Obama Administration’s Benghazi Gambit: Protect Rice, Scapegoat CIA

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A suspiciously timely scoop:

CBS News has obtained the CIA talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Sept. 15 regarding the fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, four days earlier. CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan says the talking points, which were also given to members of the House intelligence committee, make no reference to terrorism being a likely factor in the assault, which left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.
Rice . . . has been attacked by Republican lawmakers for saying . . . on Sept. 16 that all indications were the attack “began spontaneously” – suggesting it likely sprang from a protest against an anti-Muslim video found on the Internet. Protests of that nature had been seen in other Muslim nations in the days and weeks before the Benghazi attack.
“Available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault… There are indications that extremists participated,” read the CIA’s talking points.

Ed Morrissey observes:

It seems interesting this CBS scoop comes shortly before both the current and former directors of the CIA will testify as to what they know about the terrorist attack on our consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi. Why, it’s almost as if someone at the White House or State Department wanted to follow up on Barack Obama’s defense of Susan Rice during yesterday’s press conference and pre-empt any potential fallout from whatever Mike Morell and David Petraeus have to say today and tomorrow.

Extreme naïveté is necessary to believe anything the Obama administration says and extreme cynicism is necessary to pretend that the Obama administration is telling the truth. So, are the pro-Obama media naive fools or cynical hacks? We report. You decide.

Meanwhile, Jill Kelley has lost her “honorary consul general” privileges, whatever the heck that means.

 

12 comments

  3. The heroic FBI agent is being smeared, too, to sensationalize the story and distract from the perfidious calumny of Benghazi. His “shirtless photo” was part of many exchanged between the families, who were friends and socialized.

    The man took his shirt off at the beach! Scandal!

  5. This administration might as well add the Dept. of Media to the cabinet. Obama could be found in bed with a PeeWee Herman and the lapdog media wouldn’t breath a word.

  9. “‘Available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault… There are indications that extremists participated,” read the CIA’s talking points.'”

    If someone handed me a talking point like this with which to go before the country, wouldn’t I ask, what the hell does this mean? Does it mean “…inspired by the attacks on the embassy in Cairo.”? Or does it mean, “…inspired by the video that inspired the attacks in Cairo.”?

    And exactly what does the word “spontaneously” mean in this context? Does it mean that 100 plain folks in Benghazi learned about the video and/or the attacks in Cairo and rushed over to “protest” at the Benghazi consulate by coincidence on 9/11?

    And the word “evolved” here is weird here too. Can you say: “The Normandy invasion evolved from the furor over the Hitler/Chamberlain peace agreement.”

    One of the problems with big government is that some people with poor communications skills, or rather communications skills that turn out deliberately vague, CYA products, are promoted to important information-conveying positions (see Jay Carney and hundreds of others).

  10. Oh oh. Justoneminute gives a different version of the talking points:

    “‘”The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US diplomatic post in Benghazi and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.'”

    Which version is correct or which has been edited?

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