The company she keeps

Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal has been a conspiracy theorist for a long time.

“Grassy Knoll” Sid:
Hillary’s Personal Conspiracy Theorist

Four decades ago, Blumenthal was not only in league with JFK assassination buffs who claimed shots were fired from the proverbial grassy knoll--he also argued earnestly that “the reason the hopes of the ‘60s were not realized was because a group of people at the top made certain they were dashed.”

The previous sentence comes from Government By Gunplay, a 1976 paperback book edited by Blumenthal and Harvey Yazijian. Yazijian being one of the founding members of what was called the Assassination Investigation Bureau (AIB), then headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts....


Government by Gunplay would bear Blumenthal’s editorial imprint more than anyone’s. He wrote the foreword, the epilogue, and two chapters (one on the FBI’s COINTELPRO plan against the Black Panthers, and another on the Rockefeller Commission).

The misrepresentations, distortions, and falsehoods that Blumenthal either wrote or associated himself with are so numerous and stupendous they defy listing. ...


there is no indication that Blumenthal retracted or ever distanced himself from the rampant paranoia and crude, Soviet-style propaganda evident in Government By Gunplay. (Change the names of the editors, contributors, and publisher, and Government By Gunplay is almost indistinguishable from the slew of Soviet disinformation tracts about the assassination published from the 1960s to the 1980s, save that it is more thoughtful and informed, and much better written). Blumenthal’s penchant for spinning conspiracy theories has persisted, the only difference being they seem to have become more sophisticated.

RTWT

As HRC says, she has known Blumenthal for a long, long time. They became friends when Blumenthal's "vulgar Marxism" was still fresh and his penchant for conspiracies was on full display.

Worth noting:

Philip Agee, a disgraced former CIA officer who was effectively functioning as an agent of Cuban counterintelligence by 1976, wrote the introduction to Government By Gunplay.

Also worth noting: Blumenthal's far-Left views and "paranoid style" was no hindrance to his journalistic career. The Washington Post, New Republic, and The New Yorker were happy to give him a big megaphone and treat him like a star.

What are they hiding?

Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard has an incredibly important article on the files seized in the raid on bin Ladin’s compound in 2011:

Slow Release

A few more documents from the bin Laden raid are finally revealed. They do not flatter the judgment of the Obama administration.

The released documents are only a small fraction of the total material seized by the SEALs. Hayes details many convenient omissions of potentially crucial documents. Any reasonably honest observer has to ask if the White House is trying to hide something.

For instance the relationship between Iran and AQ has the potential to dynamite the Administration’s opening to Iran. Hence, this is no surprise:

Five intelligence sources familiar with the documents tell The Weekly Standard that the broader collection includes explosive documents about al Qaeda’s relationship with the regime in Iran and its dealings with Pakistan’s intelligence services. In one of the files, bin Laden goes into great detail about al Qaeda’s arrangement with Iran—an arrangement the Obama administration itself has cited in designations of terrorists on both sides of the relationship. That relationship spans more than two decades, and while there are signs in the documents of antagonism between the two, it’s clear their disputes did not preclude cooperation. Another document in the possession of the U.S. government describes the support al Qaeda received from the Iranian regime in the years before the 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 Commission highlighted Iran’s support for al Qaeda and noted that several hijackers traveled through Iran on their way to participate in the attacks. These documents were not part of last week’s release and have not been made available to lawmakers, though they would have significant bearing on how the American public and its representatives view the current nuclear negotiations with the Iranian regime.

This revelation demonstrates the bankruptcy of the administration’s counter-terrorsm strategy and their policy toward the Medeast:

The CIA and the Obama administration misjudged al Qaeda in another way as well. They believed the Arab Spring would sound the death knell for al Qaeda’s ideology, because the uprisings that began in early 2011 were largely peaceful, while al Qaeda had long argued that political change in the Muslim-majority world was only possible through violent jihad. The bin Laden files show that al Qaeda correctly believed the opposite—that the turmoil sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa would be a boon for its operations. The security vacuums caused by the fall of dictators meant that the jihadists now had the room to operate and spread their ideas with a freedom they had never before enjoyed.

“[O]ur duty at this stage is to pay attention to the call among Muslims and win over supporters and spread the correct understanding,” bin Laden wrote just days before his death, in a letter dated April 26, 2011. Bin Laden believed “the current conditions [had] brought on unprecedented opportunities” for the jihadists. Bin Laden and Rahman discussed sending senior al Qaeda veterans to their home countries, where they could take advantage of the newly permissive environment. Senior al Qaeda operatives were dispatched to Libya and elsewhere.

