White House has now been directly linked to Benghazi cover-up

Judicial Watch: Email ensuring ‘Obama looked good’ was post-Benghazi priority

Key communication chiefs at the White House waged an all-out strategy to rally behind President Obama and help him push the mantra that the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. facility in Benghazi were due to an Internet video — and not policy failure, a watchdog just revealed.
Key to the messaging: Making sure the president appeared strong in the face of adversity, the nonprofit Judicial Watch found, in a recently received FOIA request.
Judicial Watch found — after sifting through documents that were requested from the Department of State on June 21, 2013 — an email from Ben Rhodes, then-White House deputy strategic communications adviser, that showed he joined with others to devise a public relations campaign to “reinforce” Mr. Obama’s statements that an anti-Islam video spurred the attacks.
The main point of the White House team’s strategy was to paint the terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video and not a failure of policy,” Judicial Watch said in an emailed release. Meanwhile, the State Department — at the same time that message was being shaped — initially considered the incident simply an “attack,” and perhaps even a kidnap try, the watchdog said.
The email from Mr. Rhodes, dated Sept. 14, 2012, read in part: “Goal: … To underscore that these protests are rooted in [an] Internet video and not a broader failure or policy.”
Mr. Rhodes also went on, Judicial Watch reported: “[W]e’ve made our views on this video crystal clear. The United States government had nothing to do with it. We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible. But there is absolutely no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence. And we are working to make sure that people around the globe hear that message.”
In the email, Mr. Rhodes also advises key White House and administration officials to make sure they presented Mr. Obama as “steady and statesmanlike” whenever speaking of the crisis. Another “goal,” he said, in his email, was to “reinforce the president and administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges,” Judicial Watch reported.
The recipients of the email included White House press secretary Jay Carney and then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, along with several others, Judicial Watch said.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the latest email only proves that the White House’s main concern in the wake of the Benghazi attack that left four Americans dead was image — more than truth.
“Now we know that Obama White House’s chief concern about the Benghazi attack was making sure that President Obama looked good,” he said in a statement.
Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, died in the terror attack.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...-benghazi/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

 

This doesn't surprise me one bit. Hey all you Benghazi-deniers! Go hide your heads in the sand again.

 

This is beginning to sound a lot like Watergate. Now they are denying an email released as part of all email relating to Benghazi supposedly has nothing to do with Benghazi.

 

moron joe is quiet on this....either he knows they've been caught or the Ozombie talking points haven't been fed to him yet.

 

Waterghazi

 

Get over it.

 

Oh FOX... You try so hard and fail every time.

Another ‘shooting gun’ fires blanks
04/30/14
By Steve Benen

Yesterday afternoon, there was quite a bit of attention focused on NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and his press conference on Donald Sterling being “banned for life.” Most of the networks covered Silver’s remarks live.

But Fox News went in another direction, skipping the NBA discussion to instead tell viewers there was “breaking news” about … wait for it … Benghazi.

As your wacky uncle who watches Fox all day has probably told you, the conspiracy theory is alive once more thanks to some new materials, which Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has labeled a “smoking gun.” Charles Krauthammer went with “smoking document,” but the sentiment was the same.

I know why Republicans bother – they and their base are a little too invested in his conspiracy, especially as the news on the Affordable Care Act keeps getting better – but it’s a shame the right expects everyone else to take this seriously.

The Washington Post reported today:
New White House e-mails made public Tuesday by conservative Judicial Watch further support that the Obama team wanted then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to stress that a video disparaging the Prophet Muhammad was the catalyst for a series of anti-American protests across the Islamic world, including the deadly attacks on the Benghazi mission in September 2012.
And why is this shocking? It’s not.
Ultimately, the new e-mails do little more than buttress what has been known for a year about the immediate communication among the Obama team as it rushed to cobble together talking points from the information it had to feed to Rice, who was only asked late in the day Friday to be the White House mouthpiece.
Dave Weigel added that in order to take the “smoking gun” argument seriously, “you need to forget the previously-known” information that’s already part of the public record.

Indeed, in some respects, the conspiracy theorists should feel discouraged, not emboldened – the “new” information Republicans are so excited about “reveals nothing new.”

And yet, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl seemed quite animated about this at today’s White House press briefing, which is a shame. Karl already has an unfortunate track record on covering Benghazi theories, and it’s already led to him to flub some of the new details.

Fox News, meanwhile, wants to talk about little else.

It’s clear at this point that no amount of evidence, no number of investigations, no hours of hearings, no volumes of comprehensive reports will ever be enough for those who want the Benghazi conspiracy theories to have merit. It’s no longer about substantiation; it’s more of a feeling. It’s as if Stephen Colbert’ persona were real and a large group of people proudly declared, “It doesn’t matter if the evidence says we’re wrong because our guts say we’re right.”

