talking points

The Washington Post editorial board is quite upset with “Republicans and conservative media obsessed” with the “phony” issue of the administration’s misleading public explanation of the nature of the attacks in Benghazi. In a lengthy editorial, the Post makes a haughtier and more condescending version of a complaint we’ve heard from others. So it’s worth a response.

After nearly two days of editing, then CIA director David Petraeus was sent the revised Benghazi talking points on September 15, 2012. He was less than impressed, to put it mildly.

Steve Hayes on the Benghazi emails, last night on Sean Hannity's Fox News show:

Last week, the Benghazi talking points took center stage in the ongoing investigation of the 9/11 anniversary attacks in Libya.

Liberal former congressman Dennis Kucinich blamed President Obama's Libya policy for the death of four Americans in Benghazi. Kucinich also said the Obama administration politicized the response to Benghazi because they "were in the circumference of an election, and when you get on the eve of an election, everything becomes political. "

Jay Carney aggressively defended the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi attacks and the revision of CIA talking points Friday in an uncharacteristically hostile White House press briefing. But in his attempts to protect himself and his administration colleagues, Carney offered a series of highly misleading answers that seem likely to do additional damage to his cause and White House credibility.

House speaker John Boehner is criticizing the White House's reaction to the revalations, first reported by Stephen F. Hayes for THE WEEKLY STANDARD, that the administration's talking points on the terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last September were altered. From a press release from the speaker's office:

Bill Kristol, with Mara Liasson, Juan Williams, and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

This past weekend, Congressman Mike Rogers, who is chairman of the House intelligence committee, said that the talking points used to explain what happened in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012 were changed by political appointees in the Obama administration. Rogers pointed specifically to the deputies’ committee at the National Security Council.