Benghazi affair goes on, President continues cover-up

Obama Calls Out Bullies From the Bully Pulpit

It’s interesting that the conservatives want to arm the Syrian rebels even as the Islamophobe media point out repeatedly, and the administration seems to agree, how Islamist they are and how connected to terrorist organizations or governments inimical to us or to Israel.

As the saying goes, I guess, “the function of the opposition is to oppose.”

As to the rest, the conservatives have a case.

Ms. Rice was lying or she was mistaken long past the deadline for “initial confusion” and for use of the “fog of war” excuse.

In which case she was lied to and hung out to dry by the White House, much like Colin Powell insisting to the UN that the Bush administration had proof Saddam Hussein was making weapons of mass destruction.

The contents of this National Journal article make the latter the most plausible explanation.

The report says,

Obama was clearly most incensed, however, by recent pledges from Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to block any nomination of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as secretary of State because of her comments after an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead.

McCain has zeroed in on Rice’s contention five days after the attack that the violence resulted from a “spontaneous demonstration” over an anti-Muslim film, as opposed to a premeditated terrorist attack.

He has called that characterization either a Watergate-style cover-up or “the worst kind of incompetence.”

Obama was having none of it.

“If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after someone, they should go after me.

"And I’m happy to have that discussion with them,” Obama told reporters on Wednesday in his first news conference since the election.

"But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador who had nothing to do with Benghazi, and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous."

The report goes on.

Obama’s anger may reflect the frustration of his team that the Benghazi story had such legs in the run-up to the election, with conservative pundits painting it as a wide-ranging conspiracy to protect Obama’s counterterrorism bonafides and deny the American public the truth.

And that seems pretty much on the money, to me, though mostly, as I recall, the initial reaction of the Obama administration, seconded by a lot of Democratic heavy hitters and a chorus of the "professional left," to the events of this past 9/11 was panic, disgraceful blame-shifting, and craven efforts to placate the bullies.

But here Obama seems quite right.

And it's as good as a confession to White House sponsored - and that would be Obama-sponsored - deception, in my book.

Though it's admirable he's not letting Ms. Rice take the fall.

After Rice’s comments caused such a furor, senior intelligence sources revealed to reporters that Rice was essentially reading from intelligence “talking points” that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had supplied to her the night before.

And yet criticism from the right continues to focus on Rice and not Lt. General James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, or Petraeus.

Who imagines that briefing was not controlled by the current Decider, himself?

In the immortal words of I. F. Stone, "All governments lie."