Still in Benghazi

Are the Republicans done with Benghazi?  McCain and others are now saying they'll put Hagel on a path to confirmation next week.  Ed Schultz' crew believe it was vengeance angle--they got their pound of flesh by hacking up Hagel for defecting on Iraq while getting the Decider Guy to admit he never made any calls on the night of the attack.  Which is frankly what it looks like on the superficial level where Ed operates.  But all the questions aren't answered yet.  

Besides, just last night the administration apparently felt it was necessary for more talking points, and who better to provide them but Susan Rice?   This time she went on the Daily Show with Stewart to defend the mothership and spouted the new improved talking points, mentioning the numerous briefings to Congress, 10,000 documents, and hey, they've provided 10,000 documents.  10,000.  Stewart tried to be dogged but he withered in the end, craving that buttery love of democratic populism.  But at least he asked some hard questions. For instance, he succeeded better than anyone in pointing out how confusing the story was regarding the suspect talking points.

As to the whereabouts of President Gutsy, these clips have shined some light ..


Of course not making any calls doesn't mean he didn't receive any, but it does suggest he didn't lend his weight to the issue with any foreign leaders or the military.  And it also makes him look fairly out of the loop considering he's on record of telling his people to make sure our people were all protected--saying this at least five hours before the annex attack.  Did he go to bed?  Watch the game?  Chip a few balls on the lawn?

But performance wasn't the only question. Steward didn't dare dig into whether the bogus talking points were actually designed to preserve the DNC narrative that AQ was on the ropes, UBL dead, GM alive, etc. to help the president get re-elected.   Manipulating the public over a terrorist attack is supposed to be a Republican trademark, after all.  Perhaps team McCain doesn't want to go there either.  Maybe a deal was struck.  

Meanwhile Fox News hasn't quite given up yet, even if they are becoming a bit tepid. Today a Fox reporter asked the State Dept spokesperson about Rice's appearance last night:

Please. Can you tell me who you are, please?

QUESTION: Jake Gibson, FOX News.

MS. NULAND: Right.

QUESTION: Last night, Ambassador Rice was on The Daily Show, and she was – she said she was given bad intelligence regarding Benghazi for the Sunday talk shows on September 15th. Yet Defense Secretary Panetta testified on the Hill recently he knew immediately it was terrorist-related. How can – can you reconcile these apparently conflicting statements?

MS. NULAND: Sounds like those are questions for Ambassador Rice and the Pentagon, not for the State Department.

QUESTION: Can I get one more --

MS. NULAND: We’ve been clear about where we were on this, both in our – in the Secretary’s testimony and in previous testimonies.

It's obvious they are reluctant to dig too deep and suffer the evil eyes from the White House press machine. They really can't because they don't have support from their peers--other journos have long ago moved on after Hillary's convincing testimony, which is likely why they sent an unknown reporter in place of regular State reporter James Rosen. The same reporter yesterday asked about the status of the one suspect in the attack--the guy released from Tunisia, making a point to say Hillary testified she was keeping track of the guy, to which Ms. Nuland referred him to the FBI.  Remember, Americans were promised justice, but justice is blind, deaf and dumb at the moment.

So the questions linger. 

Meanwhile a new book has come out that disputes the entire narrative yet not one official question has been asked of the administration press office, who has spent the week hiding on Air Force One.  Yeah, the administration and most of their mainstream friends have taken Hillary's core answer to heart.  And yeah, there's a likely answer as to why.  But with all due respect....that's known as the same ole Washington politics. The questions about Benghazi are not. 

MORE  2/16/13

If you place the information contained in this video, assuming it's accurate, in context with Panetta and Brennan saying they didn't brief the president it becomes hard to square the circle on this event.