There are threads here that hint at a scandal worse than Watergate. Such a shame that modern journalists prefer to merely praise Woodward and Bernstein rather than emulate them.

The Clintons continue to cover-up for something that the media promises us is nothing

But Jon Stewart assures his sycophants in the MSM that there in no Benghazi scandal

AP: Hillary used more than one device for e-mail while SecState

I wish that the MSM would remember Ben Bradlee's lodestar when the WaPo was the only paper pushing the Watergate investigation:

If they’re [the Nixon campaign]clean why don’t they show it? Why are there so many lies? I’ll tell you why. Because you’ve got them.

I also wish the press would stop acting surprised when they discover that the Clintons tell lies. Jonah Golberg from two years ago:

Hillary, Benghazi, and the continuing cover-up
A lot of people in Washington apparently forgot how good Hillary Clinton is at not telling the truth.

Wednesday, in her testimony before both the Senate and, later, the House, Clinton brilliantly fudged, dodged and filibustered. Of course, she's a pro. Clinton was slow-walking depositions, lawyering up and shifting blame when many of her questioners were still civilians down on the farm.

Worth a read

The Generation of ’91

It providers further evidence that Victoria Nuland, like Jamie Gorelick, is a true Mistress of Disaster.

Whatever the case, there is ample evidence that the US was in the midst of things, in the form of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s famous phone call to the American ambassador to Ukraine, conveniently taped and made public by the Russians. ....

Strobe Talbott, Clinton’s Rhodes scholarship classmate at Oxford, was at the center of US policy towards Russia throughout the ’90s. A one-time Time magazine journalist, Talbott served as Ambassador-at-Large to the New Independent States before becoming Deputy Secretary of State in 1994.Today he is president of the Brooking Institution....

Talbott’s State Department chief of staff, Nuland, is at the helm of the State Department’s Eurasian affairs today. During the Bush administration she advised Vice President Dick Cheney on the eve of the Iraq invasion and served as US ambassador to NATO.

And remember, Nuland helped push the Benghazi lies and cover-up.

Benghazi: Imagine a press corps that did its job

This piece by Sharyl Attkisson demonstrates that there are still important unanswered questions about the 2012 terrorist attack and the White House’s handling of it.

Unanswered Benghazi Questions: 8th in a Series

We do not know the answers to Attkisson’s questions. But we do know this much:

If there is no fire, the White House sure is wasting a lot of energy pumping out smoke screens.

If the WH has nothing to hide, they are not helping themselves by spreading so many lies.

The consequences for the republic are grave when the watchdog press sides with those in power.

Worse than Watergate

Stephen Hayes has a must read piece that should trigger earthquakes in DC.

Al Qaeda Wasn’t ‘on the Run’

Why haven’t we seen the documents retrieved in the bin Laden raid?

In July, Lieutenant General Flynn left his post as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a year earlier than scheduled. Many intelligence professionals believe he was forced out, in part because heand many who worked for himaggressively challenged the administration’s view that al Qaeda was dying. Flynn’s views were shaped by the intelligence in the bin Laden documents.

Before he left, Flynn spoke to reporter James Kitfield, of Breaking Defense, who asked why he pushed back on the White House’s view that al Qaeda had died with Osama bin Laden. “There’s a political component to that issue, but when bin Laden was killed there was a general sense that maybe this threat would go away. We all had those hopes, including me. But I also remembered my many years in Afghanistan and Iraq. We kept decapitating the leadership of these groups, and more leaders would just appear from the ranks to take their place. That’s when I realized that decapitation alone was a failed strategy.”

Flynn recalled pushing to get information to policymakers with the hope that it might influence their decisions. “We said many times, ‘Hey, we need to get this intelligence in front of the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the national security adviser! The White House needs to see this intelligence picture we have!’?” He added: “We saw all this connective tissue developing between these [proliferating] terrorist groups. So when asked if the terrorists were on the run, we couldn’t respond with any answer but ‘no.’ When asked if the terrorists were defeated, we had to say ‘no.’ Anyone who answers ‘yes’ to either of those questions either doesn’t know what they are talking about, they are misinformed, or they are flat out lying.”

