Posted on 09/22/2012 2:41:31 PM PDT by Libloather
Senate GOP furious newspaper got better briefing on Libya
By Alexander Bolton - 09/22/12 06:00 AM ET
Senate Republicans are furious the Obama administration rebuffed their attempts to learn details of the Benghazi attack, only to give the coveted information to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Senators say they were rebuffed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when they pressed for more information about the attack that killed U.S. envoy Christopher Stephens in Libya.
That is the most useless, worthless briefing I have attended in a long time, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters after the closed-door session.
GOP lawmakers were incensed to find many of the details they tried to learn Thursday were in a front-page article in The Times the following morning.
I was very disappointed in the briefing yesterday, too. The bottom line is, we asked questions like, How many people were at the Benghazi consulate? You pick up The New York Times and you get a blow-by-blow description of what supposedly went on, said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Times published a timeline of the attacks chronicling militants gaining access to the U.S. compound after 9:35 pm on Sept. 11, American security forces attempting to retake it at 10:45 pm and American and Libyan forces regaining control of the main compound around 11:20 pm, before evacuating.
According to the timeline, Libyans found Stevens in the compound after midnight and took him to a hospital, and 20 embassy staff members were hit by mortar rounds around 2 am, an attack that killed two former Navy SEALs.
The official Senate briefing was less informative.
It was like pulling teeth to get information yesterday, Graham said of the meeting with Clinton and other administration officials. A lot of senators were frustrated. And you pick up major newspapers in the country and you find details not shared with you.
The Wall Street Journal published a similarly detailed account of the attack.
We were told nothing. We were told absolutely nothing, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking Republican on the Armed Services Panel.
McCain said the details lawmakers sought were in The Times and The Journal.
If that isnt an incredible disrespect to the members of the United States Senate, I dont know what is, he said. Its an example of the disdain with which this body is held by the administration, including, Im sorry to say, the secretary of state.
She didnt talk about anything, McCain said of Clinton in a subsequent interview.
Senators asked Clinton about the sequence of events during the Benghazi attack. She and other officials declined to provide any specifics, citing an ongoing investigation.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter also attended the briefing.
Republicans have grown increasingly frustrated with the Obama administrations cozy relationship with the press.
Some think the media has given Obama favorable coverage.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said the medias intense coverage of Mitt Romneys controversial remarks about 47 percent of the nation depending on government handouts had distracted from the central issue of the election: the economy.
The problem is the media coverage of it. Obviously the campaign wants to talk about the real issues, he said of the comment, which has dominated press coverage this week. It will be an issue as long as the media makes it one.
Im starting to think that there might be a little bit of a media bias, he quipped.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said the media has helped Obama by not focusing enough on the nations sluggish economy and $16 trillion debt.
The president of the United States is doing everything he can to change the subject from that real central issue of our faltering economy and yes, the mainstream media is out there playing trivial pursuit and talking about everything that is not important and that is a distraction, Wicker said on the Senate floor Friday.
Republicans led by McCain have complained loudly this year that Obamas senior advisors have tried to generate favorable stories by leaking classified information to reporters.
In June, McCain called for a special counsel to investigate national security leaks to The New York Times and The Washington Post.
McCain has voiced concern over stories detailing President Obamas approval of a kill list of suspected terrorists and the role of U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies in a cyber attack against Iran.
Anyway, I've never heard nor known of a government so fractured as ours and MORE damaging, the executive officer is actually fascilitating the break.
I'm not supposed to hate, but I can't see ideology as much as I see a man ... and I hate him.
The ANTI AMERICAN CROWD of CODE PINK and MEDIA MATTERS were also probably given briefs not given to congress. Hillary should resign now, why wait 60 days until after the election to fire her. You can do a lot of damage in 60 days if your a certified moron.
>> GOP lawmakers were incensed ...
Yawn.
The Zero Administration MUST be prosecuted for their lawlessness, once the power shifts back to the rational people.
The future of our Nation demands it!
It appears that the Obama/Biden/Clinton incompetent administration is trying to control the story. It’s too bad they feel this need. It makes them look petty and guilty of covering up anything that might damage their reelection.
Uber RINO Lindsey Ping
"Republican by day, Democrat by night."
Want on or off this ping list?
Just FReepmail me.
h/t to martin_fierro for the graphic
FWIW, Linda's ping list shrinks. Jim DeMints' ping list grows. What does that tell you?
Is Mitch Mc Connell still alive? This guy is useless.
Yea, when these cowards use something besides stern language, I’ll care.
Until then it’s more GOP hot air to no end. The masses are not placated.
It irritates me that it almost sounds like the senators seem surprised, as if media bias is news to them. THIS is why they can’t deal effectively with the media, controlling the narrative, and defining themselves instead of always being on the defense after being negatively defined by the media-for some unfathomable reason, they can’t seem to understand that the MSM is their ENEMY and should be dealt with as such. Maybe it’s because they schmooze at the same parties, and that puts them off their guard. They’re supposed to be smarter than that, and THEY represent US?!
You pick up The New York Times and you get a blow-by-blow description of what supposedly went on, said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee
Ughhh Well Linda Grahamnesty maybe if you did more than threaten to send a strongly worded letter to Obama you would get better results. Both McCain and Grahmnesty will never believe the Democrats are NOT their Friends even while they are twisting the knife in your back.
I too hate and despise him. Screw all that “he’s a good man, he’s just not a good president” bullcrap. He’s not even a good man, a good man wouldn’t be deliberately trying to destroy the US under the cover of being its leader. I bet sometimes it makes his jaw clench and his teeth grind that he can’t just get it all off his chest and say what he really thinks, like the rest of the anti-American Muslim groups.
What’s up with the Wall Street Journal??
They used to be sorta “conservative”, but lately they’re pairing up with Big Media (a.k.a. Obama’s boot-licking lackeys) to publish biased polls and attack Mitt Romney - now the WH is also feeding them inside scoops??
Are they just another media traitor shilling for the Usurper?
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are playing politics with the sodomized, tortured corpse of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
It is beyond despicable.
I would hazard to guess that the NYT and WSJ was briefing the administration, not the other way around.
the obamites have been dangerously clueless about this entire tragic affair.
You're right! Showing "incredible disrepect to the members of the United States Senate" is something they have deserved for a long time, even if Traitorbama's thugs are the ones doing it?
If the GOP senators would have had a molecule of testicular fortitude, they should have stopped the meeting and had the Sergeant-at-Arms remove Hillary, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter from the room if it was at a Congressional facility, or walked out if it was at a WH, DoS, DNI, or DoD facility.
Not a problem because Barack is a “nice guy”. The US Senate is overflowing with stupid.
I don't see any goodness in a man who votes against legislation that would allow medical aid for newborns who survive the abortionist's knife. Same thing with the "like" factor. I see no reason to like someone who votes that way.
“Senate Republicans are furious the Obama administration rebuffed their attempts to learn details of the Benghazi attack, only to give the coveted information to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.”
Sorry, pubbies. The time for anger and fury has passed. You missed that boat.
It is now time for ACTION, and I don’t think you have the morals or the spine for the fight that is now necessary if we are to regain any of the historic greatness of this grand experiment.
As with the first revolution, the next will fall, also, to the great unwashed masses out here in the hinterland to set right the ship of state piloted so terribly by the establishment over the past 150 years.
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