The actual scandal seems to be the administration put it’s foot in it’s mouth during initial press releases. They screwed up. No biggie. Hardly a big deal, but not a shining moment either.
The Benghazi cowards don’t have any integrity because the only reason they are interested Benghazi is to score political points. There have been dozens of attacks in the past several decades on American diplomats. They don’t give a shit except to score political points, much like Lindsay Graham the poster boy for attempted political point scoring over dead bodies.
pw: WARMACHINEROX
Are you talking about the shooters or about the Republicans?
Yes. Astute observation.
I think the Democrats in the Senate needs to start calling in hearings for all of the Bush-era attacks, going over the missed intelligence, the purported cover ups, and the incompetence of that administration. Drag back Dick Cheney to explain himself on Valerie Plame, Donald Rumsfeld on how he lied about Iraq intelligence, and Condi Rice over the ignored memos on 9/11. And if they refuse to show up, have cameras follow officers delivering the subpoena and an impromptu press conference in front of whatever secret bunker Cheney is hiding in now. Do this as often as they have hearings on Benghazi to illustrate how much of a waste of time this is, and how no Republican gave a fuck about dead embassy personnel when it came to Bush.
And yes, conservatives, Benghazi doesn’t matter because Bush did worse. The reasoning lies in the logic. Death of dozens of Americans in the Bush era doesn’t mean enough to warrant a hearing or an investigation, therefore 4 Americans dead in Benghazi does not either. Every question Democrats get on Benghazi should be answered, sarcastically, with “so how is this different from the Bush-era attacks on American embassies?”
You’re not the only one asking that question; here’s a decent piece on the subject you might be interested in:
She cited mass rape in Libya as a reason to intervene. Only problem is she had no evidence of this because nobody has since uncovered any evidence of this.
Dennis Kucinich weighs in:
Chris Wallace: So do you think those talking points were politically scrubbed?
Kucinich: Of course they were. Come on, are you kidding? This is one of those things that you have to realize were in the circumference of an election, and when you get on the eve of an election, everything becomes political. Unfortunately, Americans died and people who believe in America who put their lives on the line, they weren’t provided with protection. they weren’t provided with a response. They and their families had a right to make sure they were defended. Look, we went into Benghazi under the assumption that somehow there was going to be a massacre in Benghazi. So we went there to protect the Libyan people. We couldn’t go in to protect our own Americans who were serving there? I’m offended by this, and there has to be real answers to the questions being raised.
And now, after several good posts informing you, how do you feel about scumbags like this, that try to milk American deaths just as an opportunity to smear a political opponent?
Good posts? The posts I’ve read exist in a fantasy world where there are no developments in the story being reported by the media every day.
But at least we’ve gotten Dopers to change their position on whether the talking points were lied about. They were. Now the official liberal Doper position is: it doesn’t matter. Okay. Let’s see what more revelations bring.
Politicians lie.
Who knew?
True. But you wouldn’t expect Dopers to cover for them until the absolute last minute when it can no longer be denied. Which is probably why the tone in this thread is rather heated coming from the left side.
Jesus, fuck you’re an idiot. This entire thread you’ve been doing a slow motion faceplant and you pretend that you’re victorious?
Utterly amazing.
The talking points weren’t a lie. That’s a fact, and your bullshit dreams don’t change said fact.
Okay, explain then. From what I’ve read, and not just from right-wing news, they said the attack was caused by a video. That wasn’t true. So then they said that they just didn’t know at the time that it was a terror attack. That turned out to be a lie. Then they said they were just quoting what the intelligence agencies gave them. That was just now found to be a lie.
So explain to me how I’m getting this part wrong.
An attack caused by a video could still be a terrorist attack first off. The information they had in the initial hours was tenuous and required time to vet. When the attack happened they didn’t know who did it, so not saying as much is reasonable. Do you disagree?
In any case, Obama called it a terrorist attack. And even if he didn’t, so fucking what?
The vapid stupidity of your argument is so profound, I want to build a giant limestone monument to it.
Besides, adaher, you’re quickly jumping onto your other foot again.
Your quote was not about supposed lying but about the meme: “Why didn’t Obama protect Americans under attack!!!1!!OMG…just asking questions”.
Again I ask, now that you have been informed, how do you now feel about this behaviour?
It’s not so much that he’s stupid as it is he refuses to wait for intelligence to happen.
Three things wrong with that argument. First, the video could provoke a terrorist attack, but the impression given was that it was a spontaneous demonstration and resulted in the storming of the consulate. Second, they did know it was a terrorist attack, but changed the talking points because that wasn’t the narrative they wanted during an election campaign. Third, if they didn’t know, they certainly didn’t tell Susan Rice to act as if she didn’t know. She was fairly definitive that they did know: a spontaneous demonstration caused by a video.
Actually, the President did do his job. What I was wanting to know is why it didn’t happen when he says he gave the order. Did he actually give the order, or did someone disobey it?
Now the ad hoc explanation has been that they didn’t have enough intelligence. I’d be interested in hearing about a single case where help was denied while waiting for more intelligence to Americans under attack. And of course I’d like to know what they were waiting to find out, and if they found it out before going ahead. I’d also like to know if the people at the consulate were informed that help wasn’t coming until they got answers. You would think if they wanted answers the first people they would ask would be the people in the consulate.