Benghazi hearing?

[Free Soviets]

And 91 people?? This number climbs each time it is posted.

possibly talking american deaths vs total deaths?

[Gauthier]

You'd think this would have died out by now, I mean it was a pathetic swiftboat attempt that was conjured up just in time to give them hope in November.

To be fair, Watergate happened in '72 and Nixon resigned in '74. So let's wait and see what happens next year. Maybe we'll get another deepthroat? A couple of eager reporters? White House tapes and missing minutes. Yadda , yadda yadda.

So how's Huckabee's weed?

[Ixzara]

To be fair, Watergate happened in '72 and Nixon resigned in '74. So let's wait and see what happens next year. Maybe we'll get another deepthroat? A couple of eager reporters? White House tapes and missing minutes. Yadda , yadda yadda.

So how's Huckabee's weed?

"Huckabee" sounds like cheap weed.

[Mike the Progressive]

To be fair, Watergate happened in '72 and Nixon resigned in '74. So let's wait and see what happens next year. Maybe we'll get another deepthroat? A couple of eager reporters? White House tapes and missing minutes. Yadda , yadda yadda.

So how's Huckabee's weed?

Oh shit, does he have some?

[Gauthier]

So how's Huckabee's weed?

Oh shit, does he have some?

No other explanation for why he claims Obama won't finish his second term after Benghazi.

[Ixzara]

So how's Huckabee's weed?

Oh shit, does he have some?

It'll be the next, big republican scandal

[Gauthier]

Oh shit, does he have some?

It'll be the next, big republican scandal

It's only a scandal if he gets caught smoking with a gay masseur.

[Ixzara]

It'll be the next, big republican scandal

It's only a scandal if he gets caught smoking with a gay masseur.

Hmm, I fit the gay category...hold on, let me take a crash course on massage...

[The Lone Alliance]

We don't see the point in continuing to discuss something that is no longer relevant. Yes, it was managed badly, that has been acknowledged, there is nothing more to discuss.

Four Americans died in Benghazi. We need to investigate and find out why the requests for extra security are denied and why the army was given the order to stand down instead of go to Benghazi and why Obama did not pick up the phone and speak to a single person when he was aware that the compound was under attack.

Because by the time he picked up the phone the only people who would answer would be the rioters.

And teleporters don't exist there is no magic wand that Obama could wave that could make soldiers magically appear in front of the building to save the day.

And helicopters would be SA-7 food.

Again no AC-130s, no Armed drones. All the closest AC-130s were actually in Italy being serviced at the time.

The Admiral is not the guy in charge of AC-130s therefore his opinion is invalid. And his "Special Forces" would have arrived long after they would have left the building.

[Napkiraly]

There were attacks on American embassies during the Bush administration. Why were there no calls from the GOP for heads to roll back then? Not sure if the Democrats reacted in a similar manner though.

[New England and The Maritimes]

There were attacks on American embassies during the Bush administration. Why were there no calls from the GOP for heads to roll back then? Not sure if the Democrats reacted in a similar manner though.

They didn't. Because they're sane.

[Alien Space Bats]

And so far in the hearing it is obvious that they pulled the muslim video out from nowhere to fit some kind of narrative.

You know, I've heard people use the term "bum-fuck Egypt" to describe something that's "in the middle of nowhere", but I think that this is the first time I've ever seen any indication that some people really think that "Egypt" and "nowhere" are actually the same place.

<roll eyes>

Seriously, I can't believe your level of news amnesia is so high that you can't remember that there were protests against that video in Cairo on the morning of the Benghazi attack. That's particularly true since conservatives spent the news day attacking the State Department and the Obama Administration because a mid-level staffer in the American Embassy in Cairo released a statement deploring the video and its contents instead of hurling back an angry, in-your-face defense of the 1st Amendment, which is what conservatives all said that the State Department should have done.

