Catching up on the hearings today, there are several things that are clear:
- The United States government, at all levels, knew that what was happening in Benghazi was a terrorist action. No one thought that this was the result of a protest gone bad.
- There were multiple stand-down orders given. Perhaps they were legitimate, however, they were given.
- The talking points as delivered by the Obama administration regarding the reason for the attacks were manipulated and were never true as it pertained to the YouTube video.
An interesting note on news coverage:
Not surprising, only Fox News features the hearings. All three main news outlets, ABC, CBS and NBC have only minimal attention to those hearings. NBC has a link to the story but it isn’t prominent. CBS and NBC do display a link to watch the hearings live but ABC has no mention.
This despite that CBS’ most popular story is the one regarding Benghazi. Yet no where to be seen.
Of course only FOX – it’s not newsworthy. There is no substance but quibbles over what word was used, or how people reacted. To me the GOP is trying to politicize a tragedy and I find that disgusting. I also think it only reinforces the view that the Republican party is in crisis, divided, out of touch with the public, and trying to construct non-existent scandals in stories already old and forgotten. Most of the country yawns or does not notice. There is nothing “real” there!
There is no substance but quibbles over what word was used, or how people reacted.
I think there is substance.
I think the administration was overwhelmed by the events and didn’t have clue one on how to handle this. That may not be a crime, but it certainly was news worthy during the election.
Second, the Obama administration clearly changed the narrative from a clear act of terrorism to that of Evil America engaging in Anti-Islamic movies. The President knew within hours that the attack was one of terrorism and yet he maintained for days into weeks that it was the result of a YouTube video.
Third, the administration’s claim that there was no stand-down order is false.
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What substance? Clearly the people handling this – top members of the Pentagon, DHS, and CIA have lots of clues on how to handle things. But early on there are so many conflicting reports one can always say something could have been different. But the only substance I have seen is that the Congress voted to cut security spending. That seems to be pointing the finger away from Obama though. Again, what substance?
The narrative is irrelevant, narratives always change quickly and there are mistakes and bad wording. That’s true in every crisis. Obama called it terrorism early on. If the best the GOP has is to nitpick about wording, then it’s really flimsy.