I know a leftist is never supposed to say anything negative about the administration's stories about Benghazi. Then again, I was raised to "tell the truth and shame the devil," even when it's an inconvenient truth. So, I try my best to do that.
I saw with my own eyes that the original story on the internet was "terrorist attack on the anniversary of 911." I also saw with my own eyes that the original story mysteriously and quickly changed to "spontaneous demonstrations in Egypt and Libya over an anti-Muslim movie." (Despite the quotation marks, those are not direct quotes, just the gist of what was showing up on AP and other mainstream sources.) Did Republican Senators ever see the original stories that changed while most of the U.S. was still fast asleep? I have no idea.
Then, in "morning in America," the President said something about "no act of terrorism" would go unaddressed (or words to that effect). So, then, because of what I had heard initially, I thought to myself, "Oh, so it was a terrorist attack, after all."
But while this was mention of terrorism, yes, it was certainly not quite as clear or unequivocal as the original news emanating from Benghazi, which suggested a planned terrorist attack. The murders and rioting could have been considered an act of terrorism, even if the demonstration had been spontaneous and over a movie. Was there wiggle room in the statement, you bet. Is Obama the type of President to wiggle right through any room left by the way his prior statements were worded? You bet. We've seen that any number of times.
Then, for about two weeks all we heard about with respect to Benghazi was this movie on You Tube and the actors who in it getting death threats and the Copt who had made the movie. They even very publicly arrested the Copt on an outstanding warrant or for a parole violation or some such--point being that the arrest related to something not terribly significant that he had done before Benghazi.
Somewhere in between all that, I read that it had been indeed a planned attack, but the FBI or the CIA put out the movie story because they did not want the persons responsible for the attack to know that they were being searched for. (LOL: as if the perps would not be cautious anyway?)
And then, Susan Rice was all over TV, saying spontaneous demonstrations over a movie, no planned terrorist attack.
And, after that, the story was that no one had wanted to say it was a terrorist attack until they fully investigated and were certain. And, as soon as they were certain, they had announced publicly that it was a terrorist attack.
Well, that makes no sense, either, does it? Why is it okay, before you investigate, to state as fact that there were spontaneous demonstrations and assassinations over a ridiculous You Tube movie, putting the producer and actors in harm's way over an exercise of free speech, no less--not to mention feeding into the idea that Muslims go off rioting and killing people over every perceived slight to Muslims? How is any part of that okay? But, according to them, it is not okay, without positive proof, to say "terrorism," without naming any particular person or group?
You can imagine my confusion. So, what of the members of Congress?
IMO, the only story that should have been given media from the jump is that it was too soon to make any definitive statement and speculating about these tragic events would be inappropriate. But, someone had jumped the gun, so they tried to deflect with the You Tube movie story. Why lie? I will leave that to you, sayinbg only that Benghazi occurred on September 11, 2012, a little under two months away from a Presidential election day.
Well, this morning, I have been watching the confirmation hearings of Victoria Nuland, who had been a "spokesperson" for the DOS during the Benghazi crisis and whom Obama has nominated for Assistant Secretary of State. And her wiki includes this tidbit:
Nuland has emerged as one of the key figures who has been accused by various sources of initiating a cover up of the 2012 Benghazi attack. After reading the first draft of the State Department talking points that stated that the incident was a coordinated terrorist attack, she sent a message writing that they “could be abused by members of Congress to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings so why would we want to seed the Hill.”<4>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_NulandYes, boys and girls, you guessed it. Democratic Senators had few to no questions for her on that subject (during the segment that I watched, anyway) and Republican Senators had many questions for her about it.
And, she was, as best I could tell, still being deceptive about it. Well, of course, she was. Before, she was protecting the State Dept and the administration. Now, she was protecting her desire to get a more prestigious slot in the D of S. So, she had a personal interest.
She told Rubio that, if confirmed, "I would be honest to you,
within my responsiblities." What part of her responsiblities include being dishonest or not forthcoming to the Senate of the United States and the people of the United States? And why would any Senator believe that she would be any more honest and forthcoming in a higher position within State than she was in her position as official "spokesperson?"
Finally, putting that statement in writing was arrogant, incredibly stupid and without any regard for either a co-equal (in theory) branch of government and the right of the public to know.
If I were a Senator of any political Party, I would
so vote against confirmation. Indeed, I would not even be able to believe that Obama had the nerve to nominate her. But, I suspect people will vote with their caucuses. The Senate, like everything else in federal government, is broken and I don't see a certified repair specialist anywhere on the horizon.