It’s no way to win an argument, but for Benghazi conspiracy theorists, they’ve already won the argument by convincing themselves that their version of reality is superior to everyone else’s.

In the version of reality in which facts still matter, though, this “smoking gun” is still shooting blanks.

 

Oh sure. Like anyone is going to believe anything even remotely associated with Rachel Maddow and MSNBC. No thanks. They're not even a news program.

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Since when did Jon Karl join Fox?

 

Given that the only place they can get "real" information is from Bullshit Mountain (Fox, Breitbart, Drudge, Beck, Malkin, Limbaugh, etc.), I expect the ODS crowd here to scoff at and/or ignore this:

"The Ben Rhodes Email: Fox's New (False) Benghazi Attack" | Media Matters for America

Why look at the facts, when it's so much more fun and satisfying to keep chanting "BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI!"

 

But his word were:

and further;

 

And next we'll have step: 2. The "liberal" media will ignore the diarrhea seeping down the slopes of bullshit mountain and then we'll hear the inevitable media condemnations that follow along with the cover-up conspiracy theories and then something else will happen in the news cycle, most likely a school shooting, and the process will start all over again. I can't wait for that "smoking gun" thread.

 

I have a feeling the the "liberal" media is not going to ignore this. You have not listened to Jon Karl, have you?

 

Retired General: We Knew Early On Benghazi Attack Was Not a 'Demonstration Gone Awry'​

​

Military official: 'We should have tried' to help Americans during Benghazi attack

Published May 01, 2014 | FoxNews.com

A top military intelligence official in Africa at the time of the Benghazi attacks testified Thursday that U.S. personnel "should have tried" to help Americans under fire on Sept. 11, 2012, in an unprecedented public statement from a leading military officer.

Retired Brig. Gen. Robert Lovell, who at the time of the attacks was the intelligence director at AFRICOM, questioned the merits of the ongoing debate over whether U.S. military forces could have responded in time. Leading Pentagon and other military officials previously have argued that additional U.S. assets were not deployed to assist Americans under attack that night because they weren't close enough.

"The point is we should have tried," Lovell told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in his opening statement. "As another saying goes -- always move to the sound of the guns."

He later said the military "could have made a response of some sort."

Lovell also sharply countered claims that the intelligence community and military initially thought this was a protest over an anti-Islam video gone awry. He said U.S. officials knew this was a "hostile action" from the outset, even though they didn't know how long the attack would last.
"This was no demonstration gone terribly awry," Lovell said. "The facts led to the conclusion of a terrorist attack."

Under questioning, he also said the Internet video was "briefly discussed" on the ground but "dismissed" as a motive shortly afterward.

The testimony is significant, as it marks the latest effort to lift the curtain behind what happened during the night of the attack and the ensuing days. In a cryptic statement, Lovell cited the need for a "full forthcoming to the American people."

"I felt it was my duty to come forward," he said. "The circumstances of what occurred there in Benghazi that day need to be known."

The testimony comes two days after new emails were obtained and released by a watchdog group showing a top White House aide was involved in preparing then-U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances, where she pushed the narrative that protests over an Internet video were to blame.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., at the start of the hearing, ripped the administration over those emails, and accused it of deliberately hiding the documents after an earlier congressional subpoena.

http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/05/0...nghazi-attack-was-not-demonstration-gone-awry

 

The Obama administration knew that none of this "internet video" stuff (much less a preacher in Florida) was responsible for the Benghazi attack. But, they fooled you Little Joe. They fooled you and you ran with it. But, don't feel too bad; they fooled a lot of people. But, the cover is coming off and revealing that this administration not only lied about the internet video, but created false talking points in order to mislead the American public in order to bolster our leaders' credibility. It's reprehensible that they used the deaths of four brave Americans for political purposes.

 

Benghazi Testimony Derails Fox's "Incredibly Damning" Attack On Obama
››› JUSTIN BERRIER


Fox News seized on testimony from Ret. Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell to push the false narrative that President Obama did not do enough to rescue the victims of the Benghazi attack, a claim that collapsed after Lovell clarified that he was not making that point.

During the May 1 Congressional hearing on Benghazi, Lovell, who was stationed in Germany at the time of the attack, testified that "we should have tried" to rescue the victims of the attack. Fox News immediately hyped Lovell's testimony as evidence the Obama administration did not engage in a rescue attempt. On America's Newsroom, Fox's digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt called Lovell's testimony "incredibly damning," saying: "if there is a true national shame in this incident was that we did not try. We had been told repeatedly by the Obama administration that we could not try and that it was known that it would have been impossible to have helped those who were eventually killed":



Fox's attack collapsed later in the day, however. During the question and answer portion of the testimony, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) asked Lovell specifically about claims that the military had resources that they did not utilize. Lovell explained that when he said "we should have tried," he did not mean that the response was insufficient and that it is a "fact" that there was nothing more the military could have done:

CONNELLY: I want to read to you the conclusion of the chairman of the [Armed Services] Committee, the Republican chairman Buck McKeon, who conducted formal briefings and oversaw that report he said quote "I'm pretty well satisfied that given where the troops were, how quickly the thing all happened, and how quickly it dissipated we probably couldn't have done much more than we did." Do you take issue with the chairman of the Armed Services Committee? In that conclusion?

