings took place against Peine Bandar, or even if it became well known.

    I noticed that Jane Harman a week ago compared Benghazi conspiracy theories to discussion of Vincent Foster theories.

    Very interesting. I mean, who gave her that idea that she should link the two?

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  14. Sammy,

    Again, what Hillary is saying is that it doesn’t matter whether it was a planned attack, or just a spontaneous attack by restless youths who were pissed off about a YouTube video.

    Our own Secretary of State says it doesn’t matter.
    That’s why she should never be President.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  15. It’s the most logical result, the revenge theory, but a year and a half later, there has been no drone strike, against Abu Khattalah or any other major militia leader,

    narciso (3fec35)

  16. I can’t wait for Ed Klein’s forthcoming book (in June) entitled, “Blood Feud.”

    It documents the hate-fest which exists between the Clintons and Obamas.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  17. Sammah’s fevered ramblings never cease to amaze.

    JD (e5a0fa)

  18. I don’t think trying to hide the fact the attacks in Benghazi (there were at least 3 separate assaults the night of September 11/12, 2012)

    was planned is related to either:

    A) Hillary Clinton planning the murder of the Ambassador. (Why risk that?. And why would that be easy for her to do? Is she personally meeting with Islamic terrorists?)

    OR

    B) Trying to hide the fact that al Qaeda had done something (impossible to hide, and not worth the effort.)

    She was trying to give cover to the “spontaneous protest” narrative.

    I don’t thnk so, not at the time when she said “what difference does it make” That was over.

    She was trying to cover up or not get asked question as to why she had not disputed it.

    Spontaneous, of course, was something maybe you could argue (except that from a military perspective this was ridiculous, because unplanned attacks don’t work so well) but you couldn’t argue there was a demonstration.

    You could have asked some tough questions, and the best defense for Hillary would be that she didn’t want to argue with other people in the government.

    Now, note here: The State Department corrects the claim that the CIA issued them all kinds of useful warnings, and that it was not technically a consulate, but only a place an “open” place for the ambassador to stay when he visited Benghazi.

    But never argues about the supposed demonstration.

    I guess that false claim wouldn’t hurt Hillary.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  19. The irony, is that the Obama Administration were the ones who insisted that it did make a difference that it was a “spontaneous protest” elicited by a YouTube video, rather than a planned terrorist attack.

    What Hillary Clinton was saying was that what they said then back in september didn’t make a difference at the time of hearing in January.

    In other words, the fact that a YouTube video was “the cause” was important because Obama had been claiming during the campaign that he already had Al Qaeda on the run

    That’s a theory, but one I don’t believe.

    I believe the reason Obama Admnistration liked it was because if it was “spontaneous” and caused by a video, it was therefore unpredictable, and they couldn’t be blamed.

    But, and this is important, Ben Rhodes and others believed that story, and wouldn’t have gone public with it if they thought it was untrue.

    It collapsed right away.

    And I think that they had been told that story by the CIA, which knew it was wrong, and kept that as much as possible off the official record.

    The CIA hadn’t expected the White House to go public with this story, so they’d never be caught. But DBI director James Clapper was very interested in going as public as possible with this story.

    Anybody inventing that story, as opposed to somebody fooled by that story, would know it would collapse if it was looked at, and going on all 5 Sunday talk shows is a way to get that story carefully examined.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  20. Sammy,

    Were you bitten by a werewolf ?

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  21. The Obama Administration wasn’t interexted in saying that they had completely defeated al Qaeda, but rather that the attacks in Benghazi were completely unpredictable. Not the same thing.

    19.Comment by JD (e5a0fa) — 5/19/2014 @ 1:38 pm

    Sammah’s fevered ramblings never cease to amaze.

    Let me finish, then:

    The people in the CIA did this, and ignored all the otehr evidence, and now are disclaiming any responsibility for the video part of the story, because they were Saudi moles, and because they didn’t want to be charged with figuring out who did it.

    If it was spontaneous, there’s nothing to find out! Right?

    And I think further that Hillary Clinton probably had a strong suspicion, if not knowledge, of who had been behind it all, and that was Prince Bandar, which she could know because she would know what it was that got Ambassador Stevens to benghazi that day.

    And she couldn’t let all the doings of Prince Bandar become known, because that would impact her political career, since President Clinton and Sandy Burglar had agreed to cover up the murder of Vincent Foster at the secret unscheduled meeting in the White House they had with Prince Bandar.

    A meeting that was leaked to Fred Barnes with a false explanation as to why it happened, with Clinton and Berger characterized as the instigators of that meeting.

    A leak that was published on page 10 of the March 14, 1994 New Republic, right at the time of several Foster case leaks.

    And the Saudi Arabian Ambassador’s residence was right across the street from Fort Marcy Park. And putting his body in Fort Marcy Park would be a way to both hide the Saudi connection and maintain federal, not state of Virginia, jurisdiction, over the investigation.

    And there were many guns in that residence.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  22. Sammy, is the Benghazi thing and defending Susan Rice and Hillary exceptionally important to you for some personal reason? Because it seems that way, but nobody here can quite figure out why. You almost obsessively make multiple and repetitive and lengthy comments filled with assumptions each time Benghazi is mentioned on a thread.

    elissa (164cf6)

  23. Sammy – When did the CIA tell the White House the video story and who told it to them?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  24. Actually, this may be a good sign, somewhat like General Asisi

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/19/an-ex-cia-recruit-adds-to-libyan-chaos.html

    narciso (3fec35)

  25. Wow.

    carlitos (e7c734)

  26. Now this does resemble the merrygo round of generals and colonels, after the Diem coup, Big Minh, Khanh, Thieu and Ky,

    narciso (3fec35)

  27. It’s teh VRWC, Sammy!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  28. Sammy, there are clues yet to be uncovered in whitewater and Travelgate! Mush, you huskie!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  29. I’ll bet none of teh attackers had Voter ID either.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  30. Comment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/19/2014 @ 1:22 pm

    Again, what Hillary is saying is that it doesn’t matter whether it was a planned attack, or just a spontaneous attack by restless youths who were pissed off about a YouTube video.

    Can you get the full quote in context?

    Because I think she is talking about, not what actually happened, but about the wrong statements that came out of the administration.

    Oh look:

    She was no longer claiming, if she ever had actually, herself, (she was careful) that no terrorist group had done this. But she was sticking to the idea it was probably unplanned.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-colmes/hillarys-what-difference_b_4675413.html

    Senator Ron Johnson asks her does she disagree that a simple phone call would have ascertained that there was no demonstration. Hillary Clinton replies that when you’re in such a position as she was, number one, the last thing you do is interfere with some other process. Senator Johnson says he realizes that is a good excuse. Hillary Clinton says, no, that’s a fact. And number 2 he should read what her ARB said. And she said we have no doubt they were terrorists – what they did is terrorism. But why they did it is still unknown.

    And Senator Johnson says we were misled about there being protests before the attacks and it was easily ascertainable that that was not a fact. And Hillary Clinton says the fact is we had four dead Americans. And what difference does it make if it was because of a protest, or if guys out for a walk one night decided they’d goo kill some Americans (!)

    I see, she’s not offering the theory that it was planned in advance!!

    And then she says our job is to find out what happened and do everything in our power to prevent it from happening again.

    And then she says people in “real time” were trying to get the best information. And she says
    the IC (“Intelligence Community”) has a process ongoing with other Congressional committees to explain how these talking points came out.

    But that looking backward and trying to figure out why these “militants” did it, is less important finding them and bringing them to justice.

    And maybe in the meantime we’ll figure out what was going on.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  31. 25. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/19/2014 @ 1:58 pm

    Sammy – When did the CIA tell the White House the video story and who told it to them?

    That’s what they’re hiding. That’s what I am interested in.

    I suspect that the Ansar al Sharia claim of responsibility on Facebook that the President and others were briefed on at 6:07 pm on September 11, 2012, mentioned the video as the reason – I’ve seen that mentioend – but I cannot find any translation of the text of what was on Facebook.

    Later on, the CIA was to absolve Ansar al Sharia of being responsible for that Facebook page, after Ansar al Sharia had disclaimed responsibility for it.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  32. Quite an accomplishment from Hillary. What other Secretaries of State had the balls to reduce security in a war zone?

    DejectedHead (a094a6)

  33. Sammy, I have to disagree with you, I don’t think OJ Simpson had anything to do with Vince Foster’s death.
    But I do think the rumour about the Loch Ness Monster being seen near the Bermuda Triangle has some validity.
    But nobody accused the Loch Ness Monster of being involved in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh Baby—that was all Karl Rove’s doing.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  34. Sorry, not a war zone. A kinetic military action zone.

    DejectedHead (a094a6)

  35. 30. Comment by Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/19/2014 @ 2:14 pm

    Sammy, there are clues yet to be uncovered in whitewater and Travelgate! Mush, you huskie!

