Posted on 05/10/2013 11:04:45 AM PDT by neverdem
Today's blockbuster ABC News report about White House and State Dept. involvement in revising the CIA’s Benghazi talking points has provided Republicans with new talking points in their effort to discredit former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. But Jonathan Karl, the ABC News White House correspondent who landed the scoop, says not so fast.
The emails obtained by Karl show that State Dept. spokesman Victoria Nuland raised objections to a paragraph in the talking points mentioning threats from extremists linked to Al Qaeda. When a round of revisions did not satisfy her concerns, she wrote back: “These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my building's leadership."
In that reference to the "building's leadership," some see a reference to Sec. Clinton. But Karl says that to date, no such evidence exists.
"There's no evidence that I've seen that Hillary Clinton was aware of what was going on, or in any way tried to direct what was in these talking points," Karl told POLITICO on Friday morning. "But that sentence is certainly open to interpretation, and you can guarantee it is going to seized on by Republicans for a long time, because ultimately the leadership of that building is Hillary Clinton."
Republicans have been fighting to keep the Benghazi story alive for months, and the right-wing blogosphere has made it their r'aison d'etre. Despite front page reports in the New York Times and scoops from reporters like Karl, conservatives accuse the mainstream media of failing to adequately investigate the story.
Those accusations are likely to subside this weekend in the wake of Karl's report (and that of The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes), which comes on the heels of Wednesday's 'emotional' testimony from three State Dept. officials. Benghazi is now driving the news cycle and -- as my colleagues Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman pointed out on Thursday -- Hillary Clinton is once again fair-game for critics.
The Sunday shows will be almost entirely dedicated to the issue: ABC's "This Week," will feature interviews with Sens. John McCain and Jack Reed, and Gen. James Cartwright, retired Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will join the roundtable. CBS's "Face The Nation" will feature interviews with former Sec. of Defense Robert Gates and Sens. Dick Durbin and Kelly Ayotte. NBC's "Meet The Press" will have exclusive interviews with House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa and Senate Intelligence Chair Dianne Feinstein.
But where the story goes after Sunday is anyone's guess.
"I have no idea how long this story will go on, but what is clear after this week is that there are still legitimate questions to be asked, and there's also going to be a political story regarding Hillary Clinton," Karl told POLITICO. "The story clearly has legs -- for how long, I just don't know."
Well, he works for ABC — he can’t go too far towards the truth.
Well then maybe the House needs to actually put Hillary Clinton UNDER OATH THIS TIME, and ask her what she knew, when she knew it, and other relevant questions. Stunning to think the Republican Leadership is so gutless they let her “testify” without, you know, making her testimony biding by swearing her in. Pathetic.
They have found their scapegoats now.....Nuland and probably Rhodes.
Someone is going to have a nice fat off shore bank account to ‘retire’ to very soon.
Obviously she is the prime contender to fill Zero's shoes.
yet once again, their usual attempted excuse...
we weren’t evil, we were just grossly incompetent
OK.
let them be “non-evil” (if anyone can believe that!?). OK.
I still want competent people in government now!
Apparently, he looked in the wrong places.....typical MSM cover up for cankles....
Oh yea...and oral sex is not sex either. These Marxists are incredibly good at propaganda, deceit, lies, and manipulation.
Of course not. She’s just a useful idiot. And a criminally negligent incompetent communist bitch, just like her idiot boss!
Well, of course. The reasons why people use phrases like “my building’s leadership” is specifically to avoid putting names on the record.
All paths in this case lead to Hillary Clinton. I hope and believe she isn’t going to take the fall on this one for Obama — if she is convinced that her goose is cooked, then I don’t see her wanting to go down alone.
If she was unaware then she is the most incompetent government employee in the last 250 years.
She is supposed to be the smartest woman in the world, but nobody can possibly be that stupid.
The MSM is an active participant in the biggest scandal and cover up in history.
We have two choices: either Hillary intentionally lied to the American people to protect her reputation, or Hillary is shockingly oblivious to a story that should at the time have been the center of her life. Either way, it’s a disqualifying flaw.
OK let me understand this, She is on the phone with Mr. Hicks at 2:00am and he says its terrorism. So she forgot that when she saw the talking points? Must be that fall.
“There’s no evidence that I’ve seen that Hillary Clinton was aware of what was going on, or in any way tried to direct what was in these talking points,”
A. She’s a liar
B. She’s an incompetent leader
C. Both A and B are true
Good grief. How might Hillary herself put it ...?
“There’s no evidence that I’ve seen that Hillary Clinton was aware of what was going on, or in any way tried to direct what was in these talking points,”
++++++++++++++++++++
And why should she have? The only things that were at stake were her future political career and her plans to succeed Obama as President of the United States. Let the staff deal it. Nothing to see here. Time to move on.
As I said. Criminally negligent incompetent bitch.
Sounds like Jon Karl got a call from Chicago.
It’s not gutless. It’s complicit.
Prople on the intel committees knew that Al Quida was hired to guard an American Embassy. The rest of the world could go to a freaking web page and see an AQ battle flag on the Brigade’s home[age. The Intel people couldn’t? Please.
We don’t want to admit that ‘our’ people helped this disaster. But they did. The GOP sat on it’s ass for months and let the dems drive the media narrative. The RNC refused to run election ads on it. Romney refused to fight it out in the debates.
That’s the reality folks. We are sold out. Completely.
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