Benghazi: What's the Charge Again?

[Heywood]

The legitimate scandal of Benghazi is that the Obama administration appears to have purposely misled the American people about what transpired, to protect the President's foreign policy rep, just two months away from an Presidential election.

How would such a lie help?

Embassies get attacked by terrorists all the time. It happened 13 times under Bush, which Al Qaida was "on the run". Why would it be especially damning to have one happen under Obama? And why does a riot make it any better? An attack is an attack. Dead is dead. The damage is done either way, whether the attack was planned or spontaneous.

If memory serves me correct in 1963 there were 8000+ murders in the USA. Now you probably don't know about any of them except for 1....the murder of President John F Kennedy. The reason you know about that murder....the reason that murder still makes news 50 years later is because a President of the United States was murdered.

Your error is that you conflate an attack on an embassy with the killing of an Ambassador. An embassy attack and the killing of an Ambassador are not the same thing.

The "What difference does it make" excuse may fly with you....but it doesn't fly with everyone. This was a big deal and trying to down play it only appeals to the locksteppers.

[DeistPaladin]

Actually whether or not the attack was the result of a stupid YouTube video or a response to a CIA blacksite that was responsible for kidnapping and torturing local "terrorist suspects," that makes a big difference.

Interesting. So the GOP is outraged over a cover up regarding a CIA blacksite where terror suspects were tortured? Is the GOP against torture now or what? Sorry, I don't mean to be difficult but I'm really trying to understand the outrage.

So, if Obama HAD said it was an Al Qaida attack on day one, it would have come out that the attack was against a CIA blacksite? And that's why he had to lie? Or would it have been damaging to the Obama administration in other ways?

Again, not being difficult. I'm really trying to understand. I need more mapping.

[DeistPaladin]

Your error is that you conflate an attack on an embassy with the killing of an Ambassador. An embassy attack and the killing of an Ambassador are not the same thing.

OK, so the other 13 attacks didn't attempt on any of the ambassadors lives? Or is the scandal that the terrorists got lucky and hit a higher ranking target?And how does "lying" about it (setting aside the question of what evidence you have that he did) help him politically? If the scandal is about an ambassador being killed, how does it help Obama politically that the attack that killed him was during a riot and not a coordinated assault?

Map it out for me, please.

[DeistPaladin]

It also stinks to high heaven that CIA director David Petraeous was forced to resign days after the election over an affair, and a month prior his mistress accidentally admitted this:

OK, so the scandal is that we could have helped the ambassador but chose not to? Was this because sending Delta Force in, as this woman suggests we could have in time, would have exposed the blacksite and so a conscious decision was made to sacrifice the ambassador? Is this your allegation?

Details, please. If your going to allege a conspiracy, I want to at least get a clear accusation regarding means, motive and opportunity.

[Heywood]

OK, so the other 13 attacks didn't attempt on any of the ambassadors lives? Or is the scandal that the terrorists got lucky and hit a higher ranking target?And how does "lying" about it (setting aside the question of what evidence you have that he did) help him politically? If the scandal is about an ambassador being killed, how does it help Obama politically that the attack that killed him was during a riot and not a coordinated assault?

Map it out for me, please.

I don't think lying about it helped or would have helped him much at all. In my opinion the American public is understanding of the fact that sometimes, despite our best efforts, the bad guys are going to land hits. Obama didn't need to lie in my opinion.

However, the days after the murder, The Obama administration seemed hell bent on portraying this as spontaneouss consequence of Muslim anger toward a YouTube film instead of a pre-planed coordinated terrorist attack. So if you want to know why Obama felt the need to lie....you will have to ask him. I don't see a need for a lie. I see a lie.

[DeistPaladin]

I don't think lying about it helped or would have helped him much at all. In my opinion the American public is understanding of the fact that sometimes, despite our best efforts, the bad guys are going to land hits. Obama didn't need to lie in my opinion.

However, the days after the murder, The Obama administration seemed hell bent on portraying this as spontaneouss consequence of Muslim anger toward a YouTube film instead of a pre-planed coordinated terrorist attack. So if you want to know why Obama felt the need to lie....you will have to ask him. I don't see a need for a lie. I see a lie.

OK, for now, we're setting aside my questions #1 and #2, which ask you to back up the allegations that he "lied", which shouldn't be hard since it was so "obvious". As an aside, I note you're already hedging, going from "obvious" to "seemed".

It was also, by the way, next day, not "days after the murder", that Obama called it a terrorist attack. But let that go for now.