    The Clintons tried to claim that Vincent Foster’s White House papers concerned Whitewater, but they probably concerned everything else. Whtewater wasnt eve the biggest S&L fraud in Arkansas. Taht wsas Firstsouth of Pine Bluff, and Clinton was involved in trying tp prevent it from being audit. It’s actually in the boopks about the savings and loan scandals if you read them very carefully. “The Greatest Ever Bank Robbery” and the hardcover edition of “Inside Job”

    Travelgate was an attempt to get rid of some people and make it look like it was justified, because they wanted to keep records of where Bill Clinton went and whom he saw more secret.

    I think they couldn’t figure out what had panicked Vincent Foster on July 20, 1993, and thought it was Whitewater at first.

    They thought he might have had word of a runaway grand jury in Little Rock, and they had bene prepared for this eventuality, so Clinton proceeded to try to take all investigations of himself under his control by appointing a lawyer whom he could trust, Robert B Fiske, Jr. who has succesfully shielded Robert E. Rubin from U.s. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani during his insider trading investigations (Giuliani had two priorities, one was Michel Milken and Drexel Burnham and the other one was Goldman and Sachs and Robert Rubin) to be in charge of all ionvestigation of Bill Clinton.

    These were patronage positions, legally, but every White House hasd kept on the same people. They wanted to hide the fact that the Clinton Administration was interested in exercising control here. So they fired them for “cause”

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  36. So you don’t believe the story that a bloody glove was found in Fort Marcy Park, E.S.? But maybe that dark stuff was was not blood. Maybe that was Saudi oil. Kind of changes the possibilities of who shot John Vince does it not?

    elissa (164cf6)

  37. Sammy, do you take SSRIs?

    Hadoop (f7d5ba)

  38. elissa, what I don’t understand, is why nobody asked Sacco & Vanzetti what they were doing near the Grassy Knoll at Dealey Plaza in November, 1963.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  39. Wait, what, Sammy ?
    Vince Foster was knocked off because he was found in the nursing home where Thad Cochran’s wife lives ?

    This is all too hard to follow.

    Can’t we go back to the days when our President would say something like, “You didn’t build that !”
    At least then, we knew what he was referring to. Even if his surrogates had to come up with 23 different explanations involving modifiers, subjective clauses, indirect objects, and dangling participles.
    Or whatever.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  40. Can I just eat my waffle?

    carlitos (e7c734)

  41. If he was a man and if he were serious about his waffle, he’d tell Michelle to take her silly wasteful school lunchroom ideas and…….

    elissa (164cf6)

  42. I wish “Let’s move !” were our foreign policy instead of just a call to arms to get lazy kids off the couch.
    Maybe it could be used to get our lazy President off the couch.

    Our embassy in Benghazi is requesting beefed-up security for 9/11…“Let’s move !”

    Putin is threating an invasion of Ukraine…“Let’s move !”

    Iran is moving closer to a nuke…“Let’s move !”

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  43. here’s another little factoid to throw in to the moon bat hopper as “carlitos” and Sam the Sham continue their conspiracy theory race to the bottom of bedrock crazy…

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-19/former-prime-minister-malaysia-accuses-cia-covering-mh-370-disappearance

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  44. either that, or we’ve discovered one of them IRL…

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  45. 24. Comment by elissa (164cf6) — 5/19/2014 @ 1:56 pm

    Sammy, is the Benghazi thing and defending Susan Rice and Hillary exceptionally important to you

    I’m not defending Susan Rice (except from the accusation that she – and the people who sent her there – knew what she was saying was untrue.)

    I’m certainly not defending Hillary Clinton. I’m accusing the CIA.

    And I think people are getting this all wrong.

    Everybody has this wrong. There is not one chance in a hundred thousand that the video story originated in the White House, and yet that’s the constant accusation.

    for some personal reason?

    Yes, it is kind of important.

    I sent an e-mail to the White House on the afternoon of July 19, 1993, routed overnight through Rochester, about Crown Heights and not firing the FBI Director, and said that reporters would be released from their pledges of confidentiality if he was fired — I knew they were trying to get him to voluntarily resign and he wasn’t doing that, even if it cost him money — and that William Sessions would be free to say what he knew about Waco, particularly how he was kept from ths scene, and how his water cannon plan was rejected in favor of tear gas, and mentioned the Wall Street Journal editorial that day as proof that they knew more than what they said and I also had spoken of some other thing at the start.

    And that started the whole chain of events leading to Bill Clinton’s impeachment (he sent both Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky to the exact same office! )

    And I’ve been very interested in this whole story and everything related to it ever since.

    Because it seems that way, but nobody here can quite figure out why.

    Everybody seems to be feeding off the same spin, one that will go no place. I see this. It’s not even difficult to see. Everything is all twisted, the way it is put.

    You almost obsessively make multiple and repetitive and lengthy comments filled with assumptions each time Benghazi is mentioned on a thread.

    The multiple assumptions is because I build on things. It’s no more strange than planning several moves ahead in chess. Obviously, the more you assume, the more the chances you made a mistake somewhere along the line, but there are sometimes several routes to an assumption.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  46. meanwhile, back on planet Earth, here’s a Lybia update, courtesy of the Jawas.

    http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/218112.php

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  47. Ultimately, Benghazi was caused by rogue agents in the Cincinnati office who drive SUVs and insist on setting their home thermostat at 68 during the summer.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  48. meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, yet another Obumbles foreign policy success story is coalescing…

    we are lucky to live in such interesting times: whatever would we talk about without all this brilliance occurring around us?

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-19/%E2%80%9Cconflict-between-china-and-vietnam-imminent-china-piles-troops-tanks-artillery-and-

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  49. Hafter is old guard, anti Islamist, he may just be what the doctor ordered,

    narciso (3fec35)

  50. 41. Comment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/19/2014 @ 2:51 pm

    Wait, what, Sammy ?

    Vince Foster was knocked off because he was found in the nursing home where Thad Cochran’s wife lives ?

    No, because (I assume) he had given instructions that anything that mentioned the Girgente Report, which Governor Mario Cuomo had kept under wraps, and which Bill Clinton therefore felt might hurt people close to him like Bill Lynch and Al Sharpton, be given to him. E-mails to the whote House at that time were printed out before being read – and so it was printed out and given to him.

    My e-mail message cwme to him, sometime around noon, and panicked him, because it warned that FBI Director might talk – it was very convincing -and the thing was the FBI Director had already been fired – my e-mail message was too late – and when he heard on the news that William Sessions had called a press conference for Thursday, he decided the jig was up, and decided to protect himself.

    He knew the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States kept a lot of briefcases at his home, which doubled as an office, filled with money (not secret records, like Prince Bandar told people – I mean is that reasonable? – no that was for bribes) and he decided to try to blackmail him for money to pay for a lawyer.

    He knew some things Prince Bandar had done that would not impact on him. Prince Bandar had visited Bill Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas.

    Only he forgot about… DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY!!!

    Prince Bandar didn’t let him escape. He was shot dead.

    Now, that was not the end of the story. Although Prince Bandar was safe from prosecution, and safe from prosecution inside Saudi Arabia too, because it is a rule of the Saudi royal family that nothig ever happens to a prince unless he does something to a member of the royal family, still his superiors might not approve, and they might dismiss him and that would be the and of his career, and certainly of his chances to one day become king.

    So he had to go quickly to President Clinton and explain this to his satisfaction, and obtain his help in a coverup.

    This is all too hard to follow.

    It just needs a lot of footnotes.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  51. Hugh Hewitt has Dick & Lynne Cheney in studio for two hours today to discuss Lynne’s new book about James Madison.
    On the other hand, Sean Hannity probably spent two hours talking to his staff members about their pets, and how they spent their weekend, and still received triple the radio audience that Hewitt will have today.

    Unbelievable.
    Wake up, America.
    No, really. I mean it.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  52. Hey, we are cursed with Rich Sanchez, for some ungodly act of Karma,

    narciso (3fec35)

  53. Comment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/19/2014 @ 2:46 pm

    what I don’t understand, is why nobody asked Sacco & Vanzetti what they were doing near the Grassy Knoll at Dealey Plaza in November, 1963

    Sacco was guilty, Vanzetti was innocent – it was Sacco and another man – they were robbing trains, not becauise of anarchism, but because they were connected to the Mafia.

    The possible connection to November, 1963 is that the assassinations of President Harding and President Kennedy may have been planned by the same man. Both of them gave rise to false conspiracy theories.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  54. I consider myself to be conservative – and I find the Benghazi story to be an utter waste of partisan energy. Clinton and the administration may have made a mistake with security staffing, they may have tried to “spin” the media, but the vitriol almost suggests an intentional wrongful act on the part of Clinton. It’s just preposterous. Our former great leader Reagan left marines at a Lebanese marine base unguarded with no ammunition in their weapons – the result: 200 dead marines. George Bush invaded Iraq with a dimwitted unwillingness to consider CIA evidence contradicting “weapons of mass destruction.” Hundreds of thousands have met their maker as a result of Bush’s “mistake.” In all instances, decisions were made, mistakes happened and people died.

    To maintain an empire there will always be mistakes and those who pay the butchers bill for them. The ambassador to Libya was a casualty of war. We should mourn his death, learn from our mistakes, harden ourselves to the reality of death in the face of war and unite in the conclusion that the only productive use of energy is to hunt and snuff out Islamic radicals. Evil, Islamic radicals killed our ambassador, not Hilllary Clinton. The sniveling and partisan back biting must stop.

