The REAL Benghazi Scandal

Seems like there indeed a Benghazi Scandal, just that it is not quite the one the Republicans and their goofball supporters were claiming.

See, the Republicans and those that suffer from Obama Derangement Syndrome (and can’t help themselves), were jumping up and down screeching from the rafters that what happened in Benghazi was one of the all time great failures by an administration to protect it’s foreign service workers and diplomats. Then they compounded this lie by trying (in a classic case of projection) that the administration politicized the response to the attack in order to enhance it’s chances for re-election in the 2012 Presidential election.

Well it does seem there was some politicization of the attack, yet this politicization of the attack came not from Democrats but from Republicans and that it was Republicans who shamefully used the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three other diplomatic personnel as ways to not only try to win the November election but also have cynically used these deaths to increase their own fund raising, disrupt President Obama’s second term agenda, and take the public’s eyes off of the fact that these people simply refuse to govern responsibly.

In all seriousness, how can Republicans and their supporters claim be so up in arms when many of the same critics of the Obama administration simply sat on their hands, during the Bush Administration when there were thirteen (yep, that’s thirteen) attacks on consular and diplomatic services which were more deadly than Benghazi. I mean, how can one see that (and the incidents which occurred) and not say that this entire clown show (and I use this term because really… that is what it is), is NOT a partisan political effort. Had these folks been outraged to these levels during these previous incidents I would not complain about this obviously partisan attack, but, they weren’t. When Republicans were in charge apparently these failures didn’t warrant this kind of poutrage.

Then, as if this is not enough, Republicans and their goofy supporters started screaming that this was a cover-up on a scale larger than Watergate. Ok, now this should give everyone pause to consider the pure partisan hatred expressed by this charge. Watergate was a scandal because the President of the United States actually ordered a Criminal Break-in of Democratic Party Headquarters. In Watergate you had the President of the U.S. actually ordering an illegal activity.

In Benghazi, you had failures by the State Department to adequately provide security for a consular mission in the middle of a war-torn and chaotic area. The President did not order Ambassador Stevens to Benghazi, the Ambassador decided to go on his own. The White House did not orchestrate a terror attack on the consulate. In no way did the White House or the Administration do anything even bordering on illegal as did the Nixon White House during Watergate.

BUT further than that, the Republicans and their charges were so worked up into a frothy state that they then went on to produce “leaked” emails saying that the White House actually orchestrated a change in talking points to eliminate all references to involvement by al-Qaeda and that they did this to knowingly deceive the public. They maintain that the President had stated that they had “defeated” al-Qaeda and felt that if word of an al-Qaeda attack had gotten out before the election it would have meant trouble for the President’s re-election efforts.

As one sufferer of Obama Derangement Syndrome stated:

“The Obama administration then lied about lying through White House spokesmen, Jay Carney, who insisted that the White House did not force any substantive changes to the CIA talking points which originally sourced the attack to Islamists.”

Unfortunately for the Republicans, it turns out that these comments aren’t quite true and by the term “aren’t quite true” I mean that they are outright lies.

First of all the President when discussing al-Qaeda worldwide never claimed (to my knowledge) that they were utterly defeated. He has made the claim (and rightly so) that in Af-Pak that al-Qaeda has been weakened and that their command structure has been severely compromised but he did not say they were defeated (as has been claimed):

Here is President Obama in 2011 about al-Qaeda - 

In announcing Osama bin Laden"s death Sunday night, President Barack Obama said U.S. military and counterterrorism professionals have "made great strides” in the effort to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qaida.

But terrorism experts, U.S. officials and Obama himself say that despite progress in capturing or killing key al-Qaida leaders, the group is still a force in international terrorism.

"There's no doubt that al-Qaida will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must –- and we will— remain vigilant at home and abroad,” Obama said. "...The cause of securing our country is not complete."

AND now it turns out that claims that the White House orchestrated a CIA cover-up… OHOH it turns out that those “leaks” quoted by Republicans were actually FABRICATIONS of emails created by… the Republicans themselves. CBS News is Reporting:

“The Benghazi attack is a political controversy. Republicans claim the administration watered down the facts in talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for television appearances while Obama was running for re-election. Republicans on Capitol Hill claimed they found proof in White House emails that they leaked to reporters last week. It turns out some of the quotes were wrong.

Republicans have charged that the State Department under Hillary Clinton was trying to protect itself from criticism. The White House released the real emails late Wednesday.”

Apparently the wording of emails from Victoria Nuland and Ben Rhodes were altered to say different things than what the Republicans claimed and that CBS found:

“The Benghazi attack is a political controversy. Republicans claim the administration watered down the facts in talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for television appearances while Obama was running for re-election. Republicans on Capitol Hill claimed they found proof in White House emails that they leaked to reporters last week. It turns out some of the quotes were wrong.

