Rachel Maddow nailed it in this video: GOP Benghazi hysteria debunked. For one, Congress had the revised talking points for months:
So Congress has had the talking points and how they were changed and by whom for a couple months now, showing the revisions, showing how they happened.
ABC published them today for the public as if they were a smoking gun, and all the Republicans in Congress who already had these things and have had them for months reported to be outraged by what was in them, shocked, , impeach, impeach!
They have had them for two and a half months now, and they never said anything about them before. Just today they decided it was a smoking gun, even though this has been long answered.
President Obama must have given her those talking points, right GOP?
He’s the worst coverer-upper ever:
“Americans died… They were not … adequately protected. The day after it happened, I acknowledged this was an act of terrorism.
“Talking points… have been a side show.
“Suddenly, three days ago, this gets spun up as if there’s something new to the story. There’s no there there.
“The talking points… for Susan Rice.. matched what I received in my daily briefing.
“I specifically said it was an act of terrorism…”
“So if this was some effort on our part to try to downplay what had happened or tamp it down, that would be a pretty odd thing that three days later, we end up putting out all the information that in fact has now served as the basis for everybody recognizing that this was a terrorist attack and that it may have included elements that were planned by extremists inside of Libya.
“Who executes some sort of cover-up or effort to tamp things down, for three days? So the whole thing defies logic, and the fact that this keeps on getting churned out, frankly has a lot to do with political motivations.
“We’ve had folks who have challenged Hillary Clinton’s integrity, Susan Rice’s integrity, Mike Mullen and Tom Pickering’s integrity. It’s a given that mine gets challenged by these same folks. They’ve used it for fundraising and frankly, you know, if anybody out there wants to actually focus on how we make sure something like this does not happen again, I am happy to get their advice and information and council.
“We turn things like this into a political circus.”
H/t: Think Progress
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You can find the entire transcript here. Here are a few excerpts. Please note, there were no questions about jobs, jobs, jobs. None, none, none.
President Obama:
And what we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don’t know how they were used, when they were used, who used them; we don’t have chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened. And when I am making decisions about America’s national security and the potential for taking additional action in response to chemical weapon use, I’ve got to make sure I’ve got the facts.
That’s what the American people would expect. And if we end up rushing to judgment without hard, effective evidence, then we can find ourselves in the position where we can’t mobilize the international community to support what we do. There may be objections even among some people in the region who are sympathetic with the opposition if we take action. So, you know, it’s important for us to do this in a prudent way.
But the important point I want to make here is that we already are deeply engaged in trying to bring about a solution in Syria. It is a difficult problem. But even if chemical weapons were not being used in Syria, we’d still be thinking about tens of thousands of people, innocent civilians, women, children, who’ve been killed by a regime that’s more concerned about staying in power than it is about the well-being of its people. And so we are already deeply invested in trying to find a solution here.
Ed Henry: (Really, Ed, Benghazi? Seriously? Oh yeah, he’s from Fox)
And on the Benghazi question, I know pieces of the story have been litigated, and you’ve been asked about it. But there are people in your own State Department saying they’ve been blocked from coming forward, that they survived the terror attack and they want to tell their story. Will you help them come forward and just say it once and for all?
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Ed, I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody’s been blocked from testifying. So what I’ll do is I will find out what exactly you’re referring to. What I’ve been very clear about from the start is that our job with respect to Benghazi has been to find out exactly what happened, to make sure that U.S. embassies not just in the Middle East but around the world are safe and secure and to bring those who carried it out to justice.
But I’ll find out what exactly you’re referring to.
Jonathan Karl:
Mr. President, you are a hundred days into your second term. On the gun bill, you put, it seems, everything into it to try to get it passed. Obviously, it didn’t. Congress has ignored your efforts to try to get them to undo these sequester cuts. There was even a bill that you threatened to veto that got 92 Democrats in the House voting yes. So my question to you is do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through this Congress?
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Well, if you put it that way, Jonathan — (laughter) — maybe I should just pack up and go home. (Laughter.) Golly. You know, the — I think it’s — it’s a little — (chuckles) — as Mark Twain said, you know, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point.
Bill Plante:
Mr. President, as you’re probably aware, there’s a growing hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, among prisoners there. Is it any surprise, really, that they would prefer death rather than have no end in sight to their confinement?
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Well, it is not a surprise to me that we’ve got problems in Guantanamo, which is why, when I was campaigning in 2007 and 2008 and when I was elected in 2008, I said we need to close Guantanamo.
I continue to believe that we’ve got to close Guantanamo. I think — well, you know, I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe. It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.
Now Congress determined that they would not let us close it and despite the fact that there are a number of the folks who are currently in Guantanamo who the courts have said could be returned to their country of origin or potentially a third country.
I’m going to go back at this. I’ve asked my team to review everything that’s currently being done in Guantanamo, everything that we can do administratively, and I’m going to re-engage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interests of the American people.
And it’s not sustainable.
Then do something already (scroll).
Some quotes from the bombing suspects’ uncle Ruslan Tsarni:
“Somebody radicalized them, but it wasn’t my brother.”
“Being losers. Not being able to settle themselves, and thereby just hating everyone who did. … He put a shame on the Tsarnaev family. He put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity, because everyone now [associates negatively] with the word Chechen. So, they put that shame on the entire ethnicity. So, that’s what I would say. Turn yourself in and whatever, whatever [unintelligible], put yourself at the discretion of those who are here. That’s what I would say.”
“Any claim that this has something to do with Islam is a fraud.”
“He put a shame on our family. He put a shame on the entire Chechnyan ethnicity because now everyone blames Chechnyans.”
“Those who suffered, we sharing with them in their grief. I’m ready just to meet with them. I’m ready just to bend in front of them, to kneel in front of them, seeking that forgiveness. In the name of the family.”
The marathon bombing suspects’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., told the AP that they are from a Russian region near Chechnya and that they lived together near Boston and had been in the United States for about 10 years.
Speaking outside his home, Tsarni told Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — who remained at large and considered “extremely dangerous” — that he brought shame to the family.
“Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness,” he said.
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