    Scippio Americanas (e776f2)

  55. Comment by elissa (164cf6) — 5/19/2014 @ 2:33 pm

    So you don’t believe the story that a bloody glove was found in Fort Marcy Park, E.S.?

    The connection between O. J. Simpson case and Vincent Foster is that Mark Fuhrman wanted to write abook about the Vincent Foster case, but was successfully diverted from it.

    O. J. Simpson wore gloves because he didn’t want to leave fingerprints, and he had to take off one glove or maybe both to kill Ron Goldman, and he left one at the murdr scene, and the other by the Bronco, or maybe at the nurder scene, which Robert Kardashian found – he only found one glove – and he left it outside the room where he thought O. J. Simpson was, but where only Kato Kaelin actually was. But O.J. Simpson had not yet arrived home because he was knocked off schedule by the need to murder the witness. Kardashian probably met him outside and told him where he had put the glove, but O.J. was not able to retrieve it, so it didn’t go where all the other bloody clothes went.

    A possible Clinton connection is that Clinton may have talked him into committing the murder because he needed a distraction from the whitewater hearings.

    At any rate, it was O.J. Simpson’s friends, including Robert Kardashian who talked into foinbg this, on the grounds that killing Nicole would stop an IRS investigation into his tax evasion in its cradle.

    It is very interesting that the National Enquirer, which had the same laweyer as Bill Clinton, spent the whole period till his acuitall arguing that O.J. Simpson had not committed the murdewrs, and after that, that he had committed the murders, but acted entirely alone. (they needed the Goldman family to stop pursuing this)

    But maybe that dark stuff was was not blood. Maybe that was Saudi oil. Kind of changes the possibilities of who shot John Vince does it not?

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  56. But maybe that dark stuff was was not blood. Maybe that was Saudi oil. Kind of changes the possibilities of who shot John Vince does it not?

    I can’t do anything with this.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  57. ==I’m not defending Susan Rice (except from the accusation that she – and the people who sent her there – knew what she was saying was untrue.)==

    OK Sammy, I appreciate your reply. Here’s where the “Rice didn’t know it was a lie and neither did the people who sent her” falls completely apart for me and I think for most sentient souls. Rice was absolutely not the right or logical chain of command person to be “sent” to the shows. She just wasn’t, and I am almost sure she herself knew it. That should have begged the question both to her and also to someone of your analytical skills, Sammy. The klaxons should be sounding. Why was she the one, not Hillary whose ambassador was lost or at least another high ranking State Dept person, or a Military person who could have spoken about the logistical decision not to initiate a rescue mission, or even a CIA person? Any of these would have been at least marginally more involved as the events unfolded in Benghazi and more knowledgeable than Rice.

    The choice of Rice with her pathetic scripted performance all about “what caused it” rather than details of the actual horrific event or who the the murderous perpetrators were, is the biggest “tell” in the world that the WH didn’t want anybody who was anywhere near “the truth” to be on those Sunday shows and let something slip out to the American people. That you still cannot clearly see this is mind boggling.

    elissa (164cf6)

  58. We see the consequences of undermining Magarief, who did ‘speak to power’ in the three subsequent prime ministers, the Hafter revolt, in North Africa,
    the In Amenas siege, followed by the uprising in Mali, and most recently the kidnapping of Chibook,

    narciso (3fec35)

  59. Comment by Scippio Americanas (e776f2) — 5/19/2014 @ 3:55 pm

    Clinton and the administration may have made a mistake with security staffing,

    Thisis not important, but it is not a simple mistake. It’s perverse and indicates somethinbg was deeply wrong.

    they may have tried to “spin” the media, but the vitriol almost suggests an intentional wrongful act on the part of Clinton.

    ALl she wanted to do was not challenge anything others said. That’s not proper.

    It’s just preposterous. Our former great leader Reagan left marines at a Lebanese marine base unguarded with no ammunition in their weapons – the result: 200 dead marines.

    He had plans for increasng security – the problem was that was going to take some time. In Benghazi and Libya they were reducing security. Maybe trying to pretend the situation was normal.

    George Bush invaded Iraq with a dimwitted unwillingness to consider CIA evidence contradicting “weapons of mass destruction.”

    Not true. Dick Cheney wanteds to investigate a claim that the CIA made and the CIA contrived to
    “investigate” it by sending Ambassador Joe Wilson, who returned with an equivocal report.

    The CIA got away with a lot in Plamegate. It’s riddled with moles. Must be.

    Hundreds of thousands have met their maker as a result of Bush’s “mistake.”

    His big mistake was not to understand that there was new enemy in Iraq after he had defeated Saddam Hussein.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  60. “carlitos” and Sam the Sham continue their conspiracy theory race to the bottom of bedrock crazy…

    WTF? Did you forget your medication today?

    carlitos (e7c734)

  61. Scippio Americanas #56,

    Not many conservatives I know believe that we’re an “Empire.” That sounds an awful lot like the language of the Left.

    Also, you say we should just move on, and learn from the mistakes of Benghazi.
    What mistakes were made ??
    How can we learn from the mistakes, if the Obama Regime is obstructing the investigation ??
    They won’t even tell us where the President was that night, or who was in the War Room, because, “Dude, that was like two years ago.”

    Leaving our embassy basically unguarded on the 9/11 anniversary despite repeated requests for beefed-up security is not just a situation of, “Hey, I accidentally spilled your beer—let me buy you another one, bud.”
    It’s a matter of the fact that the person who was making the decisions “mistakes” about our embassy may be running for President, as allegedly “the greatest Secretary of State we’ve ever had.”

    Slow your roll.
    Let’s examine her record, shall we ?

    In Human Interaction 101, people who are just wanting to “move on” are usually hiding something.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  62. Comment by elissa (164cf6) — 5/19/2014 @ 4:03 pm

    Here’s where the “Rice didn’t know it was a lie and neither did the people who sent her” falls completely apart for me and I think for most sentient souls. Rice was absolutely not the right or logical chain of command person to be “sent” to the shows. She just wasn’t, and I am almost sure she herself knew it. That should have begged the question both to her and also to someone of your analytical skills, Sammy.

    Susan Rice was a person who didn’t know the story wasn’t true, or at least that it was demonstrably untrue, so she agreed.

    That makes sense. It’s the best explanation as to why it was her and not somebody else.

    I don’t think Hillary Clinton would have had too much trouble begging out of that. She could have invented a hundred reasons.

    That would not have raised a red flag with people in the White House.

    The people who sent Susan Rice to the networks did not catch why maybe some other people had declined, if that’s what happened.

    The klaxons should be sounding. Why was she the one, not Hillary whose ambassador was lost or at least another high ranking State Dept person, or a Military person who could have spoken about the logistical decision not to initiate a rescue mission, or even a CIA person? Any of these would have been at least marginally more involved as the events unfolded in Benghazi and more knowledgeable than Rice.

    Her not knowing, and also being a political appointee, would explain why she agreed. If they thought of other people, they turned it down – and perhaps Hillary herself even suggested Susan Rice!

    We don’t have the background as to how her name came up.

    The choice of Rice with her pathetic scripted performance all about “what caused it” rather than details of the actual horrific event or who the the murderous perpetrators were, is the biggest “tell” in the world that the WH didn’t want anybody who was anywhere near “the truth” to be on those Sunday shows and let something slip out to the American people.

    So you say, Susan Rice didn’t know, but maybe the people who sent her did.

    The problem with that is that nobody who knew it wasn’t true wouldn’t even attempt to sell a story that was so wrong. By this time, major media had had some reporting from Benghazi.

    That you still cannot clearly see this is mind boggling.

    I don’t think the WH had the truth. They were relying on intelligence briefings.

    What’s mind boggling is how nothing happened afterwards. Nobody got blamed for telling wrong infrmation, and if the CIA was honest, nobody ever complained to any investigating committee about the Wh telling unfounded lies. My explanation is that the WH was incredibly stupid, and afraid of interfering with intelligence matters, and the CIA caused it, and therefore did not complain that their intelligence was ignored.

    The CIA was very slow in correcting its reports to take note of the fact there was no demonstration.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  63. this was the latest news about that other fellow;

    http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2014/04/16/feature-01

    narciso (3fec35)

  64. Comment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/19/2014 @ 4:20 pm

    Leaving our embassy basically unguarded on the 9/11 anniversary

    That was a problem too, but this wasn’t the embassy.

    This was a little villa maintained in Benghazi for occasional visists by the Ambassador. They had talked about moving into the annex, but the annex was supposedly secret, so the ambassador still used this usually empty “hotel.”

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  65. Sammy,

    Calling it the “embassy” is shorthand for “where our Ambassador was known to be staying.”

    The fact that it wasn’t an actual secure “Embassy” makes the situation worse for the Obama Regime, because it proves that the State Department was willing to put our actual Ambassador in a very risky situation.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  66. Anybody who was near the truth wouldn’t have agreed to go on those shows. Butt this wold not have told the people who sent Susan Rice that their information was wrong.

