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| Home Front: Politix |
| Oops. Benghazi email shows Susan Rice lied for political ends |
| 2014-04-29 |
| surprised? no. Judicial Watch announced today that on April 18, 2014, it obtained 41 new Benghazi-related State Department documents. They include a newly declassified email showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to "reinforce" President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being "rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy." Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an "attack" a possible kidnap attempt. The documents were released Friday as result of a June 21, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Department of State (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00951)) to gain access to documents about the controversial talking points used by then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice for a series of appearances on television Sunday news programs on September 16, 2012. Judicial Watch had been seeking these documents since October 18, 2012. The Rhodes email was sent on sent on Friday, September 14, 2012, at 8:09 p.m. with the subject line: "RE: PREP CALL with Susan, Saturday at 4:00 pm ET." The documents show that the "prep" was for Amb. Rice's Sunday news show appearances to discuss the Benghazi attack. The document lists as a "Goal" : "To underscore that these protests are rooted in and Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy." Rhodes returns to the "Internet video" scenario later in the email, the first point in a section labeled "Top-lines": [W]e've made our views on this video crystal clear. The United States government had nothing to do with it. We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible. But there is absolutely no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence. And we are working to make sure that people around the globe hear that message. Among the top administration PR personnel who received the Rhodes memo were White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest, then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, then-White House Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, then-National Security Council Director of Communications Erin Pelton, Special Assistant to the Press Secretary Howli Ledbetter, and then-White House Senior Advisor and political strategist Davie Plouffe. the entire cast of clowns The Rhodes communications strategy email also instructs recipients to portray Obama as "steady and statesmanlike" throughout the crisis. Another of the "Goals" of the PR offensive, Rhodes says, is "[T]o reinforce the President and Administration's strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges." He later includes as a PR "Top-line" talking point: I think that people have come to trust that President Obama provides leadership that is steady and statesmanlike. There are always going to be challenges that emerge around the world, and time and again, he has shown that we can meet them. |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #16 I switched to Arial for home use on FF. I'll see if that fixes it. Thx |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-04-29 22:53 |
| #15 good points - I'll look into it. I use FF at home, and IE at work, with the same issues, apparently. Frankly, it's embarrassing. I don't wanna screw up the RB experience |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-04-29 22:51 |
| #14 Frank G, The non-ascii char. problem I believe occurs because whatever original font used gets converted into the font used by Rantburg before it is displayed. If I remember correctly that is font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Verdana,sans-serif; Certain characters of some fonts appear not to be recognized by the Rantburg font engine. Changing the font on your browser may fix the problem. Also pasting any copied text into a text file on your computer and converting the text to a different font before pasting may be necessary. I have found that using the Arial font seems to resolve the problem. Also if you look closely it is usually the single quote or quotation mark characters that causes the problem. I have found that re-typing any quotation marks on any pasted text usually seems to prevent the problem. |
| Posted by: junkiron 2014-04-29 22:09 |
| #13 My niece just posted one of those memes of a little girl and her dog, where she's saying 'Whatever happened in the past, it's old news. It's time to just turn the page' and she adds her comment "So true!." She lives in the DC area and no doubt gets her sustenance from the government teat. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2014-04-29 20:48 |
| #12 I suspect Benghazi prompted a frantic WTF moment in the WH situation room; dead Americans, clandestine weapons activity Tango-Uniform, damage control for an upcoming election, damage control for a future presidential candidate. The video was a convenient cover for action. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-04-29 20:38 |
| #11 a lot |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-04-29 20:34 |
| #10 At this point, really, what difference does it make. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2014-04-29 20:26 |
| #9 White House musical chairs; Morrell, Brennan, Panetta, Petraeus, Rice, Ben Rhodes, possibly a few others. Music stops, Ben Rhodes is still standing, but he was only a mouthpiece. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-04-29 20:22 |
| #8 These guys would not know the truth if it was right in front of them and slapped them in the face. No truth, no honor, no honesty. Nothing but spin and BS at a high salary. Feh. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2014-04-29 20:20 |
| #7 Brennan: ‘No One Has Willfully Or Knowingly Disobeyed The Law Or Tried To |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-04-29 19:58 |
| #6 |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-04-29 19:40 |
| #5 they also didn't show up in preview :-( |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-04-29 19:15 |
| #4 and no, it's not just you |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-04-29 19:14 |
| #3 I cut and pasted...don't know why they show up |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-04-29 19:14 |
| #2 It's probably only me that gets annoyed but I fixed the non-ascii chars. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2014-04-29 18:50 |
| #1 Seriously need the Captain Louis Renault .gif here. |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2014-04-29 17:49 |