GOP’s Benghazi Conspiracy Falls Apart: White House Didn’t Change Susan Rice’s Talking Points
Source: ThinkProgress
By Hamed Aleaziz on Nov 20, 2012 at 10:51 am
Intelligence officials told CNN that the intelligence community, not the White House, changed the now infamous Benghazi talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice before her appearance on several morning news shows in September. CNN quoted both the spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence and an anonymous official familiar with the drafting of the talking points. The DNI spokesperson said that the only substantive changes came from the intelligence community and not the White House.
Former CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers in a closed door hearing last week that the CIAs original assessment on the Sept. 11 Benghazi attack was that it was carried out by al Qaeda affiliated groups. But he reportedly said that analysis was later taken out after an interagency review in favor of a more general assessment that extremists carried out the attack to broaden the scope and not tip off terrorists to U.S. knowledge on the matter. And despite the fact that Petraeus said the CIA approved the change, Republicans, led by Republican senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Kelly Ayotte (NH), have accused the White House of stripping the language for political reasons.
But Shawn Turner, the spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence, told CNN that it wasnt the White Houses decision:
Another anonymous intelligence official echoed Turner, saying that the changes were made based on legitimate intelligence and for legal purposes:
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/11/20/1219641/susan-rice-talking-points-cia/
liberal N proud
(60,344 posts)northoftheborder
(7,574 posts)BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)Mike Daniels
(5,842 posts)leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)sheshe2
(83,898 posts)He can live out his days there....and leave us in peace!
Javaman
(62,534 posts)regardless of the facts.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Deflate MORE?....what? Into negative space?
atreides1
(16,093 posts)It seems that they have term limits on how long a senator can sit on a committee...Johnny's time as the ranking member on the Armed Services committee is almost up...according to what I saw on Hardball there is one position that is open to him now...ranking member on the Indian Affairs committee!
Holding that position should give him a better ability to deal with non-whites, and maybe teach the arrogant asshat some humility...
skip fox
(19,359 posts)The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)Dubster
(427 posts)knowing the truth about Mcdip and his past, his name has only been great because media made it great. This guy may have flown planes, badly, but he was never great and has shown with this Benghazi incident that he will NEVER be remembered as such by me. When he dies, the hypocrites, sycophants and his allies will be shedding crocodile tears and snotting all over the place, yet Mcdip will end up in the same historical trash bin as mittshit. Count on it. And, by the way, is lyinaynryan still a power in the senate with boner putting him in charge of the budget negotiations? The rethugs must really think so.
John2
(2,730 posts)in their attacks on the Whitehouse, they are trying to leave the CIA and petraeus unscathed. Why hasn't anyone asked Petraeus further, why he thought it was Al Qaeda? Just what connection is there between Ansar Al and Al Qaeda, seeing the Ansar was the only suspect mentioned with a connection? Did they use Al Qaeda as a diversion also? The bottomline here is, not all militia groups in Libya, want democracy, but Sharia law instead. These same groups have also been mentioned in prior attacks to disrupt the process.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)The right wing will repeat this 'conspiracy' ad nauseum for the next 30 years anyway.
sakabatou
(42,174 posts)The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)politicaljunkie41910
(3,335 posts)the Maine GOP party chairman is investigating. There must have been a couple of hundred. Like Pinocchio's nose, the story kept growing even while the man was telling it.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)They have never heard anything to the contrary. They don't even know the existence of basic recent history or current events. One guy I work with has never heard of Clintons 1993 economic plan. He believes himself to be a history expert, but all he knows are RW talking points. It's pointless even discussing politics or history with him. His mind is too far gone. It's sad in a way and I can't help viewing people like him as victims. They live in mortal fear of all these things that just do not exist.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)djean111
(14,255 posts)the media are lying lackey lapdogs for the librul dems.
Indi Guy
(3,992 posts)...and double down when things get desperate.
McCain's untruths are not unlike Romney's emphatic and cynical lies re: Chrysler shipping jobs to China -- which are not unlike Bush's intractable lies re: WMD (which, ironically enough, were propagated by the soon to be Secretary of State, one Condoleezza Rice, whom McCain unblinkingly voted to confirm).
...So much home-grown bad faith by the GOP. Is it no wonder that, weary of the steady onslaught of transparently deceitful propaganda, the majority of the public voted against the corrosive snake-belly politics of lowest common denominator? ...Where politicians, when desperate, race not to the right left or center -- but to the very bottom?
Botany
(70,581 posts)do i need to add this?
SDjack
(1,448 posts)didn't. So, the Prez rolled up the talking points and shoved them up Mc's ass. Then, he laughed all the way back to the White House.
mikki35
(111 posts)Dude seriously needs to learn when to shut up.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)that one appearance of McCain and/or Graham spouting baseless "facts", equals any number of intelligence or administration officials. Especially when MSNBC allows people like King to say, "Yes, the CIA and DNI both signed off on the talking points; but we don't know who approved the talking points."
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)we don't know who said it."
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)And the media stands for it.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)tiresome fools.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,145 posts)This shouldn't have to be relegated to a progressive think tank. It should be on all networks and cable news coming from their own reporters.
Kingofalldems
(38,475 posts)Repubs lose another one. Not a good month.
chowder66
(9,080 posts)Republicans saying this is the White House politicizing when it is not.... so the Republicans politicize it.
These people are useless and stand in the way of the peoples business. McCain and anyone who supported this bullcrap needs to be run out of office.
behindenemylins
(41 posts)Start a bunch of pointless bullshit, then with their usual lemming chorus, point the finger elsewhere.
First time I can remember that protocol was with (drumroll) Willie Horton's "days off". Signed by Reagan; pointed at Dukakis. Quite honestly, that very matter was what interested me in being a Democrat at age 13. Read it in "The Union Builder" where they got to the bottom of it, but obviously it didn't catch fire with the media since they were in the tank for Mr. Broccoli.