Obama: Debate Over Benghazi Talking Points A ‘Side Show’ ("They've used it for fundraising.")

[kpete]

Source: Talking Points Memo

President Barack Obama on Monday forcefully pushed back against critics of his administration's handling of last year's deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, dismissing the debate over the talking points used by United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice as a "side show."

Speaking at a joint press conference alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama reminded reporters that he used the words "act of terror" the day after the attack and that a review of the failures leading up to the attack conducted by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Adm. Mike Mullen rendered "some pretty harsh judgments."

"The whole issue of talking points, frankly throughout this process, has been a sideshow," Obama said. "We have been very clear about throughout was that immediately after this event happened, we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were."

The President said Republicans are fueled more by politics than unearthing the truth.

"So the whole thing defies logic and the fact that this keeps on getting churned out, frankly has a lot to do with political motivations," Obama said. "We've had folks who have challenged Hillary clinton's integrity, Susan Rice's integrity, Mike Mullen and Tom Pickering's integrity...They've used it for fundraising."

Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-debate-over-benghazi-talking-points-side-show

[marshall]

1. I wish that youtube movie had never been dragged into this

I think it would not have lingered on for so long if not for the sound bites mentioning that video. If they really didn't know why or how or who, they should have left out the speculations that were perceived as fact by the critics. Of course that is in hind sight, and perhaps at the time someone in the CIA or the State Department or the White House thought there would be less of a sense of panic if the public had understandable facts to connect to. Nobody wants to say "We don't know what is going on," and nobody likes to hear that either.

[DCBob]

6. It was understandable though..

there were attacks on the US Embassy just hours earlier in Egpyt that were clearly the result of the video.

[karynnj]

16. The problem is that two things happened simultaneously

1) In Airo and elsewhere there were protests related to the film

2) The attack in Libya.

The President and SoS needed to deal with both in real time. The statements by both on the film were very good - explaining and defending the unusual scope of freedom of speech in the US to peoples who were in lands where no film like that could be made without the government condoning it. It was imperative that they respond as they did -- and it is still something Americans (ie Kerry in Germany) are questioned on.

To understand how mystifying and how troubling people in other countries could find it, remember how many long time ACLU supporters were horrified that they backed allowing the march of neo-Nazis in Skokie, an lllinois town with many survivors. Just as they thought the government should stop it, people in the Middle East questioned if the US government either condoned (or even helped) the film - mystified that if it disgusted us (which it did), it would not be made.

I don't remember the context of the mention of the film by Rice. If the question was specifically Libya, she was wrong to cite that - or anything - as motivation. It would have been better to refer to the investigation that had been started. One question that history might uncover is if the State Department or the re-election campaign suggested mentioning the movie. If this was Rice on her own, she is the one who gave the Republicans an opening.

Leaving alone politics, now and 2016, it will be interesting to learn when accounts are written of the Obama years long in the future, why Susan Rice was placed in that position. Was it to intentionally have someone with no first - or likely even second - hand information - giving them deniability? Was it to not make it a bigger story which putting Clinton on would have done - just because she is Hillary? Was it a test to see if she could navigate a tricky story? At any rate, it does not change what Obama said - the story was out there.

[marshall]

17. Do you think Susan Rice erroneously conflated the two events as she was speaking?

That would actually make sense, because she was really thrust out there like a deer in the headlights. And then it just started a ball rolling, and other folks, including the President himself, just assumed that her account was the accurate one. And thus it got repeated numerous times over the next week, much like the game of gossip that I played as a child.

[karynnj]

18. That really could be for Rice - or it might be that the questions led to the confusion

I have not rewatched the talk show appearances since they occurred - and even then I did not see all five of them. It may be that she was asked directly about both the film and the attack. I am lazy at this point - has anyone watched them with this in mind?

As to the President and others - like Clinton, that is not possible. They had direct information by people who were closer to what happened. It is impossible to see them taking it as what happened. In fact, it may be the conflation itself was because of others repeating it.

Consider that few called out McCain this week, when he referred to Hillary saying she did not care why- which morphs the frustrated " does it matter now?" into something that (to those not political or not paying much attention) sounds familiar - and even something they might place as having been said at the hearings -- except that it was NOT what she said. Now - if this is like past RW tricks - it could become urban legend that she said she did not care why - which easily becomes the even less true she does not care.

