The House GOP has released a damning report on the Obama administration's handling of last September 11’s Benghazi attack, which cost the lives of four Americans, including the first ambassador slain in the line of duty since 1979.
The report paints a picture that is at variance with what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress when she went to the Hill to answer questions on Benghazi and had her famous, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” outburst.
The report notes:
Reductions of security levels prior to the attacks in Benghazi were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, up to and including Secretary Clinton. This fact contradicts her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on January 23, 2013.
In the days following the attacks, White House and senior State Department officials altered accurate talking points drafted by the Intelligence Community in order to protect the State Department.
Contrary to Administration rhetoric, the talking points were not edited to protect classified information. Concern for classified information is never mentioned in email traffic among senior Administration officials.
Predictably, Democrats are charging that the report is partisan, though Republicans would have welcomed their participation in researching and formulating the report.
I detect something very interesting going on with regard to Benghazi: there seems to be a move to birtherize Benghazi. By that, I mean that Democrats are trying to portray concern for finding out what happened during the attack and its aftermath as a cause of partisan nutcases. If you care what happened in Benghazi and afterwards, we plan to marginalize you.
Secretary of State John Kerry has said that we should face up to the fact that we have “more important things” to think about than Benghazi. But do we? Max Boot has a good piece on the mess the Obama administration has made in Libya.
You can download the entire House report on Benghazi at the Weekly Standard.