<pause>

No more bullshit, please. I can read time stamps, and I suspect you can, too. Look at the time stamp on the Politico article cited above ("U.S. embassy in Cairo condemns Muhammed video"): You'll see that it says "6:02 PM". Likewise, look at the time stamp on the Tweet by Andy Levy (@AndyLevy) criticizing the Cairo Embassy's statement (".@USEmbassyCairo How about 'We condemn the efforts by misguided individuals to act like children when their precious feelings are hurt'?"): It says "3:52 PM". The story of the protests against the YouTube video, the press release and Tweets against it by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo (now deleted, but you can see them still at Breitbart.com), the rabid conservative reaction to that attempt at mollification ("Appeasement! Obama Apology Tour 2.0!"), the official disavowal by State Department officials in Washington of the Cairo Tweets ("[N]o one in Washington approved that statement before it was released and it doesn’t reflect the views of the U.S. government"): All of this was what the September 11th, 2012 news cycle looked like before the story broke that there had been an attack on our consulate in Benghazi.

If you don't believe me, look at the timeline published by CBS:

Hours before the assault, nearly 750 miles away in Cairo, events were taking shape that would inform the early narrative surrounding the events in Benghazi:

Around 12:00 p.m. (6:00 a.m. ET): The U.S. Embassy in Cairo releases a statement on its website disavowing a YouTube film named "Innocence of Muslims," which mocks the Prophet Mohammad. Later that afternoon, protesters who had gathered outside the embassy compound stormed the gates and tore the American flag down, replacing it with a black Salafist flag.

Around 9:00 p.m. (3:00 p.m. ET): In the walled Benghazi compound, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens says good night to the Turkish Ambassador Ali Kemal Aydin and retires to his room in Building C, a large residence with numerous bedrooms and a safe haven.

There are three other structures in the compound: Building B, a residence with bedrooms and a cantina and dining room; a Tactical Operations Center (TOC) located across from building B, containing offices, one bedroom and security cameras; and barracks located by the front gate, staffed by Libyan security guards.

At this time, there are five diplomatic security agents (DS) on site - three based in Benghazi and two traveling with Stevens. According to a U.S. State Department account given Oct. 9 there was "nothing unusual outside of the gates. "

9:40 p.m. (3:40 p.m. ET): Gunfire and an explosion are heard. A TOC agent sees dozens of armed people over security camera flowing through a pedestrian gate at the compound's main entrance. It is not clear how the gate was opened.

The agent hits the alarm and alerts the CIA security team in the nearby annex and the Libyan 17th of February Brigade, one of several powerful militias serving as a de facto security presence in Benghazi. The embassy in Tripoli and the State Dept. command center were also alerted.

State Dept. Diplomatic Security follows events in real time on a listen-only, audio-only feed, according to testimony of Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant director for international programs, given before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Oct 10.

So the events in Cairo — the growing unrest through the course of the day, the press release, the incursion of the Egyptian mob onto embassy grounds and their replacement of the U.S. flag with a black flag of the sort usually associated with groups like al-Qaeda (i.e., the "black banner of Khorasan") — all unfold hours before anything begins happening on the ground in Benghazi. Given the delay inherent in a news cycle where the "news" is actually political reaction halfway around the world, this isn't quite so clear: The press release and Tweets out of Cairo hit the ether at 6:00 AM, where they generally aren't likely to get mentioned until the noon news broadcasts and/or the early afternoon conservative "talk radio" shows (Rush Limbaugh, for instance, airs between 12:00 PM and 3:00 PM), so the wave of conservative outrage at the statements only begins to become that news cycle's story by mid-afternoon.

