The accountability report by former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen was grossly inadequate ("McCain senses Benghazi 'cover-up,' wants more Clinton testimony," Web, May 12). The two men concluded those responsible for the Benghazi murders were low-level State Department staff; they totally ignored the basic problem of why the Benghazi facilities remained open.
President Obama was asked about the metastasizing Benghazi scandal in a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday. Referring to the Americans who died in Benghazi, the president said, "We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus."
We've seen then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ask, with what seemed like feigned exasperation "What difference, at this point, does it make?" when asked about the State Department's talking points mischaracterizing the Benghazi, Libya, attack of last September. Apparently, it makes a lot of difference, since the CIA's talking points were revised 12 times before Ambassador Susan E. Rice delivered them. Had the attack indeed resulted from a spontaneous, unpredictable demonstration, then the administration's doing nothing in preparation for such violence would be excusable. And such a demonstration run amok may well not have justified mounting a potentially messy military counterforce response.
Suddenly, it seems we have broken through the most effective executive branch cover-up and complicit media blackout in memory.
You just knew press coverage of the congressional hearing on the Benghazi cover-ups last Wednesday would be nonexistent or squirrely, right?
You just knew press coverage of the congressional hearing on the Benghazi cover-ups last Wednesday would be nonexistent or squirrely, right?
House Republicans on Monday asked to interview retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, the veteran diplomat who headed the State Department's probe into last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya, and Mr. Pickering said he would be happy to cooperate.
Laying the groundwork this weekend for likely White House bids, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal reached out to Republican voters in the two states that open the presidential nomination race — sounding the unofficial starting gun of the 2016 campaign.
Sen. John McCain on Sunday said a special congressional committee is needed to investigate last year's deadly attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, and called on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to testify again on Capitol Hill regarding her role in the matter.