    At that time also they were concentrating on all the new demonstrations, which were most definitely, ostensibly about the video.

    Islamic terrorists, whenever possible, deny being linked together or linked together too much.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  67. the French are doing more than us, the shame of it;

    http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2014/05/16/feature-03

    narciso (3fec35)

  68. Comment by Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 5/19/2014 @ 4:29 pm

    Calling it the “embassy” is shorthand for “where our Ambassador was known to be staying.”

    Who knew that? How far in advance? Those are important (but extremely highly classified) questions.

    The fact that it wasn’t an actual secure “Embassy” makes the situation worse for the Obama Regime, because it proves that the State Department was willing to put our actual Ambassador in a very risky situation

    Or what should have been regarded as a very risky situation.

    To protect the ambassador, they arranged he shouldn’t leave the residence. They thought, or so was the planning, that the residence was safe enough, because if there was an attack coming, they’d know in advance. But the attackers knew exactly where to go and how to get in, and the “safe room” that the ambassador was evacuated to was a firetrap, and a fire was set outside it, which probably means that the whole security plan was known to the attackers.

    And yes, there must have bene some pretty important reason to send him there, especially if this was a last minute change of plans. A possible reason: to stop a shipment of arms from Libya to Turkey for use by Islamist insurgents in Syria. And there was probably some wrong information there, too, as the ship had already sailed, nless theer was another one.

    And what kind of a story do we see published?

    That the Ambassador was FOR the shipment of arms!

    But that was not Obama Administration policy, and I don’t think they are lying about that.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  69. Sammy,

    I disagree with your inference that Watergate was responsible for “The Brady Bunch” being canceled in 1974.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  70. The security plan for the mission would most likely have been shared and discussed with Libyans, and/or Saudi intelligence.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  71. The mArch 31, 2014 issue of the New Yorker had an intersdting article about Waco.

    What’s interesting about it is that it says the Davidians didn’t set the fire.

    Some four hundred cannisters of CS tear gas – which can be flammable under certain conditions – were shot into enclsed spaces lit by candles and Coleman lanterns.

    A lot of it is wrong saying the FBI didn’t undersdtand David Koresh, but that one sentence is the important thing.

    Many many lies were told, bothon background to newspapers, ad by members of the FBI’s HRT for government reports, and audio experts hired, to say the Davidians started the fire.

    And – they could not have been prepared with their lies, unless they knew in advance there would be a fire.

    And you know, Parkland Memorial Hospital, and another in another city that also had a burn unnt – was alerted to expect burn victims (they wanted a few survivors, just not David Koresh and anybody that could tell the true story of Feb 28, 1993 and how some BATF agents were killed)

    If somebody had called Parkland Memorial Hospital on the morning of November 22, 1963 and told to expect casualties, somebody would have had a whole lot of explaning to do!

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  72. I think it is not out of the question that Bill Clinton might have had advance knowledge of the Watergte break-in. Some people in the McGovern campaign probably did. The break-in was done to gte Liddy caught before he cold plant a bug at McGovern campaign headquarters as he was not going to do it himself and not rely on (probable double agent) Tom Gregory.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  73. Elephant @63–Good. You responded to Scippio thereby saving others the trouble. I’ll just add one observation. In the business world we conduct what are known as “post mortems” when something goes terribly, embarrassingly, devastatingly awry. It can be an engineering catastrophe, a marketing catastrophe, a product catastrophe, etc. It’s especially critical to do this if there has been loss of life. The point of the post mortem is to determine and understand what happened–all the myriad contributing things that happened– so that process changes can be made to (hopefully) assure it will never happen again. These sometimes lengthy post mortems can be both brutal and comical as people (employees, department managers, contractors, consultants) try to point fingers and cover their own butts. But if the company’s upper management and especially if the Board of Directors in fact do care and want to know, then at least a close proximity version of the truth usually eventually comes out and most often some people lose their jobs. “Mistakes were made” does not cut it. Apparently “Scippio’s curiosity about what happened in Benghazi is limited.

    By the way, if he was doing a take-off on the statesman and general Scipio Africanus, he spelled it wrong.

    elissa (164cf6)

  74. Jeb Stuart MAgruder just died.

    Now the only major Watergate figure left, and maybe the only one who knows the truth, is John Dean.

    The first major Watergate figure to die was John Mitchell, who had a heart attack on Election Day 1988 when he realized that George H W Bush was going to become President.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  75. Sammy,

    MTV first took to the air in 1981.
    The first video broadcast was “Video Killed the Radio Star,” by The Buggles.
    In all those years that MTV was broadcasting videos, wasn’t there any video that Jihadists found objectionable enough to elicit them to call up their cousin Omar, and ask him to show up in front of an American Embassy with a rocket launcher ?

    Not even Milli Vanilli ?
    No offense to our Chicago friends here, but the Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” was pretty bad, too.

    It’s just hard to believe that this anti-Muslim video that nobody saw is “the cause” of what occurred in Benghazi on Sept 11, 2012.

    It didn’t even make the MTV Weekly Countdown that week, did it ?

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  76. that comment by Scipio, almost merited the ‘billy madison’ treatment, no one voted to go into Libya,
    where in part we were AQ’s air support, arms from the former have appeared as far south as Equatorial Africa, and as far west as Syria, and that’s what we know of,

    narciso (3fec35)

  77. And now, for the final act:

    The United States has increased the number of Marines and aircraft stationed in Sicily who could be called upon to evacuate Americans from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli as unrest in Libya grows, two U.S. officials said on Monday.

    About 60 more Marines and another four Osprey aircraft, whose tilt roter engines allow it to land like a helicopter but fly like an airplane, were being sent to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily from their base in Spain.

    That brings the total number of Marines stationed as a precaution in Sicily to around 250, the two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Their location in Italy moves them closer to Libya, speeding response times.

    http://news.yahoo.com/u-moves-more-forces-closer-libya-unrest-grows-225158474.html

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  78. elissa #75,

    Most major league baseball teams’ radio coverage will spend more time re-capping the game that just concluded, than the Democrats want to spend in re-capping what happened at Benghazi.
    They won’t even tell us where President Tiger Beat was on the night of the attack.
    We know—he was watching ESPN, prior to hitting the sack early that nite so he could get up the next morning to go to Vegas for another fundraiser.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  79. Hafter’s a local warlord with a Langley tie, however, there’s no indications he has any grudge against us, unlike bin Qumu, abu Khattalah or any other Islamist figures.

    narciso (3fec35)

  80. Sammah is on a roll.

    It is ridiculous to compare Sammah and carlitos, red. Ridiculous. Carlitos is to being a troll as Obama is to being competent. Or honest.

    JD (e12cf2)

  81. In response to your criticisms of my thoughts on Benghazi, when you have military bases, embassies, troops and civilian staff literally expanding the globe, mistakes will be made, men will die and this is the way it is and always shall be. How are we not an empire when we justify military action all over the globe, in places like Iraq using the philosophy of “preemptive war.” The neo-con is the wanna-be master of the world. You wish to bring a democrat out of every human being at the point of a gun. There is no functional difference between Bush and Obama to me. They are both cut from the same mold. At least Reagan believed only in using force when American interests were directly at stake.

    This whining over Benghazi just strikes non-partisans as exactly that – whining. You cry foul when the Democrat screws up – and justify the abomination and lie that was Iraq under the guise of preemptive war. Bush-the-idiot deposed Hussein, and turned Iraq over to the true new burgeoning nuclear enemy – Iran. Hillary Clinton’s mistakes could never even begin to touch the stupidity of George Bush.

    Let’s get over it and agree on this – the enemy killed our people – and the enemy that has waged war against should be hunted and put down.

    Scippio Americanas (e776f2)

  82. As to 78, Republican neo-cons constantly beat the war drum, most lately in Syriia. The American people are tired of endless war and non-sense. Republican neo-cons would have us on the side of Sunni fanatics seeking to cut of the heads of Syrian Christians and everyone else they choose to torture, murder or nail to a cross. Madness!

    Scippio Americanas (e776f2)

  83. Of course, the following year, they cut military aid to the Nigerian govt, when they waging a campaign against Boko Haram, they have handcuffed Al Asisi’s campaign against the Moslem Brotherhood,in Egypt, the French seem to be doing the heavy lifting in Equatorial Africa,

    narciso (3fec35)

  84. This administration has sold out the MEK, which is the primary armed opposition to the Mullahs, the source of our intelligence on their nuclear program,

    narciso (3fec35)

  85. == and the enemy that has waged war against should be hunted and put down.==

    I doubt you’ll get any disagreement here about this, “Scippio”. But geez, it’s been, like, two years since the Benghazi tragedy and nothing’s happened along the lines you suggest. In your opinion why is that?

    elissa (164cf6)

  86. 87 – narciso, and again your pointed criticism of “this administration” is just ridiculously slanted. Bush #1 asked the iraqi Kurds, an honorable and decent people to rise up in Gulf War 1. They did. And he abandoned them to be slaughtered and gassed. In Vietnam, Nixon pulled out and let the Hmong people die a slow and brutal grinding death at the hands of the Vietnamese army. When you engage in the chess game of global interventionism – a virtual Game of Thrones – there are those that will live and die by your decisions. While I disagree with Obama and view him to be totalitarian in his governmental views, how can it be said that he is any less stalwart than the Bush regime and those before him?

