There were so many critical elements of this CBS News report on Libya, I wasn't sure which one to highlight in a juicy headline. Just watch:
Let's count the revelations embedded within this minute-and-a-half long clip:
(1) "The FBI still hasn't made it to the crime scene in Benghazi." More on this later, but the fact that the administration is treating our sacked consulate as a "crime" scene is telling. This was a terrorist attack. An act of war. (Andy McCarthy, call your office). We've dispatched criminal investigators to look into it, but they still haven't even made it to ground zero yet? Nine days after the fact? Why?
(2) "Witnesses tell CBS News that there was never an anti-American protest outside of the consulate. Instead, they say it came under planned attack." As I wrote this morning, the administration is at last beginning to acknowledge the latter fact, but the former element is crucial, too. If there really were no protests outside the consulate before the ambush began -- as multiple news outlets are now reporting -- even the premise of the administration's fictional account is false. CBS says the facts on the ground are in "direct contradiction" to the White House's statements. The administration is still saying that the raid could have spun out from spontaneous protests that didn't even exist.
(3) "What's clear...is that the public won't get a detailed account of what happened until after the presidential election." This conclusion strongly reinforces several of my theories about the White House's foot-dragging and misdirection on the Benghazi raid. We have a murdered ambassador and sensitive intelligence missing, and the administration is in pure political CYA mode.
Where, out of curiosity, is our Commander-in-Chief on all of this? We know he hasn't taken a single question from the media about the attacks, his spokesman is punting questions to the State Department, and the State Department has explicitly stated it won't field questions on the subject. Bill Hemmer asked Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt if the American people can expect to hear from the president, now that this story has taken several drastic turns since his original September 12 rose garden statement (no questions). Labolt's answer contains many words, but the message is clear: No.
Besides his bobbing and weaving on Obama's absentee leadership, this statement caught my attention: "The administration is engaged 24-hours-a-day in an investigation right now." Would that be the same FBI investigation that hasn't made it to the "crime scene" yet?
UPDATE - CNN is now reporting that Amb. Stevens was specifically targeted for death by Al Qaeda, as his name appeared on a hit list. This makes the lax security presence in Benghazi even more incomprehensible. But hush up until after the election, America.
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