Hayes also gives us another reason why ValJar and Co. where so eager to accept the resignation of Gen. Petraeus:

Officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency and CENTCOM responsible for providing analysis to U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan wanted to study the documents. But the CIA had “executive authority” over the collection and blocked any outside access to them.

The ensuing bureaucratic fight, reminiscent of the intragovernment battles that led to the reorganization of the intelligence community after 9/11, unfolded over the spring and fall of 2011. It was resolved, at least temporarily, when then-CIA director David Petraeus weighed in on behalf of the team from CENTCOM and the DIA, a move that did little to improve his standing with the CIA bureaucracy. Petraeus was angry when he learned that the CIA hadn’t been actively exploiting the documents, and as the former head of CENTCOM, he was sympathetic to the pleas from military intelligence. The dispute made its way to Clapper, who met with representatives of the warring agencies and agreed that DIA and CENTCOM should be allowed to study the documents.

The CIA provided access on a read-only basis, but even that limited look into bin Laden’s world made clear to the military analysts that the Obama administration’s public story on al Qaeda reflected the president’s aspirations more than reality.

Hayes article makes Max Holland’s work on Watergate journalism and Mark Felt/Deep Throat especially relevant. People like David Ignatius and Peter Bergen have some explaining to do.

You can see a talk by Holland here. The whole thing is interesting (as is his book Leak). But there is one point that now has new resonance.

Near the end of his talk Holland says this:

"The idea that Nixon would misuse the CIA for his own political purposes-- that really was the most serious count that led to the bill of impeachment."

Hayes makes the case that this White House found CIA much more helpful than Nixon’s did. Which is why, if Hayes is even half right, then we have a problem much worse than Watergate.

RTWT and share it. Plus, it doesn’t hurt the shame a few journalists for not pursuing this story.

Related:

An Inconvenient Book (review of Max Holland Leak)

An inconvenient book (Part two)

Benghazi: The Past is prologue

An old item takes on new significance:

The Politics of Incompetence

On December 26, two days after Nigerian Omar Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to use underwear packed with plastic explosives to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight he was on, and as it became clear internally that the Administration had suffered perhaps its most embarrassing failure in the area of national security, senior Obama White House aides, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and new White House counsel Robert Bauer, ordered staff to begin researching similar breakdowns -- if any -- from the Bush Administration.

"The idea was that we'd show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could," says a staffer in the counsel's office. "We were told that classified material involving anything related to al Qaeda operating in Yemen or Nigeria was fair game and that we'd declassify it if necessary."

That last statement is astounding: "We were told that classified material involving anything related to al Qaeda operating in Yemen or Nigeria was fair game and that we'd declassify it if necessary."

We see here the same game plan as the Benghazi cover-up. The White House-- staffed to the gills with veterans of Obama's 2008 campaign-- went into attack mode when they faced a potentially embarrassing event. Winning the news cycle was their paramount concern; telling truth to the nation was a decidedly secondary consideration.

When we look at Benghazi, the crotch bomber, and the Boston Marathon bombing, another pattern becomes clear. The White House and other senior officials immediately denied that the event had any connection to terrorist groups. Those denials were later shown to be mistaken.

What lies behind the Benghazi lies?

Speculative but fascinating:

The Day Obama’s Presidency Died

So let me insert a guess into the field. Suppose Benghazi was the night when the administration’s secret policy fell apart. In one devastating attack Obama — and Hillary — realized they had been double crossed and their whole theory had been a dream. In an instant it was plain they could not control the jihad from the inside.

That setback, by itself, was not necessarily a bad thing. Commanders in Chief can make mistakes so why couldn’t Hillary and Obama just admit they had this theory but it didn’t work in practice and just learn from it?

Because they had pursued the policy secretly and possibly illegally. Because of 2012. Because like Hirohito, Obama could do no wrong, so there was nothing but to protect the Throne of Heaven from the accusation of fallibility and the guilt of cover-up. So they lied.

The Iran-contra affair was propelled, in part, by Robert MvFarlane's desire to 'pull a Kissinger' and re-open relations with Iran. Was someone in the White House seduced by a similar mirage WRT the Muslim Brotherhood and Sunni fundamentalism?

Hubris makes people do stupid things. And prideful people often lie when they are embarrassed.

The "crazy Benghazi Truthers" meme

Tremendous article by Stephen F. Hayes

Who’s Crazy?