Right now, we're focusing on what exactly the allegation is and why, if true, it's so terrible. Certainly more terrible than outing a CIA agent or lying our nation into a war.

You admit you can't put together any motivation for Obama to lie about the terrorist attack and then correct himself the next day? I'm not asking you or anyone to read his mind. I'm asking you to clarify your accusation, which normally includes means, *MOTIVE* and opportunity.

If you can't come up with a motive, you don't really have a strong accusation. If you wish to accuse him anyway, we can move on to my questions #1 and #2 and start providing strong evidence that he wasn't just mistaken or there wasn't just a lot of confusion but that he knowingly lied. Hopefully, your evidence will compensate for the weakness of the accusation itself.

[Minimalist]

The scandal is that the administration intentionally misrepresented to the public at large the nature of incident for purely political purposes......which they obviously did.

I still hear from the left charges that Bush misrepresented Iraq's WMD to sell a war and that's going on 13 years now. Occasionally we still hear about Iran-Contra and that scandal was almost 30 years ago.

You act all surprised that the right wants to get the most mileage out of this scandal? When an administration lies, it takes long time for people to forget about that lie.

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Benghazi = black president.

Minimalist peddling his hate again.

Woodie demonstrating he's a republicunt fuckhead again.

[Mudhammam]

It also stinks to high heaven that CIA director David Petraeous was forced to resign days after the election over an affair, and a month prior his mistress accidentally admitted this:

OK, so the scandal is that we could have helped the ambassador but chose not to? Was this because sending Delta Force in, as this woman suggests we could have in time, would have exposed the blacksite and so a conscious decision was made to sacrifice the ambassador? Is this your allegation?

Details, please. If your going to allege a conspiracy, I want to at least get a clear accusation regarding means, motive and opportunity.

I don't think the GOP wants to disclose anything related to the alleged activity of the CIA annex. That's why they've been pursuing the stupid allegation that the Obama administration purposely let the ambassador die. It's basically all politics between the GOP and Obama, all smoke and mirrors to sidestep the real possibility that the CIA was engaged in illegal activity, i.e. taking people as prisoners. The outrage is that the administration misled the public. Why mislead the public unless they have something to cover-up? In way of evidence, what I'm aware of is the false narrative of the YouTube video put forth by the State Department and the resignation of the CIA director right after the election in light of his mistress spilling the beans on alleged activity of the CIA black site, a fact that as far as I know has been denied by the government (of course).

[Heywood]

OK, for now, we're setting aside my questions #1 and #2, which ask you to back up the allegations that he "lied", which shouldn't be hard since it was so "obvious". As an aside, I note you're already hedging, going from "obvious" to "seemed".

It was also, by the way, next day, not "days after the murder", that Obama called it a terrorist attack. But let that go for now.

Read the transcript of the Rose Garden speech. He called the act "outrageous" and "shocking" and "brutal" but he never described the specific act of the ambassador being murdered a terrorist act. In the rose garden he said, "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for."

The same day Obama gave that Rose Garden speech he was asked this on 60 minutes.

KROFT: “Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word ‘terrorism’ in connection with the Libya attack.”

OBAMA: “Right.”

KROFT: “Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?”

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.”





The lie was sending Rice out to spin this as a spontaneous act of an angry mob. The evidence this is a lie is the fact that there was no evidence this was a spontaneous act of an angry mob and lots of evidence this was a pre-planed attack.

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I don't think the GOP wants to disclose anything related to the alleged activity of the CIA annex. That's why they've been pursuing the stupid allegation that the Obama administration purposely let the ambassador die. It's basically all politics between the GOP and Obama, all smoke and mirrors to sidestep the real possibility that the CIA was engaged in illegal activity, i.e. taking people as prisoners.

There is probably some truth to what you say. If what General Wesley Clark says is true....Obama is just following thru on a Bush strategy. The GOP wants to bash Obama and Clinton over the ambassador's death for obvious political reasons...but they may be purposely avoiding the real story because if it came out....it could look bad on them as well.

[DeistPaladin]

The lie was sending Rice out to spin this as a spontaneous act of an angry mob. The evidence this is a lie is the fact that there was no evidence this was a spontaneous act of an angry mob and lots of evidence this was a pre-planed attack.

That's pretty weak. Can you provide any evidence that Rice was directed to spin the attack as an act by a mob in a conspiracy to mislead the public? It needs to be strong evidence since you can't even think of a motive, even by conjecture.