Yeah - speaking out against Obama & Hillary? Traitor! Because obviously, it’s criticizing one’s own party - an argument against interest - that demonstrates a lack of principles. Circling the partisan wagons and reciting talking-points (about talking-points)? Now *that* would be integrity.

The matter at issue is the administration’s response after the attack, though this obviously has much to do with what happened before and during it.  During the attack, there was no real resistence on our part (for which the CIA is partly to blame) and we sent nobody in during the extended attack (for which is the administration and Panetta’s Defense Department are to blame). But the CIA did warn Clinton & State, and hence the administration, of the threat by groups including or like Al-Qaeda.  Ignoring those warnings makes State look very bad, as their spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said explicitly. So between the time that CIA initially released the talking-points and when the administration distributed them, they went through twelve revisions, which took out indications of State’s negligence (most important link/video is here). The scrubbing of Al-Qaeda & Co. from the record reportedly shocked Gen. Petraeus. This twelve-times-revised version is what Carney was pitching from the podium, and was the script Rice was using when she was going around claiming the whole thing was a “direct result” of The Innocence of Muslims (whose director then became a convenient Emmanuel Goldstein figure and who was arrested on different charges but really for his film). (And now, the “most transparent administration ever” (tscha!) seems to be wanting to throw their old frienemy Hillary under the bus. Note this by the smarmy Jay Carney: “The only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive.”) If this scandal happens to take down anyone at fault from the CIA, the State Department, the Republican party, or any other quarter, that’s fine with me. Is it also fine with you for the buck to stop at the Oval Office?

#1 Walrus, but whatevs.

No, the irrelevant question of irrelevant Romney and whether or not he politicized news events is the red herring. And an effective one too: Carney threw it out, and now people who don’t want to talk about the actions of those in power can divert the conversation to the words of those who aren’t.  “Actual handling of Benghazi? Look, a squirrel!”

It’s not a matter of straw men, but of red herrings: even if the Republicans didn’t exist, the administration would be lying about this in a one-party system too.

Carney says (I paraphrase), “Did we fail to provide security? Did we fail to respond to threat reports? Are we at fault for the deaths of American diplomats and the compromising of intelligence held at the consulate? Did we scrub the talking points multiple times? Did we strike a blow against the First Amendment by blaming this attack on an internet video? Did we have the American ambassador to the U.N. (along with me, Carney) repeatedly lie about the cause of the attack, then arrest the director on another pretext, and go to the U.N. and say that no one should tolerate criticism of “the prophet” Mohammed? Did we put pressure on whistle-blowers and demote anyone who threatened to cast doubt on our story? …Well, yes. I mean, all the above is true. BUT, a guy who’s not even on the national stage anymore once politicized the attack. So there!” Look, get off the partisan horse (I didn’t vote for Romney either). Carney’s a paid and shameless shyster, who says that the Benghazi affair itself is old news from “a long time ago” and then claims that the words of an irrelevant man from even longer ago somehow not only counts as a tu quoque of equal weight to the actions of the people actually in power, but is even somehow exculpatory! What utter bullshit.

It doesn’t matter what Romney’s response was.
This has nothing to do with him, and that’s the point.

My wife and I adopted a small cat - all black, with a little red tongue, who lies down all night without a peep but when the alarm-clock goes off, makes sure you get up. Much easier to deal with than her orange tabby stepbrother. We love her.  Apparently they have a hard time placing black cats and ours had sat on the shelf for a long time. Superstition? Aesthetics? Do consider taking in one of these hard-to-adopt little friends.

#11 and #37 are my favorite, out of a lot of good ones.