    Scippio Americanas (e776f2)

  87. He doesn’t have an answer, hence the hashtag, Chibook is likely an opening move, what happens when they go after Abuja or Lagos,

    narciso (3fec35)

  88. #moby

    JD (e12cf2)

  89. Funny, how he thinks we’ll forget how the Dems sabotaged operation all throughout South East Asia, John Kerry among them, how Carter empowered the ayatollah, how Kerry, Harkin, & Dodd, supported the Sandinistas

    narciso (3fec35)

  90. #hairybeanbag

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  91. Everybody has this wrong. There is not one chance in a hundred thousand that the video story originated in the White House, and yet that’s the constant accusation.

    Based on what? The very assumption that a lame video posted to Youtube ignited the passions of the terrorists at Benghazi — which if true, and in turn, would have therefore caressed the sentiments of “blame America first” ass-backwards liberals — could only have originated from stupidly leftwing people. The last time I checked, there are plenty of those types in the White House.

    However, yea, there are plenty of liberals in the State Department, but they take a back seat to the Obamatrons. The reason? Both Hillary and Barack had the gall — the nerve, the audacity — to tell the bereaved family members of those killed at Benghazi that the US government would seek vengeance for the killings of their loved ones. Oh, by seeking and lashing out at the terrorists? No. By punishing the California-based filmmaker of the lame video posted to Youtube.

    That speaks volumes.

    BTW, Sammy, columnist Pat Buchanan loves blood and violence, and Barack Obama deepdown — intrinsically — is not a leftist.

    Mark (99b8fd)

  92. I’ll take that bet. My $10 bucks at 100K to one gets me a cool million.

    ropelight (aae05a)

  93. Funny how the “smartest man who’s ever been Prez” learns about his administration’s failures by reading the newspaper. #myhairybeanbag

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  94. “You cry foul when the Democrat screws up”

    Scippio Americanas – People are crying foul over the cover up and lying which are ongoing. There’s a difference. Think about it.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  95. “Everybody has this wrong. There is not one chance in a hundred thousand that the video story originated in the White House, and yet that’s the constant accusation.”

    Comment by Mark (99b8fd) — 5/19/2014 @ 7:05 pm

    Based on what?

    The fact that the New York Times reported more than once, that their stringer heard it was about
    the video, in fact heard about the video in the first place, from the attackers themselves that night, in Benghazi.

    No, of course that was not the real reason, but that’s what they said

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/us/politics/questions-and-answers-on-the-benghazi-attack.html

    To those on the ground, the circumstances of the attack are hardly a mystery. Most of the attackers made no effort to hide their faces or identities, and during the assault some acknowledged to a Libyan journalist working for The New York Times that they belonged to the group. And their attack drew a crowd, some of whom cheered them on, some of whom just gawked, and some of whom later looted the compound.

    The fighters said at the time that they were moved to act because of the video, which had first gained attention across the region after a protest in Egypt that day. The assailants approvingly recalled a 2006 assault by local Islamists that had destroyed an Italian diplomatic mission in Benghazi over a perceived insult to the prophet. In June the group staged a similar attack against the Tunisian Consulate over a different film, according to the Congressional testimony of the American security chief at the time, Eric A. Nordstrom.

    http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry41%23%2Fvideo%2Bbenghazi%2Ffrom20131212to20131229%2F#/?chapt=4

    A Libyan journalist working for The New York Times was blocked from entering by the sentries outside, and he learned of the film from the fighters who stopped him. Other Libyan witnesses, too, said they received lectures from the attackers about the evil of the film and the virtue of defending the prophet.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/us/politics/questions-and-answers-on-the-benghazi-attack.html

    But the attackers, recognized as members of a local militant group called Ansar al-Shariah, did tell bystanders that they were attacking the compound because they were angry about the video. </i. They did not mention the Sept. 11 anniversary. Intelligence officials believe that planning for the attack probably began only a few hours before it took place.

    And not just the New York Times, but also the CIA, had similar intelligence, some of it SOOPER SEKRIT.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  96. I would not take the word of the NYT if they promised the sun would rise in the morning. Sorry, maybe they sometimes tell the truth (even without leaving something out), but my Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia is not that severe. Michael Crichton helped me minimize the effects.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  97. “And not just the New York Times, but also the CIA, had similar intelligence, some of it SOOPER SEKRIT.”

    Sammy – The State Department put out the video story before the White House, the night of 9/11/12, but they were both singing out of the same hymnal on 9/12. Whether Hillary got Obama’s permission before releasing the cover story is an open question. They talked before she put out her statement.

    When you find your CIA smoking gun, please provide a link.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  98. The very assumption that a lame video posted to Youtube ignited the passions of the terrorists at Benghazi — which if true, and in turn, would have therefore caressed the sentiments of “blame America first” ass-backwards liberals — could only have originated from stupidly leftwing people. The last time I checked, there are plenty of those types in the White House.

    The jihadists had been laying the groundwork for this for some time. A lot of people were ready to believe this thing.

    Letters to the Editor published Tuesday May 6, 2014 in the Wall Street Journal:

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579537603944591192

    One person writes, in part:

    Does our society’s desire to punish Mr. Sterling’s speech or any other unpopular view really differ from the desires of religious-motivated persons in other parts of the world when they respond with violence to words or images that offend them, such as in the reactions of some Muslims to writings, cartoons or films that disparage the Prophet Muhammad?

    You see, people are ready to believe all that stuff, even someone who is troubled by what happened to Donald Sterling, and he is surely not a “liberal”

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  99. I think that the difficulty in finding the origin of the “anti-video demonstration getting out of hand” as the reason for Benghazi suggests that it came from a high source that does not want to be identified and that the communication was done without leaving a paper trail. Otherwise, it could have been simply attributed to a mistake and confusion by whatever lowish-level person was responsible.

    But that is only a supposition.
    Goodnight.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  100. Because the video was the reason they attacked the mission in Maryland, in June of 2012,

    narciso (3fec35)

  101. Somebody that works for Amtrak was making bombs outside of Philly, complete with ball bearings on hand to use as projectiles. He had a “lab accident” and had an explosion in his house that led to his discovery. He was not seriously injured in the blast.
    By name doesn’t appear to be a jihadist, but who knows. No Sarah Palin posters were reportedly found, either.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  102. 100. Comment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 5/19/2014 @ 8:31 pm

    I would not take the word of the NYT if they promised the sun would rise in the morning.

    Sorry, maybe they sometimes tell the truth (even without leaving something out), but my Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia is not that severe. Michael Crichton helped me minimize the effects.

    The New York Times here is asserting direct knowledge (of what the attackers said that night) not reporting some kind of general conclusion.

    Now when they say the protest in Cairo was about the video, or that the video had gained attention because of the protest in Cairo – it not had a chance yet to gain attention, and in Cairo the actual demonstrators apparently didn’t say anything about the video – or that intelligence officials believe that planning for the attack probably began only a few hours before, there’s more reason to doubt. Actually, no reason to doubt that that’s what some “intelligence officials” were telling the New York Times.

    And they are not the only source of the claim that the attack was spontaneous and about the video.

    http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/09/ansar_al_shariah_issues_statem.php

    Ansar al Shariah issues statement on US Consulate assault in Libya

    By Bill Roggio September 12, 2012 3:52 PM

    Ansar al Shariah, an Islamist group in Libya that has been accused of executing last night’s attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, issued a statement on the assault….The group stated…. that the attack “was a spontaneous popular uprising” to a video released on YouTube that denigrated the Prophet Mohammed.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  103. “You see, people are ready to believe all that stuff”

    Sammy – The people in the White House knew all sorts of people were willing to believe that nonsense. What is your point?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  104. Sammy, aren’t they are asserting that some unnamed Libyan journalist connected with the NYT spoke to some unnamed member of the attacking mob and that is where they got their story?

    I know who Mr. Hicks is and I know he was in communication with people there and he said there was no demonstration.
    So did the retired military person.
    Two reputable people that testify to Congress trumps an unnamed source for the NYT every time, be it bridge, hearts, pinochle, or poker.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  105. Sammy–Aha. A “Statement”. A PR piece. So you think Ansar al Shariah would have said “Oh, we was jes commemorating 9-11 with a little firepower and explosives for to kill us some infidels because we hate America”? Of course not!

    Hey President Obama has issued “statements”, too. “If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor”.

    elissa (164cf6)

  106. 101.“And not just the New York Times, but also the CIA, had similar intelligence, some of it SOOPER SEKRIT.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/19/2014 @ 8:35 pm

    Sammy – The State Department put out the video story before the White House, the night of 9/11/12,

    They put it out, or rather the Cairo embassy tweeted about how they detested the video, and the U.S. government had nothing to do with the video, before the attack in Benghazi even took place!

    In fact, even before the attack in Cairo.

