White House denies memo was about Benghazi attack

[Gothmog]

30. The latest smoking gun is not a smoking gun

The GOP has claimed to have found smoking guns every other week. The latest "smoking gun" does not change anything. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/04/30/smoking_gun_shock_benghazi_e_mail_reveals_that_obama_white_house_agreed.html

The #Benghazi story is really tailor-made for the Vox version of journalism, the one with cards and updates explaining what new piece of information explains or debunks what previously understood piece of information. In this case, in order to consider the Rhodes email a "smoking gun," you need to forget the previously known timeline of emails sent on Sept. 14. Luckily, Time's Zeke Miller has left his timeline hanging around on the Internets, so I can add the Rhodes disclosure in bold text.

11:15 a.m.: The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,* having asked for talking points, gets a draft from the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis. It starts with this line, the one that would undo Susan Rice during her run through the Sunday shows: "We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. consulate and subsequently its annex."

12:23 p.m.: The CIA's office of general counsel adds a line about the "inspired by the protests" theory being inconclusive.

3:04 p.m.: The talking points are sent to relevant White House aides, including Ben Rhodes.

4:42 p.m.: The CIA circulates new talking points but removes a mention of al Qaida.

6:21 p.m.: The White House (Tommy Vietor, not Ben Rhodes) ads a line about the administration warning, on September 10, of social media reports calling for demonstrations.

7:39 p.m.: State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland objects to some of the language because "the penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings."

8:09 p.m.: Ben Rhodes sends the "smoking gun" email, nine hours after the first draft of talking points from the CIA said that the attacks grew out of a demonstration.

Read that USA Today lede again. It reports that "a White House official urged that the assault on the U.S. consulate be blamed on a protest that never happened." And he did—hours after the CIA and State Department were urging that the assault on the U.S. consulate be blamed on a protest. Can we chastise Rhodes, in retrospect, for not being more skeptical of what was known? Ten years after George "slam dunk" Tenet's advice for a prior administration, yes, I think we can. But it's just lazy journalism or lazy politicking to blame Rhodes for a talking point that was fed from the CIA. The White House's shifty-sounding excuse, that the "demonstration" story line came not from its spin factory but from the CIA, remains surprisingly accurate. (And I mean really lazy. It does not take very much time to compare the new Rhodes email to the previously known timeline of emails.)

The smoking gun is an e-mail that the White was agreeing with the CIA and State Department. I am shocked that anyone think that this e-mail changes anything. It would have been surprising if the White House disagreed with the CIA and the State Department.