Nice response poking holes in the arguments of those defending the Obama administration’s account(s) of the events of 9/11/12. Had this occurred four years ago, how long do you think it would take before the battle cry “Bush Lied, People Died” would be bandied about in all the “right” places….?

I will ask then, what “spin” have I placed on these facts? All of this information was known in the first few hours of the attack. All of the evidence (including now security video from the compound grounds) pointed to and continues to point to a coordinated terror attack unrelated to some sort of spontaneous mob action or spurious claims about inflammatory You Tube videos.

Which leads to my final point. You write mockingly of the claims of responsibility by terrorists for the attack through social media… And offer a scenario in which intelligence officials are asked: “How do you know who perpetrated this attack?” Imagine them answering, “It was on Facebook and Twitter!”

Wow crazy right? Except that that is precisely the kind of explanation the Administration and it’s defenders like yourself, proffered for weeks.– or to put it in your imaginative terms: “How do you know what precipitated this attack?” Imagine them answering, “It was a You Tube video!”

Al Qaeda and their affiliates use social media all the time. They are not in a position to hold formal press conferences.

Publius,

From ABC News:

One of the emails reported that officials that Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack on Facebook and Twitter, and had threatened to attack the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.

Do you honestly consider it reliable intelligence that Ansar al-Sharia allegedly posted to Facebook and Twitter that they were responsible for the attack? Facebook and Twitter? Imagine intelligence officials testifying before congress and being asked, “How do you know who perpetrated this attack?” Imagine them answering, “It was on Facebook and Twitter!”

The views of the intelligence community are valued far more than Facebook and twitter claims, officials said, describing that email as an unclassified ops alert email, not a vetted intelligence assessment. It was not definitive, but rather the act of flagging open source reporting referencing a Facebook post, and – officials noted — on September 17, Ansar al-Sharia denied responsibility for the attack.

So Ansar al-Sharia has allegedly both claimed and denied responsibility for the attack.

And as I quoted above, Obama said on “60 Minutes,” only 14 hours after the attack:

“You’re right that this is not a situation that was — exactly the same as what happened in Egypt and my suspicion is that there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start,” Mr. Obama said.

It’s pretty simple: it means the State Department and the White House were watching via a drone circling above and listening via an open telephone line as to what was going on as the consulate in Benghazi was under assault (aka the “spontaenous demonstration”).

From today’s Reuters (and elsewhere, if you choose to look):

“Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.”

Publius,

I am not sure what that even means. Here’s a quote from CBS News from yesterday:

Fourteen hours after the attack, President Obama sat down with Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” for a previously scheduled interview and said he did not believe it was simply due to mob violence.

“You’re right that this is not a situation that was — exactly the same as what happened in Egypt and my suspicion is that there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start,” Mr. Obama said.

Do we know who the attackers were? Do we know how far in advance they planned? It seems to me that Obama and other administration officials were cautious in what they said, but I simply don’t see a concerted campaign to deceive. Nor do I think there was any motive to deceive. Why would a spontaneous demonstration against the Benghazi consulate that ended in the killing of four Americans be any “better” than a planned attack by al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group?

Interest in the “conspiracy theory” aspect of this is fading fast, because there was no conspiracy. There are many legitimate questions to be asked, but there is simply no compelling evidence that the Obama administration sought to deceive the American people about the nature of the attack.

david c.,

I’d like to point out two things, and then, if I have time, I will try to answer some of your points.

First, my point in writing on this topic was to demonstrate, which I believe I have done, that Robert George’s statement that Obama told a “grotesque lie” in the second debate in his exchange with Romney (and Candy Crowley) as to whether he had or had not called the attack on Benghazi a “terrorist attack.” I think this analysis from Factcheck.org bends over backwards to be evenhanded, and there is no justification in it for accusing Obama of telling a “grotesque lie.” Robert George, I content, was viewing the debate through very partisan eyes. I don’t claim to be objective or nonpartisan myself, but grotesque lie is extraordinarily strong language to describe and exchange which independent fact checkers characterized as having some truth on both sides. In my opinion, you and Publius are taking this discussion far, far past anything I was attempting to comment on.