LOVELL: His conclusion that he couldn't have done much more than they did with the capability and the way they executed it?

CONNELLY: Given the timeframe.

LOVELL: That's a fact.

CONNELLY: Okay.

LOVELL: The way it is right now. The way he stated it.

CONNELLY: Alright, because I'm sure you can appreciate, general, there might be some who, for various and sundry reasons would like to distort your testimony and suggest that you're testifying that we could have, should have done a lot more than we did because we had capabilities we simply didn't utilize. That is not your testimony?

LOVELL: That is not my testimony.

CONNELLY: I thank you very much, general.

 

Fox News Cites Email to Take Victory Lap Over Shoddy Benghazi Coverage
››› MICHELLE LEUNG


Fox News is using a newly released White House memo disclosing media talking points for Obama administration officials as vindication of its campaign of lies and misinformation about the Benghazi terror attacks.

White House Released Email Used To Prepare Susan Rice For Sunday Talk Shows

NY Times: White House Releases Emails Sent To Susan Rice Before Media Appearances. On April 30 The New York Times reported that the White House had released an email dated September 14, 2012, from Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes to other national security aides including then-ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, that included "goals for Ms. Rice's appearances on the shows and advice on how to discuss the subject of the protests that were raging in Libya and at other American diplomatic posts in the Middle East" during appearances on the Sunday talk shows. [The New York Times, 4/30/14]

Slate's Weigel: Rhodes Email Relied On CIA Talking Points. Laying out a timeline of events, Slate's David Weigel pointed out that the Rhodes email came after "hours after the CIA and State Department were urging that the assault on the U.S. consulate be blamed on a protest." Weigel added that "it's just lazy journalism or lazy politicking to blame Rhodes for a talking point that was fed from the CIA." [Slate, 4/30/14]

Slate's Dickerson: Emails Show "White House Believed The Story They Were Pushing." Slate chief political correspondent John Dickerson wrote that while the newly released documents "clearly show that the White House pushed the video story," they also show "proof that the White House believed the story they were pushing," given that the CIA "made spontaneity its first and most durable claim that weekend" by initially blaming the video. [Slate, 4/30/14]

Fox Distorts Emails To Falsely Hype "Conspiracy"

Fox's Steve Doocy: "We Now Know That The White House Had A Conspiracy." During the May 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy claimed that the newly released emails proved that the White House "had a conspiracy," and was engaging in a "cover-up":

DOOCY: With that email that was released by the White House to Judicial Watch after they sued them, we now know that the White House had a conspiracy, where essentially what they were trying to do was change the story -- let's blame that video, right, on what happened over in Libya, in Benghazi, on that night where four brave Americans died.

Well, now we know that there was a cover-up as well because they had redacted, they crossed out all the stuff, and then finally we got to see it. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/1/14, via Media Matters]

Fox News Uses Emails To Vindicate Its Continuous Shoddy Coverage Of Benghazi

Fox's MacCallum: "Fox Deserves An Award For Our Coverage." On May 1, Fox News host Martha MacCallum argued that the network deserved an award for its coverage of Benghazi,while contributor Monica Crowley claimed Fox was the only network "reporting the truth on Benghazi":

CROWLEY: The fact that Fox News was reporting the truth, and we were roundly mocked and attacked [crosstalk].

MacCALLUM: Absolutely. You go through the stories that were broken in our Washington bureau about how quickly this was understood to be, and all of this is being is corroborated today and yesterday in the Rose memo [sic] and in this testimony, I think Fox News deserves an aware for their coverage in this, not to be mocked. [Fox News, America's Newsroom,5/1/14, via Media Matters]

Fox's Kooiman: Fox News "Has Been Right All Along." During the May 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, guest co-host Anna Kooiman used the Rhodes email to push debunked Benghazi myths, and claimed that the email "proves that FNC has been right all along." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/1/14, via Media Matters]

Fox's Kilmeade: "Will The Rest Of The Media Follow Fox To The Benghazi Investigation NOW?" In a May 1 tweet, Fox co-host Brian Kilmeade asked if the rest of media would now, after the email release, start to cover Benghazi like Fox's shoddy reporting of the event:

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For not listening "to anyone on the right", you sure pretend that you know a lot about what they do.

 

Right-Wing Troll Notification System Test

https://soundcloud.com/rockymountainmike/right-wing-troll-notification

 

Hearing & not listening are two different things.