    And then that statement stood, and the embassy reaffirmed it, and Mitt Romney and others didn’t like that as the sole statement.

    Now he had decided not to issue any campaign statements on September 11. But as time went on, he decided to issue a statement, but embargo it for midnight, and Hillary Clinton found out about it and got ahead of him by issuing some statement around 10 – and in that statement, or separately, they disavowed what the Cairo embassy had tweeted.

    Now she was working on that while the crisis in Benghazi was going on. Nobody outside the U.s. govenment, pretty much, knew about what was going on in Benghazi. BY 10 pm, the Ambassador had already been pronouned dead – maybe, but they didn’t have his body, and a drone was flying over Benghazi and the security team that had arrived in Benghazi from Tripoli was deliberating where to head to, and was being lied to by Libyans.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  107. i> When you find your CIA smoking gun, please provide a link.

    I don’t know. This may be about he best II have at the moment.

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/petraeus-s-objection-benghazi-talking-points_724656.html

    After nearly two days of editing, then CIA director David Petraeus was sent the revised Benghazi talking points on September 15, 2012. He was less than impressed, to put it mildly.

    “No mention of the cable to Cairo, either?” Petraeus wrote in an email. “I’d just as soon not use this, then

    Now the point is, this was in a collection of “warnings”” the CIA gave about Benghazi.

    The only way that a cable to Cairo could be interpreted as a warning, about Benghazi is if that cable mentioned the video, and said it would give rise to a protests in Egyot, and the attack in Benghazi was also because of the video.

    The content of that cable?

    That’s one thing we need to know.

    The Weekly Standard thinks Petraeus is referring to this sentence, struck from the talking points:

    “On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the Embassy Cairo and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.”

    which in a slightly later version was changed to:

    “On 10 September we notified Embassy Cairo of social media reports calling for a demonstration and encouraging jihadists to break into the Embassy.”

    Now I think it is quote possible thatthe whole protest in Cairo was organized to take the attention of the American government away from Benghazi.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  108. Sammy–you enjoy research and drawing conclusions from disparate sources of information. Maybe you can look for the Lost Dutchman’s Mine.

    elissa (164cf6)

  109. Comment by elissa (164cf6) — 5/19/2014 @ 9:00 pm

    A “Statement”. A PR piece.

    which they later disavowed.

    Of course this whole statement was a lie, but this story that this was about the video was probably being spread in any number of ways.

    The subtext of that was this wasn’t planned in advance – because supposedly nobody had known about the video in Libya a day before.

    The posting of the video on You Tibe (in July) , in fact even he making of the video in the first place, was probably the work of the jihadists.

    How else could they be sure there’d be something to be outraged about, that it wouldn’t be taken down at the first signs of protest, and that it wouldn’t actually hurt any of their propaganda?

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  110. The jihadists had been laying the groundwork for this for some time. A lot of people were ready to believe this thing.

    Huh? So you’re saying that the act of terrorism at Benghazi was in the works for a long time, regardless of whether some video was or wasn’t posted to Youtube, and yet people (you mean in the White House?) were prepared to believe the nonsensical explanation that all the planning that went into that plot — and its final execution — was prompted by that same video?

    The very fact that both Barack and Hillary, in front of mourning families, were disgustingly citing the filmmaker as the culprit — as a person who should be scapegoated — instead of the Islamic terrorists is a strong indicator that something was being cooked up by the loons in the White House and their like-minded flunkies throughout the federal government.

    Mark (99b8fd)

  111. You know what? I really don’t care about the politics of this event.

    I would like to know how and why a veteran diplomat with the credentials of U.S. Ambassador to Libya was murdered along with three other Americans. The killing of an Ambassador is indeed an act of war.

    I would like to know who was responsible and why they have not been brought to justice. I would like to know if there are any attempts to right the wrong.

    I would like someone in the administration to not dissemble about time past and ridicule honest questions.

    Our politicians continue to quibble about various committees investigating and covering all the questions. Regardless, there are no answers.

    Four dead Americans and no answers.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  112. So, you’re saying the jihadists outwitted and bamboozled Hillary and people still want her to be president?

    elissa (164cf6)

  113. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Dutchman's_Gold_Mine

    The Lost Dutchmen’s Mine – the one that had that name anyway, is supposed to be a vein of gold discovered by Jacob Waltz (c. 1810–1891), who was called a Dutchmen because that word was used for German.

    He died in 1891 after a flood in Phoenix, Arizona, probably from pneumonia, but before he died, he told a female acquaintance named Julia Thomas, who was taking care of him, but whom he may not have married because she was one quarter black, about this vein of gold he had discovered years before.

    Or maybe he didn’t.

    People have been searching for it since 1892.

    Julia and her partners began selling maps for $7 each after a while.

    Someone was killed while searching for that mine, or another mine, in 1931. Maybe he’d been swindled.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  114. 116. Comment by elissa (164cf6) — 5/19/2014 @ 9:25 pm

    So, you’re saying the jihadists outwitted and bamboozled Hillary and people still want her to be president?

    I doubt she was bamboozled – that’s one reason she didn’t go on the Sunday talk shows. But some other people liked this story.

    Hillary had no intention of arguing with them, to say the least, and anyway, if it all traced back to Prince Bandar, this is not something she would want to be discovered.

    Hillary just chose her words very carefully.

    Too many people don’t understand the video story has to be false (as a genuine reason for the attack) so it’s not impacting her presidential prospects very much at this point. She didn’t even endorse it. That was left to Susan Rice.

    I don’t know where the idea comes from that when she promised people would be punished she was talking about the maker of the video. I don’t know where that comes from.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  115. ” The jihadists had been laying the groundwork for this for some time. A lot of people were ready to believe this thing.

    Comment by Mark (99b8fd) — 5/19/2014 @ 9:23 pm

    Huh? So you’re saying that the act of terrorism at Benghazi was in the works for a long time, regardless of whether some video was or wasn’t posted to Youtube, and yet people (you mean in the White House?) were prepared to believe the nonsensical explanation that all the planning that went into that plot — and its final execution — was prompted by that same video?

    Absolutely. More precisely, that there was no planning that went back more than a few hours.

    This was very, very gratifying news n the whiote House.

    The very fact that both Barack and Hillary, in front of mourning families, were disgustingly citing the filmmaker as the culprit

    They didn’t do that, even if maybe some people heard it that way because they were being so vague.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  116. They are still claiming – and the CIA is claiming – that there was no pre-planning or not necessarily any pre-planning, that went back more than a few hours, because they couldn’t have heard about the video more than a few hours before. (They might concede maybe something in the works was accelerated)

    “Demonstrations” is out of the picture.

    “Spontaneous” is out of the picture.

    Not “video”

    That’s still very much in the running in the official U.S. government position.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  117. “I don’t know where the idea comes from that when she promised people would be punished she was talking about the maker of the video. I don’t know where that comes from.”

    She said it in front of the caskets, in front of the families. She said it. Days after they knew for a fact it was not true. She flat out effin’ lied.

    JD (e12cf2)

  118. “The very fact that both Barack and Hillary, in front of mourning families, were disgustingly citing the filmmaker as the culprit

    They didn’t do that, even if maybe some people heard it that way because they were being so vague.”

    You could not be more wrong.

    JD (e12cf2)

  119. 115. Comment by Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 5/19/2014 @ 9:23 pm

    I would like to know who was responsible and why they have not been brought to justice.

    The short answer: Because Barack Obama is incompetent.

    But you could probably give a three hundred page explanation if the details were known.

    I would like to know if there are any attempts to right the wrong.

    Probably, yes, and all sots of reasons why it gets no place. Not even the lower anking people.

    Four dead Americans and no answers.

    The Congress has got to break through all the classification.

    For one thing:

    Why was the Ambassador there that day, and who knew he was coming?? Who maybe even was the cause of his coming?

    Who knew about the security plans for the villa, and who worked with the U.S. government on it?

    What were various people in Libya telling the U.S. government that night?

    Who, if anyone, was lying in any of that?

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  120. ““No mention of the cable to Cairo, either?” Petraeus wrote in an email. “I’d just as soon not use this, then”

    Sammy – Why do you believe that cable refers to something about the video? Marc Thiessen at the Washington Post does not believe it does.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  121. Mark @ 114: “The very fact that both Barack and Hillary, in front of mourning families, were disgustingly citing the filmmaker as the culprit”

    SF @ 119

    They didn’t do that, even if maybe some people heard it that way because they were being so vague.”

    JD @ 122

    You could not be more wrong.

    We need a link to what they said.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  122. “Too many people don’t understand the video story has to be false (as a genuine reason for the attack) so it’s not impacting her presidential prospects very much at this point. She didn’t even endorse it.”

    Sammy – Hillary damn well did endorse the video as a cause of the attack narrative. Heck, the State Department even created an advertising campaign in Pakistan as a result.

    It is really tough to separate what you are making up as pure speculation and what is based on known reporting Sammy.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  123. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/19/2014 @ 10:03 pm

    Sammy – Why do you believe that cable refers to something about the video? <

    Because something caused the Cairo Embassy to tweet about the video in an attempt to forestall the protest at Cairo, and because the CIA cited it as a warning about Benghazi

    Marc Thiessen at the Washington Post does not believe it does.