Second, I have taken great pains to rely on the latest news accounts and to document everything I have said with quotes from reliable news sources and links. You and Publius have simply asserted facts and put interpretations on them without citing any sources. I am deliberately not citing liberal sources like The Nation or Mother Jones, even though I believe they have good information, since I am trying to present, as far as possible, reporting from major news sources that can’t be dismissed out of hand by partisans on either side. I can’t tell where your information is coming from or how reliable the sources are.

Your answer to all of this (lately) has been that of the Administration (lately). It was an “intelligence failure” (or more accurately multiple “failures”).

I have not heard any administrations sources claim there was a failure of intelligence in the ongoing investigation in the Benghazi attack. If you check my message above (October 22nd, 2012 | 10:05 am) you will see that what has been said is that intelligence gathering and reporting is not instantaneous. It develops over time. We still don’t know the answers. Here’s a story from just three days ago from ABC News titled Intelligence Shows No Planning for Benghazi Consulate Attack:

“Right now, there isn’t any intelligence that the attackers pre-planned their assault days or weeks in advance,” said a U.S. intelligence official. ”The bulk of available information supports the early assessment that the attackers launched their assault opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.” But the official added that “no one is ruling out that some of the attackers may have aspired to attack the U.S. in Benghazi.”

If, as you and many others in your party have declared, a President (GWB), is morally and politically culpable for intelligence failures on the part of his administration, how does President Obama escape the selfsame judgment?

I don’t recall ever saying that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction (or about anything else, for that matter). It has almost become a cliche that not only US Intelligence, but the intelligence agencies of other countries, thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I do think, however, that Bush and Cheney very much wanted to go to war with Iraq, they were too eager to assess the evidence clearheadedly, and there was no need. I think if you ask virtually anyone, they will say the war in Iraq was a war of choice, not a war of necessity. Iraq should never have been invaded. I do think some military action was called for against Afghanistan, but I think an invasion was a mistake. I think history will judge Bush as having taken the United States into two unnecessary, unjustified wars and as having left the messes for his successors to clean up. But I wouldn’t call him a liar. Nixon was the liar.

The case against Obama and his administration is apparently so damning on the matter of Benghazi that given a national audience and a set-up question by Bob Scheiffer, Romney said:

We see in — in Libya, an attack apparently by, I think we know now, by terrorists of some kind against — against our people there, four people dead.

As Publius had stated, an able defense of a position now indefensible. The facts on the ground have overtaken the Administration’s alternate narrative and the results are there for all to see.

We now know, for instance, that the President moved Special Operations forces in the region to ready status but the judgment was made that it was too late. In what world does one prepare elite (and exceedingly deadly) forces to respond to a “spontaneous demonstration”?

In what world does one accept (and continue to promote) a narrative that a heavily armed and clearly organized cadre of terrorists sprang forth (like Athena from the head of Zeus) out of a disorganized mob protest about a months-old You Tube video clip?

In what world does one know that there was precisely targeted indirect fire (mortars) — fire that, to be effective, takes significant strategic planning, and yet not at, at the very least, indicate to an anxious public that the outlines of a pre-planned and executed terrorist action were clearly evident?

Your answer to all of this (lately) has been that of the Administration (lately). It was an “intelligence failure” (or more accurately multiple “failures”). Suppose one stipulates to that narrative and accepts the David N. (inapt, in my view) analogy to the casus belli for the war in Iraq? If one were to accept this analogy, is it not therefore appropriate to respond as those on the Left did to that circumstance? To wit: “Bush lied, people died!”

If, as you and many others in your party have declared, a President (GWB), is morally and politically culpable for intelligence failures on the part of his administration, how does President Obama escape the selfsame judgment? Would it not, by the very standards of your analogy, be fair to say “Obama lied, people died”? If not, why not?