Benghazi Talk Continues

On October 24, 2012 we heard that just 2 hours after the Benghazi incident an Islamist militant group claimed responsibility; the White House and the State Department were informed via an email but intelligence sources say other conflicting messages may have been sent; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said all the evidence has to be weighed; a Tunisia man was arrested for the attack and a second suspect was killed in Egypt. On Fox News former Bush Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice broke with the majority of her party as she tried to hit the brakes on the right wing’s politicization of the recent attack in Libya. Host Greta Van Susteren asked Rice directly and repeatedly about a set of emails uncovered by Reuters. In what has been dubbed “Benghazi-Gate,” the conservative media has jumped on the emails as definitive proof that the Obama administration has been lying about what it knew and when in the aftermath of the September 11 attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Rice’s response was likely not what Van Susteren expected: But when things are unfolding very, very quickly, it’s not always easy to know what is really going on, on the ground. And to my mind, the really important questions here are about how information was collected. Did the various agencies really coordinate and share intelligence in the way that we had hoped, with the reforms that were made after 9/11? So, there’s a big picture to be examined here. But we don’t have all of the pieces and I think it’s easy to try and jump to conclusions about what might have happened here. It’s probably better to let the relevant bodies do their work.

You would have thought Rice’s statement would have slowed down the stubborn foolishness of the incident but on October 27 Republican Senators demanded the White House declassify the Benghazi surveillance video. Instead of dealing with our economic situation or the upcoming hurricane the Republicans keep demanding information that has yet been totally put together. What is done – is done. It’s already been said that there are lessons to learn from this incident so hindsight doesn’t change anything and they need to stop their bullying. On October 30, the morning after hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey ABC asked Chris Christie–what’s your biggest concern right now–he said–it’s hard to tell and went on to say what he did know and they have to assess the damage. Why then doesn’t this logic apply to Benghazi?