Republicans have charged that the State Department under Hillary Clinton was trying to protect itself from criticism. The White House released the real emails late Wednesday….”

…the Republican version quotes Nuland discussing, "The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda."
The actual email from Nuland says: "The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings."

The CIA agreed with the concerns raised by the State Department and revised the talking points to make them less specific than the CIA's original version, eliminating references to al Qaeda and affiliates and earlier security warnings. There is no evidence that the White House orchestrated the changes.

This story pretty much wipes out the claims the Republicans and their supporters have made regarding any sort of a cover-up.

The bottom line is that no matter what the truth is, Republicans and their long suffering supporters just can’t accept the truth. They continue even in the face of evidence to the contrary to simply ignore reality and rather, just blindly spout talking points. Is that a scandal in itself? Certainly not, that is just plain and simple stupidity.

The real scandal here is two-fold.

The First is that the Republicans actually altered emails and then convened a House investigation based on these altered emails. Simply put, they lied about the content of the emails, fraudulently changed that content and then have wasted taxpayer funds in a blatantly partisan attack on the President of the United States and why, just so they could increase Fund Raising for their members AND so that they could disrupt on going Administration efforts to govern this nation. I do believe that deceiving the American public like this should be investigated and those responsible for this should be held accountable.

Second, once again this shows why no one can take criticism by Republicans or their ODS suffering drones seriously. I mean despite the fact that they are constantly re-buffed by reality, they continue to soldier on in a fantasy world driven only by hatred of President Barack Obama and the fact that in the last election they were soundly defeated. And more over, this hatred has led to the Republicans completely abrogating their duties to the American people as the controlling party of the House of Representatives. They simply refuse to deal with the problems facing our nation and instead are focusing on useless legislation like pointless vote after vote after vote on repealing the Affordable Healthcare Act, or refusing to even institute background checks on certifiable lunatics and criminals so that these people can buy weapons.

This is the real scandal about Benghazi – a blatant political attempt to undermine the President and the Government of the United States through lies and forgery by Republicans and their operatives. Now that this scandal is coming to light it will be interesting to watching these folks scurry around now that a light is being shined on them.

More Benghazi Bull&#*

We have been getting a lot of garbage coming from what I like to call Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) “dog and pony show” about Benghazi and the nonsense that the Republican’s and their goofy surrogates are spewing out regarding this. It would be one thing if they actually cared about this incident AND were going to use hearings to better reform the processes in the way the State Department operates and handles security. But what Issa is actually doing is nothing but a complete clown show of a hack job all in an effort to both derail a potential Hillary Clinton Presidential run in 2016, raise funds for the G.O.P. ,  and disrupt any agenda that President Barak Obama might have.

Pretty strong words? Sure. But honestly, I am sick and tired of this nonsense and what it is doing to the United States and our polity. So let’s just see what the Republicans and their goofy surrogates are whining about.

First of all, interestingly enough, while Republicans are calling this “the worst thing evah” (Spelling mistake intentional), they were and are remarkably silent about their own record in the area of attacks on U.S. diplomatic and consular officials.

Bob Cesca writing at HuffPo, points out Republican hypocrisy, when America suffered thirteen (that’s 13) diplomatic and consular attacks during the Bush years and none of the modern day inquisitors involved had very little to say regarding them. Given that, how can we take them or their charges seriously? Did they all of a sudden gain concern for our diplomats? Of course not, it is pretty obvious to anyone that this thing is political theatre and that it is simply a partisan hack job for the reasons stated above.

So let’s break down some of this partisan hackery (new word) even further. First of all, I think it is important for everyone to read the 39 page findings of the Independent review board convened by the State Dept. and run by Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering. This will put an end to the caterwauling and nonsensical lies spread by Republicans and their goofball supporters.

For instance, Republicans and their goofy supporters claim that if only the U.S. had “sent in the marines” Ambassador Stevens and the four American operatives would still be alive. And further, not only do they claim that the nothing happened, but they actually claim that someone (probably the evil secret Muslim President Barak Hussein Obama </snark>) told U.S. forces to “stand down”.

Well the review board debunks this lie with their action report (tough reading but important) of the night of Sept. 11^th, 2012 on pages 18 – 28 of the report. First of all, one must remember that the consular post in Benghazi was a small one with seven U.S. diplomatic personnel. There were other American assets in the area and these assets DID arrive to help it’s just that they were too late to stop the area from being overrun and the Ambassador and Information Management Officer Smith from dying of smoke inhalation.