    My feelings about the Washington Post are like some other people’s feelings about the New York Times.

    What exactly does Marc Thiessen say?

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  124. I don’t know where the idea comes from that when she promised people would be punished she was talking about the maker of the video. I don’t know where that comes from.

    Sammy, your puzzlement comes from that little liberal voice in the back of your mind. You should slap it around on occasion and realize it will steer you wrong, time and time again.

    In terms of Hillary Clinton and the person interviewed below, I would easily trust the words of the later over that of the former, or a person so vile and dishonest that she publicly lied about running from sniper fire during her time as First Lady even after it had been fully revealed in the press that it was a flat-out lie.

    glennbeck.com, October 2012: Glenn [Beck] interviewed Charles Woods whose son Tyrone Woods, a former Navy SEAL, was killed during the attacks on the Libyan embassy in Benghazi. In the interview with Glenn, Woods detailed his encounters with the top members of the Obama administration, including the President himself.

    “I’m a retired attorney for six years I was an administrative law judge and in the several thousands cases I heard my job was to tell who was telling the truth and who wasn’t,” Woods explained. “There were four pods at Andrews Air Force Base and when he (Obama) came over to where we were I could tell he was [a] very conflicted person who was not at peace with himself. Shaking hands with him quite frankly was like shaking hands with a dead fish. His face was pointed towards me but he would not look me in the eye. His eyes were over my shoulder and not in a forceful voice said ‘I’m really sorry, Mr. Woods.’”

    “And I could tell he was not sorry. He had no remorse,” Woods continued.

    “The Vice President was also there,” Woods explained. “He said ‘I’m Joe Biden’. He said he had received one of these ‘damn phone calls’ when he had lost a family member. And then about a half hour later he approached me and said – and these are the exact words he said…I don’t speak like this….and in an extremely loud and boisterous voice he said: ‘Did your sons always have balls the size of cueballs?’”

    “I will ask you the question: Is that the voice of someone who is truly sorry?” Woods asked Glenn.

    For over a week, the White House has been trying to push the narrative that President Obama said from the beginning that the attack on the embassy was a terrorist attack, not a protest that got out of hand. But Clinton’s statements to Woods conflicted with that statement.

    Woods explained, “I do appreciate her taking the time from her schedule to meet with the four families. While we were in the pod over there with our family she came over shook my hand and I reached out and hugged her shoulder. Her countenance was not good. And she made the statement to me that first of all she was sorry and then she said ‘We will make sure the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.’ ”

    Clinton was referring to a controversial YouTube film that the Obama administration claimed inspired the “spontaneous protests” that led to the attacks.

    Mark (99b8fd)

  125. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/19/2014 @ 10:07 pm

    Sammy – Hillary damn well did endorse the video as a cause of the attack narrative. Heck, the State Department even created an advertising campaign in Pakistan as a result.

    On September 16. Demonstrations were coming in Pakistan that were definitely ostensibly about a video.

    Hillary Clinton and the State Department were heavily criticized for that advertising campaign -not for saying there could be a demonstration about a video, but for apologizing for freedom of speech and religion.

    It is really tough to separate what you are making up as pure speculation and what is based on known reporting Sammy

    Some details keep slipping from my mind. She did play along with this narrative later.

    But even these ads don’t say outright that the video is causing any demonstration. She probably joined in, because she probably couldn’t get out of it without going into open disagreement with others in the administration, maybe even with Obama.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  126. Sammy here, from the ceremony greeting the remains at Eswards Air Force base:

    Speaking before the president, a clearly emotional Secretary of State Hilary Clinton offered up thanks to the four U.S. citizens who died after the Benghazi consulate was stormed on September the 11th.

    ‘They didn’t simply embrace the American ideal, they lived it; they embodied it. If we want to truly honor their memory, that’s who we must always be.’
    ‘Today we bring home four Americans who gave their lives for our country and our values,’ said Clinton. ‘To the families of our fallen colleagues, I offer our most heartfelt condolences and deepest gratitude.’
    The transfer of remains came three days after an attack on the consulate, one of a series of assaults on U.S. outposts in Muslim countries that U.S. officials blame on an anti-Muslim video made in the United States.
    Clinton said the rage and violence aimed at American missions was prompted by ‘an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203298/Victims-Benghazi-massacre-return-home-Obama-Clinton-pay-tribute.html

    elissa (164cf6)

  127. nd she made the statement to me that first of all she was sorry and then she said ‘We will make sure the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.’

    Then it looks like she was trying to “buy him off” with that. This might be said if she was fairly certain that the real culprits would not be caught.

    And that’s not the same thing as saying that that man is responsible for the attacks. Maybe she hopes he’s thinking that, but she didn’t say it.

    She also did this privately, not for public consumption. That is not in her public statements.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  128. Sammah knows better. Watch how he will spin that to make it Bandar’s SOOPERSEKRIT intelligence that forced her to tell an obvious lie that nobody could be expected to believe.

    JD (e5a0fa)

  129. “Hillary Clinton and the State Department were heavily criticized for that advertising campaign -not for saying there could be a demonstration about a video, but for apologizing for freedom of speech and religion.”

    Sammy – The State Department kept repeating all over the world the U.S. Government had nothing to do with making of the offending video and apologizing for the freedom of speech and religion people enjoy in the United States. Feel free to twist that however you want.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  130. elissa @131. Clinton said the rage and violence aimed at American missions was prompted by ‘an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.’

    No, I don’t believe that’s actually what she said. That’s the Daily Mail paraphrasing what she said, but the only words in quotes are:

    “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.”

    Not that that caused it. She’s a Clinton. Don’t you think she was careful not to say that the video caused the attacks?

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  131. from the same article:

    Their sacrifice will never be forgotten. We will bring to justice those who took them from us,’ said President Barack Obama during his speech in front of the dead men’s family. ‘Chris Stevens was everything America could want in an ambassador,’ he added.

    Heck of a job, there, Barry.

    elissa (164cf6)

  132. “Not that that caused it. She’s a Clinton. Don’t you think she was careful not to say that the video caused the attacks?”

    Sammy – Pull up her actual words.

    I thought you told elissa you were not defending Hillary.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  133. Oh good allah, Sammy. Did you even bother to read the detailed article and look at all the reporting and pictures documenting that day? Did you see the quotation marks the paper inserted around what came out of Hillary’s mouth?

    elissa (164cf6)

  134. “Because something caused the Cairo Embassy to tweet about the video in an attempt to forestall the protest at Cairo, and because the CIA cited it as a warning about Benghazi”

    Sammy – The Cairo Embassy began tweeting about the video during the protest because protesters were talking about it. The tweets were pathetic.

    The CIA saw the warnings from Zawahiri’s brother about the upcoming protests. That is what Thiessen and other analysts believe was cabled to Cairo as a warning. Deleting it from the talking points is consistent with deleting other prior warnings or references to how dangerous Benghazi had become which is why Petraeus said he would just as soon not use the talking points with all their value removed.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  135. Sammah – I linked her actually reading the text.

    JD (e5a0fa)

  136. “Sammah – I linked her actually reading the text.”

    JD – But she didn’t really mean what she said!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  137. Let’s see:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/secretary-of-state-hillary-clintons-remarks-at-transfer-of-remains-ceremony-for-americans-killed-in-libya-transcript/2012/09/14/54fc64c0-fea2-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html

    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 to do with.

    Note: She mentioned FIRST Benghazi and THEN “rage and and violence violence directed at American embassies”

    Two separate matters.

    Quite in purpose, or her name isn’t Hillary Clinton.

    When she speaks about the video, she’s not talking about Benghazi. She’s taking about later demonstrations, aimed at embassies.

    She couldn’t possibly be talking about Benghazi, because the mission in Benghazi was not an embassy!!

    Don’t think for a minute that the distinction between Benghazi and the other places wasn’t clear to her. That’s the only reason she said it that way.

    She could have said American installations. It would have been logical to use a word that included also Benghazi. She did not.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  138. Sammy, give it up. I know you have a soft spot in your heart for Democrats/liberals. Why that is, I’m not sure. It certainly doesn’t help that you’ve grown up in a liberal-besotted place like New York City. And being part of an ethnic group in which opinion surveys show an overwhelming percentage lean left is a one-two knock-out punch.

    Common sense gets easily crushed and stomped on in that particular setting. So when surrounded by so many people of the left, it will be hard for the average person to keep his or her philosophical independence (and sanity).

    I guess you’re doing as well as can be expected.

    Mark (99b8fd)

  139. He can’t help it, and we need to stop enabling this madness.

    elissa (164cf6)

  140. Sammy – At this point I think you’ve tied yourself in so many knots that you’ve hopelessly confused your make believe, what you want to be true, narrative with what is actually known.

    You need to take a break.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  141. ==“Sammah – I linked her actually reading the text.”

    JD – But she didn’t really mean what she said!

