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Lies, Damned Lies, and Garden-Variety Self-Deception [Benghazi]
Slate ^ | April 30, 2014 | John Dickerson

Posted on 05/01/2014 2:37:13 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

Lies, Damned Lies, and Garden-Variety Self-Deception - Why the new Benghazi emails aren’t a “smoking gun.”

Has the Benghazi “smoking gun” been found? Some White House critics believe that new documents wrestled from the White House by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, prove that the Obama administration concocted a cover-up: Political advisers pushed a false story that the murder of four Americans grew out of a protest against an anti-Islamic video in order to hide a policy failure that might hurt the president in an election year. The documents clearly show that the White House pushed the video story, but there’s also proof that the White House believed the story they were pushing.

Were White House officials desperate enough to make up a story? Or were they just embracing and pushing the most politically beneficial version? That is the heart of the matter, but it also raises a larger question about what we call a lie when we look at administration spin: What is willful deceit, what is willful blindness, and what is merely the tunnel vision that comes from constant partisan warfare?

The Obama administration’s story has never been straight on the Benghazi attack. Press Secretary Jay Carney once said the White House and State Department had only been involved in changing one word in crafting the first public response about the attack—the infamous Susan Rice talking points. Emails released in May showed that wasn’t the case. This new batch underscores the White House’s involvement in shaping the story. The Obama administration left the impression that everything related to the Benghazi attack had been released to the investigating committees months ago. That is also clearly false. There have been other instances where the White House line on Benghazi has also earned it Pinocchios.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: benghazi; benrhodes; coverup; jaycarney; libya; susanrice
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
With every other investigation, like Petraus, they always say no comment as it is under investigation, right? But when Rice went on TV to share her story, before an investigation had even been started, she said, "for a fact the attack was caused by a you tube video."

They could have just said, we are not sure, we are investigating what happened it has only been 4 days. But no they knew for a fact that it was a video, not terrorists who attacked our facilities on 9-11.

21 posted on 05/01/2014 7:15:36 AM PDT by thirst4truth (Life without God is like an unsharpened pencil - it has no point.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Let me translate: “Duh, of course the White House is lying. But they’re on our side, so we’ll just chalk it up to ‘business as usual’ and get back to making stuff up to discredit conservatives.”


22 posted on 05/01/2014 7:20:47 AM PDT by kevkrom (I'm not an unreasonable man... well, actually, I am. But hear me out anyway.)
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To: Chewbarkah

You’re absolutely correct — The objective of the Democrat Socialists is to keep the focus of this on anything but Mrs. B.J. Clinton ... keep on the regime, keep it on the media, keep it on the e-mails ... anything but on B.J.’s wife.


23 posted on 05/01/2014 7:24:33 AM PDT by glennaro
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To: Eric in the Ozarks; Ronin

??? I don’t understand your response to Ronin’s post.


24 posted on 05/01/2014 7:26:00 AM PDT by MortMan (With friends like these, who is needing enemas?)
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To: Jacquerie

THE MSM IS A BIGGER PAWN OF OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THAN PRAVDA WAS IN TIMES OF THE SOVIET UNION.

Retired Military Official: We Knew Benghazi Attacks Attributable to Terrorist Group, Not Video

Michael Warren
May 1, 2014

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/military-official-benghazi-attacks-attributable-terrorist-group_788938.html

A retired military officer serving in the U.S.’s Africa Command headquarters in Germany told the House oversight committee Thursday that it was his belief at the time that the September 11, 2012, attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attributable to an Islamic extremist group and not an internet video.

Robert Lovell was an brigadier general with the Air Force, stationed in Germany, when four Americans were killed in Benghazi. In his congressional testimony, Lovell said that his role was to focus on “attribution” of the attack.

“What do you believe they were attributable to?” asked Utah Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz.

“That they were attributable to an Islamist extremist group,” Lovell responded.

“Al Qaeda?” Chaffetz asked.

“We felt it was Ansar al Sharia,” said Lovell.

“Which is affiliated with al Qaeda?” Chaffetz asked.

“Yes,” said Lovell.

Watch the exchange below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNWxZhHw3v8&feature=player_embedded

Lovell also said that the attack was not attributable to a video or protests arising from such a video.


25 posted on 05/01/2014 11:56:10 AM PDT by Dqban22
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