Again, read these heartbreaking pages. There was absolutely no interference from Washington concerning response to the pleas for help coming from the Consulate. It is simply amazing to me that the Republicans and their drones would actually make this charge. Everyone did what they had to do once the attack was under way.

Now let’s take on some more of the partisan lies spread by those who would politicize the death of four Americans for their own fundraising and political agendas. Another lie these folks like to spread is concerning whether the President called it terrorism or not, and was that politically motivated. To answer the second part first, I have no doubt that there was some political gamesmanship by the White House here. It is true that certainly having a diplomatic outpost overrun by an al-Qaeda affiliate would look bad for the President, it is an extreme stretch to think it would have ruined the President’s re-election efforts. I can understand his reticence to call this a coordinated operation by al-Qaeda. That said, I don’t see any evidence of any kind of cover-up.

The President and his administration did not say that al-Qaeda worldwide had been defeated as the liars maintain. What they had said was that al-Qaeda in Af-Pak had suffered some very serious losses particularly to it’s leadership cadres and that it was severely weakened in those areas. No one denied that al-Qaeda affiliates were still at large and causing massive amounts of trouble wherever they went, so there goes that piece of nonsense.

On to the charge that the President never said it was “terrorism”. The Washington Post fact checkers say admit that while he did refer to “acts of terror” in a speech on Sept. 12 in the Rose Garden, he was being vague and then calls him out for denying he was talking about this days later in an interview. Now, I watched this interview, and no where do I see how the Washington Post came to their conclusions. What I see is a President that is taking a measured approach to a tough situation and waiting for more information to come in before racing to judgment.

On a personal note, this has to be one of the biggest steaming piles of horse manure used in what has become this political circus. Frankly, I don’t give a flying f*&% whether he called this a terror attack or he called it a freakin’ hamburger. It’s just not that important. It really isn’t. What is important is that someone get the facts, and then acts to either A) Bring the killers to justice and B) fixes this to make sure that it never happens again.

Besides what do these dumbasses actually think he was talking about when he referred to “acts of terror” in that speech? Do they think he was talking about egg throwing in New York? For goodness sakes, just how dumb do you have to be to not understand the President was talking about this attack? As my mom liked to say, these folks have “rocks in their heads”.

And how silly has Issa’s sideshow gotten. Well, first he wouldn’t let Ambassador Pickering testify after demanding that the Ambassador do testify. Then he says “Well, we will only let the Ambassador testify – if it’s in Private NOT in Public.

Here is Darrell Issa, talking about how he “doesn’t want this hearing to be a show”:

"The fact is, we don't want to have some sort of a stage show. We had fact witnesses. They testified. We have the Ambassador and Admiral Mullen who conducted and oversaw the [independent review]. We're inviting them on Monday. We'll go through, not in front of the public, but in a nonpartisan way.

So wait a minute, this whole big PUBLIC hearing really should be only conducted in PRIVATE? HUH????

Now, were there mistakes made here by the Administration that should have been reviewed. Absolutely. And Secretary Clinton conducted just such a review. Anyone reading it can see just how critical that review was. Is there a discussion to be had concerning American security in countries that are unstable and have active al-Qaeda affiliates in them? Absolutely.

Was there a White House cover-up about this? Not in the slightest. Some idiots have even gone so far as to say this is worse than Watergate. Those folks really should check themselves into some kind of mental health institution as their faculties for reason seem to have gone awry. It’s incredible. Here we have people comparing a criminal break-in ordered by the President himself, to some severe mistakes made by senior State Dept. individuals. The two are not even close to being on the same level.

And this is why Republicans and their goofy supporters should never be elected to any office higher than that of Park Bathroom attendant. Because, all they seem to do is waste people’s time with manufactured scandals and irrelevant congressional votes. Just today, the Republicans voted for the 37^th time to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act even though they know that there is no possible way it will get through the Senate and if it did that, the President would simply veto it (and they don’t have the votes to overturn). It’s just a WASTE. OF. TIME.

Meanwhile, instead the House could be working on much more pressing issues such as dealing with Climate Change, Gun Violence, Joblessness, Improving our infrastructure, real immigration reform, and so forth. But no. Not these folks. They have to work on screeching about Benghazi, or yammering about the IRS or any other daily manufactured outrage. These people and their supporters are a bunch of hacks, and honestly their actions do nothing but disrupt the governance of the United States.

I suggest writing to your local Representative and tell them to get on with actually working with the President and Democrats instead of letting the country suffer so that they can achieve their own partisan political ends. It’s nonsense and it needs to stop. NOW!