Wash Post Factchecker Takes On Obama Adminstration’s Benghazi Claims

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s noted factchecker, is out this morning with a long and detailed look at the Obama’s Administration’s response to the terrorist attack at our mission in Benghazi.

Kessler has repeatedly questioned the administration’s statements and has held them accountable for their changing version of events.

You’ll recall that initially U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said the attack “began spontaneously” and attributed it to a “hateful video.”

As Kessler and numerous other sources reported at the time, public information clearly contradicted this account. He goes on to reference a U.S. diplomat who watched in shock as Rice gave her explanation.

(In an interview with congressional investigators released over the weekend, deputy chief of mission Gregory Hicks said “my jaw hit the floor as I watched this.”) Some readers have suggested we should boost the Pinocchio rating for Rice’s comments. Still, it is clear Rice was simply mouthing the words given to her.

Today, Kessler focuses specifically on what he calls, the “bigger mystery now [of] who was involved in writing — and rewriting — the talking points.

“The talking points have become important because, in the midst of President Obama’s reelection campaign, for a number of days they helped focus the journalistic narrative on an anti-Islam video — and away from a preplanned attack. As we noted in our timeline of administration statements, it took two weeks for the White House to formally acknowledge that Obama believed the attack was terrorism.”

What Kessler and others found is that the Obama Administration and State Department officials were clearly involved in drafting the talking points of the incident.

“The key new disclosure is that senior levels of the White House and State Department were closely involved in the rewriting of the talking points. Previously, Obama administration officials had strongly suggested that the talking points were developed almost exclusively by intelligence officials.”

WH Press Secretary said intelligence officials took the lead, but emails obtained by both the Weekly Standard and the GOP report on Benghazi show that they were altered to drop any references to Islamic extremists.

It’s quite a read this morning and required for anyone who truly cares about getting to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi.

We cannot let this happen again. Four Americans bravely gave their lives in service to our nation. The American people deserve a clear and straightforward explanation.