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

[Xiahou]

From the Christian Science Monitor:
Has Benghazi become the Obama administration’s Watergate?

The drip-drip-drip of trouble for the administration regarding Benghazi continued Friday when ABC News reported State Department e-mails showing that official talking points on the attack were “extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.”

“Summaries of White House and State Department emails … show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points,” ABC reported.

In a piece headlined “Spinning Benghazi,” the New Yorker’s Alex Koppelman writes: “For a long time, it seemed like the idea of a cover-up was just a Republican obsession. But now there is something to it.”

“It’s striking to see the twelve different iterations that the talking points went through before they were released to Congress and to United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice,” Koppelman writes. “Over the course of about twenty-four hours, the remarks evolved from something specific and fairly detailed into a bland, vague mush.”

Much of what comes out of political spokesman (and politicians themselves) is spin. But this was about an event in which an American ambassador and others were killed in an apparently preplanned and coordinated attack that revealed failures in intelligence and security preparations.

If the New Yorker is starting to come around on this, god help the Obama administration.....

Also, for Lemur:3 Reasons Benghazi Still Matters

It certainly looks as though State massaged their talking points to avoid talking about terrorism. This is, at absolute best, a venal sin. And it certainly doesn't rise to the threshold of Watergate plus Iran Contra times ten.

So, the CIA puts out it's initial assessment citing a terrorist attack. High ranking State Department officials "massage" it to remove all references to a terror attack and instead blame it on a Youtube video. You think that's no big deal? That strikes me as partisan blindness. How big a deal did you think Bush dismissing DAs was? How big a deal did you think the Valerie Plame scandal was? You can use the search function and refresh your memory. How were those worthy of news coverage and investigation where an attack resulting in the first death of an ambassador in decades is not?