The Rose Garden and White House happenings: Listening to voters’ concerns

The mother of one of the other Americans killed at the Benghazi consulate was on Anderson Cooper last week. She seemed to want to know the truth about how her son died. The "public messaging" about a demonstration that had got out of hand, well, it seems to have offended her. She must be evil.

brealer said:

The mother of one of the other Americans killed at the Benghazi consulate was on Anderson Cooper last week. She seemed to want to know the truth about how her son died. The "public messaging" about a demonstration that had got out of hand, well, it seems to have offended her. She must be evil.


You don't seem to be up to date on the news.

CIA documents supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/benghazi-attack-becomes-political-ammunition/2012/10/19/e1ad82ae-1a2d-11e2-bd10-5ff056538b7c_story.html


I'm just going to leave this here without further comment.
http://www.youcaring.com/fundraiser_details?fundraiser_id=9332&url=benefitforseansmithsfamily

The more this story goes on, the less I understand what the wingnuts are objecting to.

drummerboy said:

The more this story goes on, the less I understand what the wingnuts are objecting to.


Agreed.

Obama may have said "act of terror" but he sure didn't say "act of terror."

drummerboy said:

The more this story goes on, the less I understand what the wingnuts are objecting to.


I can never understand why wingnuts on the left call wingnuts on the right wingnuts, and vice versa.. To most moderates, all of you are scary crazy.

From today's Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/public-editor/connecting-the-dots-in-libya.html?ref=todayspaper

mtierney, what point do you want to make by linking to that article?

(btw, here's the link - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/public-editor/connecting-the-dots-in-libya.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=todayspaper)

That it was a big story from the get-go which was mishandled by lots of people. So many questions arose immediately but there seemed a rush to cover it up (the ramifications) rather than seek the truth.

It was mishandled even by the NYT and the column confirms it.

The press has MASSIVELY mishandled this story - to the detriment of Obama.

But are you accusing the press of a cover-up now?

From the VP debate:

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: "I will be very specific. Number one, the — this lecture on embassy security — the congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for, number one. So much for the embassy security piece."

Romney/Ryan and team: Never ones to miss an opportunity to take something they vowed to do -- and then do their best to make it look like someone else's mistake.

Funding was not an issue in this incident, per the testimony of this Administration.

Next.

Not all the U.S. personnel at the consulate died. You know, maybe a way to crack this really tough mystery about what happened--you know, whether it was a demonstration or not, stuff like that--might be to interview the survivors. They may have some information.

Turns out even Faux News is beginning to question what Faux News and the GOP attack dogs are saying-

"Fox’s Geraldo Rivera went against that narrative on Friday. After Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy once again mocked the notion that the video was an impetus for the attack, Rivera instead presented the idea that it was in fact both a reaction to the video and a terrorist attack. The hosts quickly attempted to pull Rivera back on-message after he completed explaining his theory, but couldn’t persuade him to drop it completely.

Fox reporter Peter Doocy later also reported that the attack may have been “tied to that anti-Islamic video”, a short film, purported to be part of a full length movie known as “The Innocence of Muslims,” and its derogatory portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed."

http://tinyurl.com/9ksj4x5

drummerboy said:

The press has MASSIVELY mishandled this story - to the detriment of Obama.

But are you accusing the press of a cover-up now?


You note that the press has mishandled the story.

You ask if i think it was a cover-up.

If it wasn't, what explains the MASSIVE mishandling? Stupidity? Maybe hubris?


Incompetence and laziness. If you've read any of my links, you'll see that even MSNBC has screwed up the coverage. Pretty much everyone screws it up when they talk about Rice, for example, and Rice's legendary 5 appearances have been the driver behind this story.

It's so transparent that Republicans are panicking and desparately seeking to make a last minute Watergate-type scandal around this. There may have been mishandling of information by running to try to satisfy the insatiable need to have immediate information. When anyone is pressured to get at the truth behind and complex disaster it takes time. That's one thing we don't take! It's why we got into Iraq. We can't always come up with immediate answers. For goodness' sake. It wasn't driven by a self_seeking conspiracy like Watergate, or Iran-Contra, all Republican scandals. It just won't work to try to pin one of those on Obama. Look at yourselves!

Today's Times details the confusion. It does note that on Sept. 12, the day after the killings, individual s who had witnessed the attack gave first hand accounts of what took place. Still, weeks passed before the reports changed from the video to terrorism. It also notes that even the conflicting reports coming from Benghazi in the days following 9/11 were shared with the administration as they surfaced.

As was said here, no important papers were handed off to security people and somehow missed reaching Washington in a timely fashion!

I feel that the administration - for whatever reason - dropped the ball. Did the fact the election was weeks away play a role in how it was handled?

mtierney said:


I feel that the administration - for whatever reason - dropped the ball. Did the fact the election was weeks away play a role in how it was handled?


Their response was indeed hurried. How did the election factor into it? Why would it be "better" for it to have been a mob attack vs. a terrorist attack?
Both scenarios point to security flaws that would be exploited by Republicans.

As a presidential candidate, Romney gets the same security briefings as the president. Perhaps he could have done a better job at explaining whatever point it is he's trying to make?

There is no evidence - at all - that the administration was not reporting what it felt to be the best information at the time from it's intelligence sources. And as the intelligence became more definitive, the administration changed their story to reflect that.

Their response was not hurried - they had to make a response immediately. What were they supposed to do - say "no comment, we're still investigating"? Yeah, that would have gone over big.

Oh wait, I forgot. Romney is just using the deaths of people to score some votes.

Now that we now know that the Obama Administration had live coverage via a drone of the terror attack, how can they possibly spin what happened?

And that the Ambassador asked for more security hours before the attack?

Where exactly does the buck stop for Obama's Arab Fall?

dave said:

Oh wait, I forgot. Romney is just using the deaths of people to score some votes.


Yeah, Obama's 'spiking the football' about Bin Ladens killing was exactly the same . . .

You just equated the death of Bin Laden with the deaths of Americans.

Good job. You're on a roll today.

Obama spiked the football? He spoke for 20 seconds and walked away. It was even recorded by the media.

dave said:

Obama spiked the football? He spoke for 20 seconds and walked away. It was even recorded by the media.


I guess you missed the DNC.

drummerboy said:

You just equated the death of Bin Laden with the deaths of Americans.

Good job. You're on a roll today.


No, I compared a comment saying that Romney was using the Libya terror attack for political gain, when Obama has been using the Bin Laden killing for political gain.

johnlockedema said:

Now that we now know that the Obama Administration had live coverage via a drone of the terror attack, how can they possibly spin what happened?

Could you elaborate? Were they watching at the White House? How exactly did that work? And will any of the previous three questions get a response?

johnlockedema said:

drummerboy said:

You just equated the death of Bin Laden with the deaths of Americans.

Good job. You're on a roll today.

No, I compared a comment saying that Romney was using the Libya terror attack for political gain, when Obama has been using the Bin Laden killing for political gain.

They're only comparable if (as Drummerboy pointed out) you equate the death of Bin Laden with the deaths of Americans.

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