The Rice Diversion

This is my article from today's Front Page Magazine:

The Rice Diversion

By Matthew Vadum

After U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice lied her way through a tense meeting with Republican lawmakers yesterday about her role in the Benghazi scandal, the mainstream media escalated its attacks on those Republicans who continue daring to question the official account of that bloody day in September.

A short time after meeting with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Rice released a statement indicating that she had incorrectly described the attack at the U.S. consulate in Libya when she appeared on five Sunday TV talk shows days after. At the height of the election season in mid-September she peddled the Obama administration’s fairy tale in which a spontaneous demonstration over an anti-Islam video somehow led to the killing of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Rice said her comments were based on intelligence available at the time. “Neither I nor anyone else in the administration intended to mislead the American people at any stage in the process,” said Rice, who attended the meeting with acting CIA director Michael J. Morell.

Rice contradicted the testimony of former CIA Director David Petraeus who told lawmakers Nov. 16 he never believed the Obama administration’s claim that the attack was a mob action prompted by a video. Petraeus said that he believed all along that Islamic terrorists attacked the diplomatic mission on the 11th anniversary of 9/11.

The senators were not moved by Rice.

“It is clear that the information that she gave the American people was incorrect when she said that it was a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a hateful video,” said McCain. Echoed Graham, “Bottom line: I’m more disturbed now than I was before.”

Graham and Ayotte indicated they plan to block Rice’s nomination as secretary of state if President Obama names her to replace Hillary Clinton.

But because the senators won’t cave in to pressure, media figures are smearing them at every opportunity.

McCain, Graham, and Ayotte are engaged in a “Benghazi witch hunt,” according to Martin Bashir, one of MSNBC’s most ardent Obama worshipers.

Petraeus Recants Obama’s Benghazi Fiction

My article from the Nov. 19, 2012 issue of Front Page Magazine:

Petraeus Recants Obama’s Benghazi Fiction 

By Matthew Vadum

Former CIA Director David Petraeus told Congress he never believed the Obama administration’s claim that the attack on a U.S. mission in Libya was a spontaneous mob action prompted by a crude anti-Islam video.

In closed-door testimony Friday, Petraeus said that he believed all along that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. In so doing, Petraeus recanted his previous account two months ago of that terrible day that left four Americans dead in which he promoted the Obama administration’s official storyline.

“General Petraeus’ testimony today was that from the start he told us that this was a terrorist attack, that terrorists were involved from the start,” King said after the House Intelligence Committee sitting. “I told him in my question I had a very different recollection of that.”

“The clear impression we were given was that the overwhelming amount of evidence was that it arose out of a spontaneous demonstration and it was not a terrorist attack … he has, I think, a different impression of the impressions he left on Sept. 14.”

A CIA analyst also testified that the intelligence agency’s talking points for the White House immediately drafted after the attack specifically stated that al-Qaeda played a role in the attack that claimed the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Somehow the passage about al-Qaeda disappeared from documents. “After it went through the process … that was taken out,” King said.