Benghazi, crazy. That’s the association the White House and its allies want to encourage as a House Select Committee begins what should be the most thorough investigation of the Benghazi attacks to date. The White House wants to delegitimize the process before it begins and preemptively discredit the findings. So last week senior White House adviser David Plouffe claimed that “a very loud, delusional minority” is driving the Republicans on Benghazi, and former representative Jane Harman compared questions about Benghazi to conspiracy theories about Vince Foster and aliens.

This point is right on target:

There’s no small irony here. The Obama administration sold a false narrative concealing the nature of a terrorist attack six weeks before the 2012 presidential election, and the coverage at the time reflected widespread journalistic skepticism about any possible political motive. But as Republicans move to investigate those false claims six months before midterm elections, their motives are self-evidently political.

I discussed the political utility of the crazy meme here:

Benghazi spin machine was using the standard playbook

Lara Logan (UPDATED)

You could write a book on all the problems with this morally abhorrent article on Lara Logan:

Benghazi and the Bombshell
Is Lara Logan too toxic to return to 60 Minutes?

The most disgusting part was Joe Hagan’s insinuation that Logan was asking for it when she was sexually assaulted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the uprising that toppled Mubarak.

First Hagan tells us that “Logan often flouted traditional Islamic dress codes”. And then there is this:

“She was told 15 different ways: ‘Do not leave the hotel after curfew,’ and she did,”

Normally, reporters are lauded for their bravery when they try get close to the events while covering a story. Logan, however, is not to be lauded so the writer has to imply that she was arrogant and reckless. (As if most reporters are humble as church mice.)

The article tips its hand as it builds its case against Logan. What really sticks in the craw of Hagan and the backstabbers at CBS is that Logan left the MSM reservation. I suspect for most people, that is to her credit.

For instance, she is condemned for expressing her political opinions in a speech in October 2012:

Then, at a Chicago luncheon for the Better Government Association in October 2012, she gave a speech claiming the government was propagating a “major lie” about the strength of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight,” she said. “In your arrogance, you think you write the script.” The speech came on the heels of her report “The Longest War,” about General John Allen’s struggles in Afghanistanand with his superiors in the Obama administration.

Among her colleagues at 60 Minutes, there was shock that Logan’s expression of her political opinions in public was met with no blowback from management. But it was her CBS bosses who had helped arrange the speech. While Logan spoke without notes, David Rhodes, the president of CBS News, was sitting in the audience listening.

Logan’s quoted remarks are political in only one sense: they were critical of a government headed by Barak Obama. When Bush was president, such these sort of remarks were both common and widely praised. Logan said exactly the sort of thing that David Halberstam said during the Vietnam War. Halberstam is an icon for journalists yet Logan is becoming a pariah?

Why?

LBJ vs. BHO.

That’s just how journolisters roll.

The most often voiced criticism of Logan is that she respects the military and does patriotic stories.

“She was part of the military culture, taking some of the same risks, imbibing its worldview.”

“Her proximity to the top brass and her devotion to military interests”

“The number of segments Logan did for 60 Minutes ramped up under Fager. Almost all of them focused on military figures and assorted heroics: “Staff Sgt. Giunta’s Medal of Honor”; “A Relentless Enemy”; “Combat in Afghanistan”; “The Silver Star”; “Kidnapped in Basra”; “Ambush in Afghanistan.””

“Enmeshed in the social world of former and current military personnel.”

This is what made Logan a pariah at CBS and within the MSM.

Two telling insights into the worldview of reporters:

First Robert D. Kaplan from 1996:

Fort Leavenworth and the Eclipse of Nationhood

"The military," Major Kellett-Forsyth told me, "is in the nation-state world. The media represents the postmodern, or transnational world. Overseas, [U.S. soldiers] sit down with each other. The American media sits down with foreign journalists: that's its socialization group."

David Gelernter from 1998:

Between lawmen and reporters on the whole it is impossible, however, not to notice this difference: Most lawmen seem to hate criminals, and most reporters couldn't care less.

As Hagan makes clear, the old guard at “60 Minutes” and CBS News hated Logan and the sort of stories she did. In the MSM, this criticism is seen as fatal for Logan’s reputation. For the nation as a whole, however, it may be a badge of honor.

After all, no one can accuse Mike Wallace of being too patriotic:

“Don’t you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting fact?” Ogletree asked. Without hesitating Wallace responded: “No, you don’t have higher duty...You’re a reporter.” This persuaded Jennings, who changed his view: “I think he’s right, too. I chickened out.”

UPDATE:

Joe COncha is a stand up guy.