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/19/2014 @ 10:38 pm==

    And besides– that was not even her–it was a stand in that she uses sometimes to go to public appearances in her stead.

    elissa (164cf6)

  142. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 5/19/2014 @ 10:36 pm

    The CIA saw the warnings from Zawahiri’s brother about the upcoming protests. That is what Thiessen and other analysts believe was cabled to Cairo as a warning.

    But they don’t know what it said or how it said it. Somehow this caused tweeting about a video.

    Deleting it from the talking points is consistent with deleting other prior warnings or references to how dangerous Benghazi had become which is why Petraeus said he would just as soon not use the talking points with all their value removed.

    My question is: If this cable did not mention, or focus on the video, what was the reason for including it in the first place!

    If it said thatthe demonstration would be about freeing Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, why would anyone have any reason to think anything could happen in Benghazi?

    I don’t know. Maybe they warned about attacks in general because of September 11th.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  143. Where was she standing when she said that, Sammah? Which caskets were being returned to the US? What family members were being addressed? What was the solemn occasion?

    JD (e5a0fa)

  144. Sammy has demonstrated enought times that he has nothing but contempt, not to say enmity, for the Clintons. But he does tend to talk things to death. Overanalyze.

    nk (dbc370)

  145. 148. Comment by JD (e5a0fa) — 5/19/2014 @ 10:45 pm

    Where was she standing when she said that, Sammah? Which caskets were being returned to the US? What family members were being addressed? What was the solemn occasion?

    The transfer of remains ceremony for Americans killed in Libya.

    I am saying Hillary Clinton carefully parsed her statement there, and she knew what she was saying. It should be obvious when you look at it.

    She mainly mentions Libya.

    Then she says this has been a difficult week – meaning to include things besides Benghazi. That’s
    the idea.

    1. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men

    AND

    2. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.

    The video is only mentioned in the context of the second matter.

    There was a very strong case that could be made the later rage and violence directed at American embassies was only because of a video (according to the demonstrators) and that was what everybody was saying.

    e.g. see

    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/spread-of-protests-sparked-by-anti-muslim-video.html

    http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/protests-over-anti-islam-film-taper-off-but-effects-linger

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/world/asia/unrest-protests-over-mohammed-film.html

    But the first two, in Cairo and Benghazi, were different.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  146. This is not an accident. This is Hillary Clinton doing the speaking.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  147. “I don’t know. Maybe they warned about attacks in general because of September 11th.”

    Sammy – Why would they ask that it be deleted if it supported the narrative about the video? Derp.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  148. Press Statement
    Hillary Rodham Clinton
    Secretary of State
    Washington, DC
    September 11, 2012

    Share on facebookShare on twitter
    Share

    I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.

    This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.

    Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

    In light of the events of today, the United States government is working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.

    http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/09/197628.htm

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  149. Remarks
    Hillary Rodham Clinton
    Secretary of State
    Treaty Room
    Washington, DC
    September 12, 2012

    Share on facebookShare on twitter
    Share

    Yesterday, our U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya was attacked. Heavily armed militants assaulted the compound and set fire to our buildings. American and Libyan security personnel battled the attackers together. Four Americans were killed. They included Sean Smith, a Foreign Service information management officer, and our Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. We are still making next of kin notifications for the other two individuals.

    This is an attack that should shock the conscience of people of all faiths around the world. We condemn in the strongest terms this senseless act of violence, and we send our prayers to the families, friends, and colleagues of those we’ve lost.

    All over the world, every day, America’s diplomats and development experts risk their lives in the service of our country and our values, because they believe that the United States must be a force for peace and progress in the world, that these aspirations are worth striving and sacrificing for. Alongside our men and women in uniform, they represent the best traditions of a bold and generous nation.

    In the lobby of this building, the State Department, the names of those who have fallen in the line of duty are inscribed in marble. Our hearts break over each one. And now, because of this tragedy, we have new heroes to honor and more friends to mourn.

    Chris Stevens fell in love with the Middle East as a young Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Morocco. He joined the Foreign Service, learned languages, won friends for America in distant places, and made other people’s hopes his own.

    In the early days of the Libyan revolution, I asked Chris to be our envoy to the rebel opposition. He arrived on a cargo ship in the port of Benghazi and began building our relationships with Libya’s revolutionaries. He risked his life to stop a tyrant, then gave his life trying to help build a better Libya. The world needs more Chris Stevenses. I spoke with his sister, Ann, this morning, and told her that he will be remembered as a hero by many nations.

    Sean Smith was an Air Force veteran. He spent 10 years as an information management officer in the State Department, he was posted at The Hague, and was in Libya on a brief temporary assignment. He was a husband to his wife Heather, with whom I spoke this morning. He was a father to two young children, Samantha and Nathan. They will grow up being proud of the service their father gave to our country, service that took him from Pretoria to Baghdad, and finally to Benghazi.

    The mission that drew Chris and Sean and their colleagues to Libya is both noble and necessary, and we and the people of Libya honor their memory by carrying it forward. This is not easy. Today, many Americans are asking – indeed, I asked myself – how could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be.

    But we must be clear-eyed, even in our grief. This was an attack by a small and savage group – not the people or Government of Libya. Everywhere Chris and his team went in Libya, in a country scarred by war and tyranny, they were hailed as friends and partners. And when the attack came yesterday, Libyans stood and fought to defend our post. Some were wounded. Libyans carried Chris’ body to the hospital, and they helped rescue and lead other Americans to safety. And last night, when I spoke with the President of Libya, he strongly condemned the violence and pledged every effort to protect our people and pursue those responsible.

    The friendship between our countries, borne out of shared struggle, will not be another casualty of this attack. A free and stable Libya is still in America’s interest and security, and we will not turn our back on that, nor will we rest until those responsible for these attacks are found and brought to justice. We are working closely with the Libyan authorities to move swiftly and surely. We are also working with partners around the world to safeguard other American embassies, consulates, and citizens.

    There will be more time later to reflect, but today, we have work to do. There is no higher priority than protecting our men and women wherever they serve. We are working to determine the precise motivations and methods of those who carried out this assault. Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior, along with the protest that took place at our Embassy in Cairo yesterday, as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet. America’s commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear – there is no justification for this, none. Violence like this is no way to honor religion or faith. And as long as there are those who would take innocent life in the name of God, the world will never know a true and lasting peace.

    It is especially difficult that this happened on September 11th. It’s an anniversary that means a great deal to all Americans. Every year on that day, we are reminded that our work is not yet finished, that the job of putting an end to violent extremism and building a safe and stable world continues. But September 11th means even more than that. It is a day on which we remember thousands of American heroes, the bonds that connect all Americans, wherever we are on this Earth, and the values that see us through every storm. And now it is a day on which we will remember Sean, Chris, and their colleagues.

    May God bless them, and may God bless the thousands of Americans working in every corner of the world who make this country the greatest force for peace, prosperity, and progress, and a force that has always stood for human dignity – the greatest force the world has ever known. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.

    Thank you.

    http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/09/197654.htm

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  150. It was that nasty, inflammatory Doonesbury comic strip… right, Sammy?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  151. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

    “But you know, my tendency to feel that American imperialism and Western arrogance should always be taken into consideration when dealing with the world stage — in the same way that here at home I feel criminals’ life history and personal circumstances should always be taken into consideration when meting out punishment (and, well, the victims of those criminals just have to open their hearts) — I say let’s sic the criminal-justice system on that horribly unfair, racist, bigoted, imperialist film maker who posted a video to Youtube!! Grrr!”
    Hillary’s inner liberal voice, which convinced her that she indeed did run from sniper fire at an airport tarmac in Bosnia

    Mark (99b8fd)

  152. Daleyrocks @ 153.

    You’re right – she issued a statement on Benghazi while it as still September 11 in Washington, D.C. I knew she issued a statement on Sept. 11 but I thought that was only about Egypt. They were being very caeful with the news, in fact first saying that an American was killed in Benghazi, without saying it was the Ambassador.

    That’s what is in this statement. “we have confirmed that one of our State Department
    officers was killed.”

    This doesn’t say the time. Do you know the time?

    Look at that: Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. Notice, she does not endorse the idea there was a connection.

    And who is trying to justify it? Only Ansar al Sharia. Only participants.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  153. Daleyrocks @152.

    Why would they ask that it be deleted if it supported the narrative about the video?

    The State Department, not the CIA, had requested deletions.

    They didn’t like the claims that they had been repeatedly warned. Rather than discuss any of that, deputy CIA Director Mike Morell, deleted all of them at the same time.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)

  154. “This doesn’t say the time. Do you know the time?”

    Sammy – It was after her 10 p.m. EST phone call with Obama.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  155. “The State Department, not the CIA, had requested deletions.”

    Sammy – Yes. You questioned why include the warning if it was not about the video. My answer is to warn about the potential for violent protests in the region and to show a pattern of CIA concern over Benghazi and the region.

    You have no case to make for why you believe the cable to Cairo was about the video or why it was deleted from the talking points. All you are doing is sniping without support at other theories.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  156. 155. Comment by Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/20/2014 @ 5:30 am

    It was that nasty, inflammatory Doonesbury comic strip… right, Sammy?

    If you didn’t know what she was talking about, you wouldn’t learn it from her.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e96a4)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.1560 secs.