In contrast, the story of the Benghazi consulate attack didn't begin to break until the early evening. You can find the content of CBS's Evening News program for September 11th, 2012 online: There are stories on the various 11th anniversary tributes of the 2001 attack, of how the two Presidential candidates spent their day, of delays in the construction of a 9/11 museum, and of the lingering heath issues of 9/11 first responders. There is nothing, however, on Benghazi or even the Cairo protests; that story broke across the next several hours, beginning with a release by Reuters ("U.S. staffer dies in Libya mission clash: source") at 7:51 PM. The whole thing then explodes overnight as Mitt Romney decides to release a statement on the attacks, in which he himself draws attention to the Cairo Embassy statement regarding the film, which he brands an "apology"; it is only by dawn on September 12th, 2012, that the media are finally reporting the death toll at four — including Ambassador Stevens — rather than just at one.

The Atlantic Monthly has compiled a media timeline (in contrast to the attack timeline, above) that you can use to verify this sequence of events.

So this "new" narrative that the White House and State Department "invented" a connection between the attacks and the film is pure horseshit. If anything (as the timeline shows), it was the Romney campaign that first drew such a connection, in an effort to expand upon conservatives' outrageous meme that Obama is some kind of "terrorist sympathizer" and "anti-American apologist".

[Ethel mermania]

two reasons,

watergate was criminality by the president and staff, bengazi was incompetence

the liberal media has chosen to cover it as a political issue, not a policy one.

for example.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/opini ... .html?_r=0

[Napkiraly]

There were attacks on American embassies during the Bush administration. Why were there no calls from the GOP for heads to roll back then? Not sure if the Democrats reacted in a similar manner though.

They didn't. Because they're sane.

Most of the time.

[East Catalina]

Because House Republicans cut funding for our overseas diplomatic missions.

Nothing's ever the fault of the Democrats' is it?

The Civil War is.

[Aryavartha]

there is a saying in my native language..roughly translated as 'carefully watching the ant crawl, while missing the elephant walking nearby'..

four people died, FOUR people died, FOUR PEOPLE DIED !!!!!111

bush cheney lied and hundreds of thousands died including THOUSANDS of americans and not a pipsqueak out of these people who are so animated by this manufactured outrage of benghazi. This is a safe test here, people who are so animated can be easily ignored as rabble rousers doing this precisely because they don't have anything actually substantial to stick on obama.

[Ethel mermania]

There were attacks on American embassies during the Bush administration. Why were there no calls from the GOP for heads to roll back then? Not sure if the Democrats reacted in a similar manner though.

embassies were not overrun and no americians died. no one made a stink about the embassies that were attacked during the clinton adminstration either, for similar reasons.

[Ashmoria]

Though soldiers stationed at the Consulate and soldiers who were coming into support the Consulate are two completely different things. As I said, support soldiers coming in have the ability to flank and to make tactical decisions. Asking how many people you can put in a Consulate so it does not get attacked is kinda like asking how many archers can you put on the walls so the Barbarians don't attack your city.

And the soldiers stationed at Benghazi didn't? Just because you're being attacked doesn't mean you suddenly lose all ability to make tactical decisions or flank. And since we're going back to Medieval times, I'd suggest looking up a sally. No support troops, yet is a tactical flanking by the defender.

there were no soldiers stationed at Benghazi.

here is a bit of a discussion of how security is handled at embassies and consulates.

http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/20 ... i-tragedy/

[Ashmoria]

Sickening how easy it seems to be for so many to brush off this event like it was nothing at all.

how long do we have to have hearings about it? the facts are known. nothing new has come out in these hearings so far. the committee is hoping that something terrible will shake loose that will destroy mrs Clinton's chance at winning the whitehouse.

[Khadgar]

Sickening how easy it seems to be for so many to brush off this event like it was nothing at all.

how long do we have to have hearings about it? the facts are known. nothing new has come out in these hearings so far. the committee is hoping that something terrible will shake loose that will destroy mrs Clinton's chance at winning the whitehouse.

We must rehash this shit until the public believes the Republican Party's one true version of events. Please disregard any inconvenient evidence that counters their assertions

[Gauthier]

how long do we have to have hearings about it? the facts are known. nothing new has come out in these hearings so far. the committee is hoping that something terrible will shake loose that will destroy mrs Clinton's chance at winning the whitehouse.

