Yesterday, I posted about Mitt Romney's misguided decision to speak at Clinton Global Initiative annual conference. It appears that decision was more misguided than previously thought because in addition to Romney's speech, one was given by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Mursi. Here is the relevant excerpt Via GWP:
“Demonstrations and clashes recently broke out in a large number of Arab and Islamic countries in response to an incident in response to the defamation. We must acknowledge the importance of freedom of expression. We must also recognize that such freedom comes with responsibilities especially when it has serious implications for international peace.”
Here's the video:
Again, need we be reminded that Mursi's wife and the mother of Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin are colleagues in their roles as two of 63 leaders of the Muslim Sisterhood?
Though this is a rather lengthy CNN video report from correspondent Arwa Damon in Benghazi, the portion relevant to this post comes very early on. Pay attention beginning at the :20 mark. Note how Damon is interviewing a man who recorded the attack on his cell phone. Yes, it's legitimate to ask why he wasn't doing something a bit more productive but that's not the most bizarre portion of her report.
At the :40, Damon narrates over the video, reporting that the body of Ambassador Stevens is found and that he's alive, as you see men pulling him out of the consulate. Damon then actually said the crowd cheered (because Stevens was alive) and shouted 'God is great'.
The CNN reporter would have you believe that the attackers were all gone and that this was a mob of pro-American rescuers who were thrilled to find the U.S. Ambassador still alive.
**UPDATE** It appears I was a bit premature on this one. I have it on good authority that it is actually quite possible that the crowd was actually cheering because they thought Stevens was alive.
Three days after the Benghazi attacks in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, the State Department attempted to hide behind the, 'we are not going to' talk about the ongoing investigation line. Since then, so much has been learned despite the attempts to stonewall that a couple of Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee are demanding access to Stevens' cables.
"While we appreciate the sensitivities associated with this ongoing investigation, we must insist on more timely information regarding the attacks and the events leading up to the attacks," wrote Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Johnny Isaakson (R-GA) in a letter to Clinton Tuesday.
They acknowledged that Clinton is in the process of setting up an Accountability Review Board, although its chairman former Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Pickering said Monday that the panel hasn't started it work yet. But the senators don't want to wait for the board to finish its report, which might not be transmitted to Congress until next spring.
"To that end, we request that you transmit to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee all communications between the U.S. Mission to Libya and the State Department relevant to the security situation in Benghazi in the period leading up to the attacks, including, but not limited to, cables sent from Ambassador Stevens," they wrote.
CNN may have played a significant role in all of this last week, when it reported that it had acquired Stevens' personal diary from the consulate. In it, Stevens wrote that he was concerned about being on an al-Qaeda hit list and a lack of security, which we now know was due to the State Department requesting and receiving a Security Waiver for the consulate.
Here is a short video report from Anderson Cooper talking about the diary last week:
In the days after the diary raised legitimate questions, Buzzfeed reported on a profanity-laden exchange via email from one of Clinton's closest aides - Philippe Reines - to a Buzzfeed reporter who had asked some of those legitimate questions. Some may find such an exchange reminiscent of what CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson encountered last year, when digging for answers in Operation Fast and Furious. As we now know, both the Department of Justice and the White House had something to hide there too. Barack Obama asserted Executive Privilege in refusing to release Congressionally subpoenaed documents, as his Attorney General was being held in contempt for not doing it.
It would seem that based on the contents of Stevens' diary, the State Department's stonewalling, a Clinton aide's profane emails, and now the demands of two Senators that State turn over cables, we may be approaching a situation not all that dissimilar from how the administration handled Fast and Furious - by attempting to cover it up.
We'll know we're there when Obama asserts Executive Privilege over those cables.