Joe Concha to Howard Kurtz: Lara Logan ‘Deserves Better’ from CBS News

Brian Stelter, on the other hand, continues to play the fool.

CBS’ Benghazi Problem

Benghazi spin machine was using the standard playbook

I think Ann Althouse is on to something.

Jane Harman recited not the talking points, but the opposite of talking points on Benghazi.

Look, I realize I can be accused of "conspiracy" thinking to suspect something and to speak as if I know what they're saying behind our back... but here's the kind of thing Harman's Area-51-Vince-Foster remark made me feel they are saying in private:

We need people to hear the word "Benghazi" as a buzzword of nuts. Somebody says "Benghazi" and the reflex reaction is "Oh, no, here we go again with the conspiracy theories." It should be like when somebody brings up Area 51 or Vince Foster was murdered. A normal person is like "Ugh! Leave me alone." That's the way "Benghazi" should feel. Somebody says "Benghazi" and all anybody thinks is "conspiracy nutcase." Nobody who wants to be considered mainstream in this election should be able to say "Benghazi" anymore. Case closed, and you've built in the respect for Hillary saying "What difference at this point does it make?" Everybody decent — if we get this idea across — will react to Benghazi with a Hillary-esque exasperated "What difference does it make?" If it makes a difference to you, you're crazy. This is a circus. You're a clown. A scary clown. Boo! Aliens! Benghazi! Vince Foster!

I do not think her speculations are outlandish in the least. The scenario she lays out fits perfectly with the Rahmbo/Axelrod strategy that ha been in play since Obama was elected in 2008.

The central problem the newly empowered leftist faced was that the nation voted for "Change" but remained stubbornly center-right. Any astute strategist knew that much of the Obama agenda would die if it was debated on its merits; the public support was not there for a hard left-turn.

The brilliant but cynical response was to foreclose debate. Partly, this depended on the goodwill all new presidents have. In addition, the window of opportunity afforded by the economic meltdown was exploited. ("Never let a crisis go to waste"). Raw political power could be wielded ("You have to pass the bill to know what's in it")"

Those advantages were certain to evaporate with time. So the long-term strategy was simple: make conservatives and Republicans toxic in the public's mind so that centrists and low-information voters did not listen to the counter-arguments and did not want to be associated with anything conservative or Republican. That's the reason the White House focused so much attention on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. It is no coincidence that the Tea Party was branded as racist from the first. It is the reason that Democrats and the White House treat all conservatives as "birthers".

Presidents can't vote present

Critical point made by Andrew McCarthy:

The AWOL Commander-in-Chief

The executive branch is designed to make the president singularly accountable. That is why he is the sole official in whom the Constitution vests all executive power — AFRICOM moves, or doesn’t move, based on his orders because it is his authority that the armed forces exercise. The chief executive, James Madison asserted, would be wholly “responsible for [the] conduct” of his subordinate officials. Therefore, it would “subject [the president] to impeachment himself, if he suffers them to perpetrate with impunity high crimes or misdemeanors against the United States, or neglects to superintend their conduct, so as to check their excesses.” When AFRICOM abstains from battle, or Lois Lerner obstructs an investigation, or Eric Holder misleads Congress, or Michael Morell doctors talking points, or Susan Rice serially lies on national television, Barack Obama is responsible. It is his bidding that they do, and by failing to fire or discipline them he implicitly endorses their malfeasance.

RTWT

Tommy Vietor is (sadly) emblematic of the New Washington

From May 2013

Benghazi: The high price of rampant knowingness

The distinctive feature of coercive “experts” like Joe Biden or Joe Salazar is that they are credentialed, not proficient. They assume the right to make decisions for others, but that assumption is based on “media consensus” and insider back-scratching. It is not, demonstrably in the case of Biden and Salazar, based on proven expertise or knowledge.

Ours is an age of Knowingness Rampant.

I suspect that this is one of the reasons for the Benghazi disaster.

The Clinton team perfected modern scandal management: Stonewall as long as you can, then, dismiss the inconvenient truth as '"old news".

Or, as Tommy Vietor mights say, "Dude, that was like two years ago."

Of course, this can only work with a lazy and complicit press. Mitt Romney's prep school days were long ago but, somehow, they were not "old news."

Similarly, during Watergate, lies by the White House goaded the MSM to dig deeper. Up until now, Anita Dunn's little lapdogs have been happy to swallow the lies, wipe their chin, and ask for more.

