U.S. Ambassador and three others killed in Libya.

[Lemur]

OBAMA: Well it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.

WHY DOES HE HATE AMERICA?

[Vladimir]

WHY DOES HE HATE AMERICA?

Because he hates freedom?

[Lemur]

Foreign Policy takes a smackdown stick to y'all. (Obviously, Middle East experts hate freedom too.)

What about Benghazi? In retrospect, I suspect that the intense focus on Benghazi hurt Romney more than Obama. I suspect that most voters quickly recognized Benghazi for the Republican pseudo-scandal it always was, and received it at roughly the same wavelength as Donald Trump demanding a birth certificate. The prospect of a hammer blow to bring down the incumbent enemy may have thrilled the base, but the very fact of its identification with Fox News and the right wing bubble limited its ability to travel farther. So did the fact that it fairly clearly was not a "scandal" of any significance. Yes, the tragic deaths revealed serious, relatively low-level, issues with inter-agency coordination and communication, and more major issues about intelligence and the changing nature of al-Qaeda's strategy and organization. But it was never the scandal which Republicans so desperately wanted it to be, nor Libya the failure so many believe it to be. Hopefully the real issues can now be addressed outside of the partisan frenzy.

At the same time, by sucking up an unbelievable amount of the air in the foreign policy debate, Benghazi crowded out a much more serious debate which might have taken place about Syria, Egypt and the Arab spring.

[Xiahou]

Well, the Accountability Review Board has released its report on the Benghazi attacks. And it's pretty damning. I could sum up the findings as "inadequate security, inadequate intel, and inadequate leadership".

“The Board found that certain senior State Department officials ... in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability appropriate for the State Department’s senior ranks,” the report concludes in its section on accountability of personnel.

The findings start around page 29. The timeline of attack precedes it and is pretty harrowing.

This will likely have a negative impact on any future political ambitions that Hillary Clinton may have had. Resignations at the State Dept have already begun.

[Xiahou]

Seems like a good time to necro this thread.... Some new reporting from ABC....

Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference

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

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

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

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

Remember to just keep telling yourselves that it's all a partisan GOP witch hunt... nothing to see here.

[Lemur]

Remember to just keep telling yourselves that it's all a partisan GOP witch hunt... nothing to see here.

Also please remember that Benghazi is ten times bigger than Watergate and Iran Contra put together. For reals!

“I believe that it’s a lot bigger than Watergate, and if you link Watergate and Iran-Contra together and multiply it times maybe 10 or so, you’re going to get in the zone where Benghazi is,” says Rep. Steve King, R.

Or to put it a little more straightforwardly: "Vee are nihilists, vee believe in nah-zing."



-edit-

Oh, look, Karl Rove's group, Crossroads, already has a Benghazi-themed ad out slamming HC. Nothing creepy about that, no sir. Remember kids: We must hold nine or ten hearings about Benghazi because maybe the Dems used it for political gain (in a completely unclear manner—nobody seems to be able to answer the basic question, cui bono?). But if you jump all over Benghazi for political gain and you happen to be Republican, that's okay, because you are a patriot and you cry bald eagle tears and love 'Murica.

[drone]

So far, two things are pretty obvious:

1. The GOP wants to crush any chance Hillary has for 2016. It's nice to see the Clintons' can still inspire such rage.
2. Hillary and State screwed up big time.

I'm glad I get to laugh at both. Nice marmot.