Consider this: Pretend it is the night before the day of the talk shows and you are a state department or WH or campaign official. Consider how you could make the terrible events look less bad. I know I would want the talking points to focus on the fact that a study has been initiated and the focus is not just what happened but, proactively, in a world that has many unstable places that we can not afford to ignore, what procedures could be put in place to make things safer. It would have also been nice to have a focus on what these people were trying to accomplish - so people conclude that the importance of what they were doing was worth the risk. I think - at a high level - they did this and it is possible that they could not have been more specific as this could have involved a CIA operation failing.

Now consider if there is ANY gain to saying - hey, this was NOT AQ, it was a random group of people very angry over a disgusting film. I don't think so - and, in fact, if the government ACTUALLY were saying that - which I don't think they were - doesn't it make it worse? It is one think for a terrorist organization that has developed skills over time successfully hit a remote, less guarded American outpost. This is saying any mob of people with weapons could. I don't see that as a winning argument. If that is unbelievable, you lose it as a potential motive.

[karynnj]

19. Yuck - here are the transcripts as reported by the Wall Street Journal

I know that is a Murdock paper, but this article just includes the quotes - what I do not know is whether they are complete or if there were some additional comments. As is - she really did say that Libya was the result of the response to the video - and it was not something coming from the questions.

What is troubling to me is that Obama was not troubled by this and was still considering her as well as John Kerry.

Here is the link - http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/11/16/flashback-what-susan-rice-said-about-benghazi/

[marshall]

20. Thanks for that link to the transcript

It would be interesting to find out who Rice was referring to when she said "we." Who exactly, as in what individual, was feeding her the information she was espousing? I don't want to see her take the fall for something that was beyond her realm of expertise.

[karynnj]

21. Same here

Though I thought John Kerry far more deserving and with a better skill set to be a diplomacy focused Secretary of State, I had been impressed by Rice at her UN confirmation and as a Presidential nominee surrogate in both 2004 and 2008.

I really do not get why she said what she did when just speaking of the investigation not being complete would have been a more compelling - and less troublesome answer. It surely could not hurt taking the role of being the grown up here. (ie to the Republicans, already at a disadvantage because of Romney's error - Take a breath and let the professionals get the facts and find who the guilty parties are -- and to determine how to make this less likely.

I don't think this was beyond her realm of expertise. I do wonder if someone high in the campaign pushed for this - someone with no foreign policy experience (and no, I have no idea who would have done that.) Remember, the top people in the campaign were the ones who argued for Obama to take the tact he did in the first debate - and did not take responsibility for it for weeks and then only when inside accounts said so.

[truthisfreedom]

2. Why isn't Clinton capitalized?

Some sort of code being sent out by talkingpoints?

[Schema Thing]

7. Yes. If you knew, you'd know.

[Renew Deal]

11. OMG! It's a code!

And you discovered it. Now what do we do?

[Iliyah]

3. Right on!

GOPers don't give a shit about facts on Benghazi, they are out to discredit people for their own political gain. Fuck them, and thats why they will lose in 2014 and hopefully the Prez can get the economy back together, somewhat.

[unblock]

4. it's the most non-scandal scandal ever. they're trying to find the obama administraiton guily of

failing to use the word "terrorism" in a timely fashion.

wow, how desperate they are to fabricate a scandal.

[Dawson Leery]

5. This is clearly a discounted replay of the 90's. Rethugs cannot

find anything on Obama, so they are making things up.

[Bigredhunk]

8. Cheese-N-Rice

It's so fucking pathetic. It's the Clinton playbook all over again. Just keep throwing shit at a wall and see what will stick. They didn't have anything on Clinton until they caught him cheating. They know Obama doesn't have that vice. It drives them fucking nuts how clean he is. But they'll keep trying. I think this will hurt them (r's) a lot more than it'll help them. Maybe it'll actually get liberals to the polls for the midterms.

[Vietnameravet]

9. Like the Everready bunny they just keep beating the drums.

Benghazi, Hitler, Death Panels, Birth certificate, Gun confiscation. Dictatorship. Impeachment. Did you ever think we would come to this?

It's hard to imagine this kind of hate and this degree of inflammatory talk in this country..

[grahamhgreen]

10. I'd rather have Biden, anyway.

[Renew Deal]

12. So you're with the republicans on this?

Got it.

[grahamhgreen]

13. Oh, NOW you want me to get his back.

[Hubert Flottz]

14. BenGotcha!

Another BushCo "Expert" pops up on queue, to replenish the GOPer's never ending line of political bullshit/daytime drama.

The repubs sure waste a lot of the taxpayer's money playing their little grade schoolish games. And the FOXbots eat it up.

Issa should investigate Issa if he wants to find a real 100% ne'er–do–well.

[Pryderi]

15. Screenshots of GOP feeding off the Dead