What remains to be seen is if David Halberstam's analysis still holds true.

A story like Vietnam or Watergate has a balance of forces of its own. At first the charges are deniable, the existing structure holds, powerful men with powerful positions can keep their troops in line. All the weight is on one side, and reporters like Woodward and Bernstein are a tiny minority, seeming puny by comparison. But there is the momentum, The denials slowly weaken, events undermine the denials so there have to be more denials, and each denial is a little weaker than the previous one. … Slowly the people who are issuing denials lose credibility, and the reporters begin to gain credibility.

Andrew McCarthy connects the dots on Benghazi

Absolute must read:

Obama’s ‘Blame the Video’ Fraud Started in Cairo, Not Benghazi

The Obama administration’s “Blame the Video” story was a fraudulent explanation for the September 11, 2012, rioting in Cairo every bit as much as it was a fraudulent explanation for the massacre in Benghazi several hours later.

We’ll come back to that because, once you grasp this well-hidden fact, the Obama administration’s derelictions of duty in connection with Benghazi become much easier to see.

Related:

Susan Rice and Benghazi

From this we learn three critical facts: 1. Susan Rice is a diplomat who had no qualms about considering domestic politics when making diplomatic decisions. 2. She is an Obama loyalist who was an early passenger of the Hope and Change Express. 3. Her loyalty to Obama made her quite willing to kneecap her old patrons the Clintons.

So, are we to believe that the White House ignored all that when they chose Susan Rice to go on the Sunday shows to deflect blame after the disaster at Benghazi?

Incestuous Washington

Despite its hard ideological edge and sometimes extreme language, i found this article fascinating on several levels.

How Cold War-Hungry Neocons Stage Managed Liz Wahl’s Resignation

For instance, I did not know that Robert Kagan was a foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney.

Kagan is married to Victoria Nuland, the State Department official who helped scrub CIA's talking points to make them less politically explosive after the Benghazi attack.

That sort makes the Romney campaign's handling of Benghazi even more interesting.

Benghazi

Whitewashing Benghazi

Were he alive today, Richard Nixon would have to doff his hat to Barack Obama. Compared with how the Obama administration has swept under the rug the Benghazi attacks of September 11, 2012, Nixon’s attempt to cover up the Watergate burglary was rank amateurism. To be fair, Nixon’s team of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean were not in the same league as Obama’s, which includes not only his cabinet but most of the national media and much of Congress.

Romney tripped up by his neocon platform:

Lucky for President Obama, Mitt Romney supported American intervention in Libya, too, which left him unable to raise the obvious point that there would have been no Americans in Benghazi to be killed if Obama hadn’t foolishly put them there. Having wrongly decided that America had a national security interest in helping France topple Gaddafi, Obama’s mistake was compounded by the decision to put American diplomats in a city that was known to be a safe haven for terrorists. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, knew or should have known of the security problems in Benghazi and had the responsibility to correct them. Romney wouldn’t point any of this out, and Obama certainly couldn’t admit it.

More reasons why Boehner should not be speaker:

Soon after the attacks, Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf introduced HR-36, a bill to create a House Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks. Under Wolf’s bill, the special committee would have subpoena power and could force the issue of testimony and access to documents. If it did, we might yet see Obama exercise Executive Privilege just as he did in the “Fast and Furious” scandal. The bill has 177 sponsors, almost enough to pass the House today. The only problem is that House Speaker John Boehner won’t allow the bill to come to the floor. He has repeatedly blocked it from consideration. Without leaders interested in the truth, the American public will never find out, not now, not in the history books, just what happened on September 11, 2012. Nor, on present trends, will they find out why they can’t find out.

See also:

Mark Levin agrees

Benghazi

Catherine Herridge:

Former CIA official accused of misleading lawmakers on Benghazi

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell is facing accusations from Republicans that he misled lawmakers about the Obama administration's role in crafting the bogus storyline that a protest gone awry was to blame for the deadly Benghazi attack.

Among other discrepancies, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee allege Morell insisted the talking points were sent to the White House for informational purposes, and not for their input -- but emails, later released by the administration, showed otherwise.

Stephen Hayes:

Lawmakers: CIA #2 Lied to Us About Benghazi

Three aspects of the controversy are drawing particular interest: (1) Morell’s obfuscation of his central role in rewriting the talking points, (2) Morell’s contention that the FBI rewrote the talking points, and (3) Morell’s false claim that the talking points were provided to the White House merely as a heads-up and not for coordination.

