Posted on 05/15/2013 11:27:32 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
In order to understand just how badly the White House may have fumbled this ball, let’s go back to last week. Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard reported from Congressional sources on a White House-State Department e-mail string that made clear that the administration wanted the talking points on Benghazi massaged to protect sources and its own political goals. ABCs Jon Karl later reported from the e-mails themselves, showing that the White House and State Department went through 12 versions of talking points before settling on the final version, which CIA Director Davod Petraeus called “useless” and advised against using.
Yesterday, however — not too long before Jay Carney’s press briefing at the White House — Jake Tapper got a leaked version of an e-mail sent by Ben Rhodes that seemed to contradict the reporting from Hayes and Karl:
CNN has obtained an e-mail sent by a top aide to President Barack Obama about White House reaction to the deadly attack last September 11 on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that apparently differs from how sources characterized it to two different media organizations.
The actual e-mail from then-Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes appears to show that whomever leaked it did so in a way that made it appear that the White House was primarily concerned with the State Department’s desire to remove references and warnings about specific terrorist groups so as to not bring criticism to the department.
During the press conference, Carney seized on this report to claim that the Benghazi story was a trumped-up non-story:
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
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Did the White House selectively leak e-mail to distort Benghazi timeline story? Update: Axelrod: Release all the Libya e-mails
ping
fyi
************************************EXCERPT**************************************************
Summary:
1) The White House tried to use Tapper to spin things in their favor. He fell for it.
2) Karl and Hayes, said “Not so fast. Looks like we have more info than you. Our story makes more sense.”
3) Tapper realizes he’s been played, demands accountability from White House.
Did I get that right? If so, what a clusterf**k. These people are setting new records in incompetence and arrogance.
Chris of Rights on May 15, 2013 at 9:30 AM
Was reading that there are some that think this is the Scandal that the White House is most afraid of....The others don't have close connections to the White House like the Benghazi affair does.
But there arlso reports that the public is not concerned about any of it.
Sadly it seems that unless someone is given some hard cold facts, they just blow it off as some unfortunate thing that happened to some guys in a far away country. I’ve come up on this time and time again. If you get someone who is the least bit curious, you can get them engaged.
However, the IRS scandal WILL get their attention. The IRS can hit anyone, and even the most uninterested ‘gets’ this basic point.
I would hope your analysis is correct.
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