We must rehash this shit until the public believes the Republican Party's one true version of events. Please disregard any inconvenient evidence that counters their assertions

If it wrecks Hellary's chance of winning in 2016 good, if it gets Obummer impeached or makes him resign even better! [/sarcasm]

[Ashmoria]

how long do we have to have hearings about it? the facts are known. nothing new has come out in these hearings so far. the committee is hoping that something terrible will shake loose that will destroy mrs Clinton's chance at winning the whitehouse.

We must rehash this shit until the public believes the Republican Party's one true version of events. Please disregard any inconvenient evidence that counters their assertions

even then, khadgar, they are failing at getting anything to be outraged about (beyond the loss of 4 americans through bad judgment). the most partisan of them are proclaiming that Benghazi is Watergate + iran/contra X 10 but they cant point to any actual conspiracy that might come near 1/10 of either of those scandals.

the discussion of whether or not a better result might have been had if they had done things a bit differently that day is a useless rehashing of the events (especially given that the best thing that congress can do is to increase the security budget).

[Khadgar]

We must rehash this shit until the public believes the Republican Party's one true version of events. Please disregard any inconvenient evidence that counters their assertions

even then, khadgar, they are failing at getting anything to be outraged about (beyond the loss of 4 americans through bad judgment). the most partisan of them are proclaiming that Benghazi is Watergate + iran/contra X 10 but they cant point to any actual conspiracy that might come near 1/10 of either of those scandals.

the discussion of whether or not a better result might have been had if they had done things a bit differently that day is a useless rehashing of the events (especially given that the best thing that congress can do is to increase the security budget).

You know, the mention of Watergate and Iran Contra makes me wonder, when was the last time we had a Democrat found guilty of an actual crime while in office? By crime I mean something more serious than lying about getting head.

[Ashmoria]

even then, khadgar, they are failing at getting anything to be outraged about (beyond the loss of 4 americans through bad judgment). the most partisan of them are proclaiming that Benghazi is Watergate + iran/contra X 10 but they cant point to any actual conspiracy that might come near 1/10 of either of those scandals.

the discussion of whether or not a better result might have been had if they had done things a bit differently that day is a useless rehashing of the events (especially given that the best thing that congress can do is to increase the security budget).

You know, the mention of Watergate and Iran Contra makes me wonder, when was the last time we had a Democrat found guilty of an actual crime while in office? By crime I mean something more serious than lying about getting head.

Lyndon Johnson and the gulf of Tonkin resolution.

I was wondering the same thing after that whole "Nixon scuttled the Vietnam peace talks in order to get elected in '68" thing came out. I was thinking about how the republicans have a great reputation in foreign affairs and yet they have horrible track records in reality. Nixon scuttling peace talks, secretly bombing Cambodia, Reagan selling arms to iran so he could fund wars in central America, bush2 lying us into war in Iraq. (ford didn't have time to do much wrong that way, bush1 carried the legacy of Reagan).

why do we elect republicans?

[Khadgar]

You know, the mention of Watergate and Iran Contra makes me wonder, when was the last time we had a Democrat found guilty of an actual crime while in office? By crime I mean something more serious than lying about getting head.

Lyndon Johnson and the gulf of Tonkin resolution.

I was wondering the same thing after that whole "Nixon scuttled the Vietnam peace talks in order to get elected in '68" thing came out. I was thinking about how the republicans have a great reputation in foreign affairs and yet they have horrible track records in reality. Nixon scuttling peace talks, secretly bombing Cambodia, Reagan selling arms to iran so he could fund wars in central America, bush2 lying us into war in Iraq. (ford didn't have time to do much wrong that way, bush1 carried the legacy of Reagan).

why do we elect republicans?

I haven't a clue. They have a great reputation for dealing with the economy too, but consistently fuck the dog on that too. I don't know why anyone votes for them.