Andrew McCarthy

Obama’s ‘Blame It on The Video’ Was a Fraud for Cairo as Well as Benghazi More Proof

The “blame it on the video” fraud so carefully orchestrated by the Obama administration in connection with the Benghazi massacre on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has always rested on a premise that remains unquestioned by the mainstream media and that is itself a fraud. To wit: the Libyan violence, in which a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were murdered, was triggered by rioting at the U.S. embassy in neighboring Egypt which was unquestionably provoked by an anti-Islamic video (an obscure trailer for the more obscure film, Innocence of Muslims).

As I’ve previously recounted, “blame it on the video” was a fraud as to Egypt as well a calculated fraud set in motion by State Department officials in Cairo who began tweeting about their outrage over the video before the rioting started. At the time they did so, our government well knew both that there would be demonstrations at the embassy and that those demonstrations were being spearheaded by al Qaeda. In addition to the general animus against the United States that is its raison d’etre, the terror network and its Egyptian confederates were animated by their long-running campaign demanding that the U.S. release the Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman, the master jihadist I prosecuted in the nineties and who Osama bin Laden later credited with issuing the fatwa that approved the 9/11 suicide hijackings).

There is now more evidence corroborating the fact that al Qaeda-linked jihadists, not the video, propelled the Cairo rioting just as al-Qaeda-linked jihadists, not the video, propelled the Benghazi attack.

We are left, then, with the original Watergate question: If they have nothing to hide, "Why are there so many lies?"

Yes, they are real scandals

George Will: IRS targeting scandal on par with Watergate, Iran-Contra

Previously:

Benghazi in a nutshell

WORSE THAN WATERGATE

Benghazi in a nutshell

Bryan Preston:

Benghazi: Obama Administration Lied Before They Lied

In the fall of 2012, the Obama White House was focused on re-election to the point that it was shutting its real duties out. President Obama was shutting his own real duties out, campaigning far more than governing. He hadn’t met with his jobs council in months. He was skipping his daily security intel briefings. The Sept. 10 release was sent out to make him look presidential, without actually performing the duties of president. There was no security meeting, and no forces were actually moved around anywhere to gear up for the 9-11 anniversary. There was a conference call, a conversation, and a press release.

The administration had been warned that security in Benghazi was deteriorating and an attack was likely and would be deadly, repeatedly. The black flag of Islam was already flying over government buildings in Benghazi. Ansar al-Sharia, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Libya, was gaining power. Terrorists had already attacked the Red Cross and the British embassy in Benghazi, forcing both to abandon the city. The last remaining target of three that al Qaeda had stated its intent to attack was the US facility. But Clinton’s State Department consistently denied requests to beef up security, and Obama couldn’t be bothered to give a damn about anything but winning re-election.

The attack happens. It’s clear from the beginning that it was an attack, the military briefed administration officials that it was an attack, but the State Department had been denying field requests from Benghazi to beef up security, and there’s a paper trail of those denials. Obama hasn’t been attending to his daily intel briefings. Obama, derelict in his duty every bit as much as Clinton, has been campaigning on the theme that “al Qaeda is defeated and on the run.” Well, here they are to spoil that particular campaign line and re-write their own in the blood of four Americans.

The inconvenience of four dead Americans could not be allowed to become speedbumps slowing Obama’s path to re-election.

On that last point: We must never forget that Candy Crowley and CNN were complicit in this campaign strategy.

More questions for the Benghazi investigators to ask

Benghazi suspects not on State Department's 'Rewards for Justice' list

The State Department's "Rewards for Justice" program -- which offers multimillion-dollar payouts for tips leading to wanted terrorists -- does not include suspects in the Benghazi terror attack.

The State Department has not offered an explanation as to why those individuals are not on the list. Pressed by Fox News and The Associated Press on Thursday, spokeswoman Marie Harf suggested the important thing was that the Obama administration is resolved to find those suspects.

Former Guantanamo detainee was on ground in Benghazi during terror attack, source says

A former Guantanamo Bay detainee with Al Qaeda ties was in Benghazi the night of the Sept. 11 attack, according to a source on the ground in Libya.

The source told Fox News that ex-detainee Sufian bin Qumu, who is suspected of running camps in eastern Libya where some of the assailants trained, is also a "respected member" of Ansar al-Sharia -- one of the Islamist groups identified in State Department email traffic two hours after the attack.