It's kind of delicious that this story comes from the New York Times, which tried mightily a few weeks ago to give cover to Obama and Hillary on the nonsense they peddled about Al Qaeda not being involved, and about a YouTube video causing the whole thing. No one's buying that line of B.S., including the Senate investigative committee controlled by Democrats, which is now out with a report excioriating the State Department for its failure to stop what the committee finds was an entirely preventable attack:
The report does not break significant new ground on the issue of administration statements about the episode, or on the infamous "talking points" drawn up after the attack for a television appearance by Susan E. Rice, now the national security adviser. But it is unsparing in its criticism of the State Department for failing to provide adequate security to the mission even as violence spiked in Benghazi in June 2012. In contrast, the report said, the C.I.A. quickly bolstered security at its annex about a mile away.
"The committee found the attacks were preventable, based on extensive intelligence reporting on the terrorist activity in Libya -- to include prior threats and attacks against Western targets -- and given the known security shortfalls at the U.S. Mission," the Senate committee said in a statement in releasing the 58-page declassified report.
None of this is really a surprise, is it? We've all heard the reports that the State Department rejected multiple requests for additional security. The key finding of the committee report itself (click for a summary) is here:
State Department Failed to Increase Security Enough to Address the Threat--The State Department should have increased its security posture more significantly in Benghazi based on the deteriorating security situation on the ground and IC threat reporting on the prior attacks against Westerners in Benghazi--including two previous incidents at the Temporary Mission Facility on April 6, and June 6, 2012.
They're not buying the YouTube video crap either:
The Intelligence Picture After the Attacks Contributed to the Controversial CIA Talking Points--In intelligence reports after September 11, 2012, intelligence analysts inaccurately referred to the presence of a protest at the U.S. mission facility before the attack based on open source information and limited intelligence, but without sufficient intelligence or eyewitness statements to corroborate that assertion. The IC took too long to correct these erroneous reports, which caused confusion and influenced the public statements of policymakers.
A Republican addendum to the report specifically faults then-Secretary of State Clinton for these failures, and rightly so since the State Department's failure to act was ultimately her responsibility - as well as Obama's.
That has huge implications for any presidential run, or at least it should. Remember, Hillary was supposed to be the candidate who was ready to handle the proverbial 3 a.m. phone call. Is that really true? Weren't the warnings of peril in Benghazi a perfect example of that very thing? You bet they were, and she failed completely and utterly - the result being that four people died.
Worse, in the aftermath she lied about it as shamelessly as any member of the administration, parroting the YouTube crapola in the early days until the real intelligence came out and made it no longer viable to keep peddling that nonsense.
I wonder if the lamestream media is capable of taking a break from hyperventilating over Chris Christie's traffic jam to pay some attention to this. When faced with her most important test as Secretary of State, Hillary failed, demonstrating more clearly than ever that her political persona is a fraud and that she is not ready for any seriously responsible job - let alone president of the United States. "Scandals" are one thing. What you do when you actually have to govern is far more relevant to a person's qualifications for office, and any serious examination of Hillary's record in the jobs she's held demonstrates that she has done nothing to recommend her.
And this is a report from a committee controlled by Democrats saying so. If Hillary ultimately becomes their party's nominee in 2016, these same Democrats will no doubt try to pretend they never uttered these words. The rest of us can't let them get away with that.
