Trying to make some sense of the Susan Rice fiasco is like trying to make some sense of how the most incompetent and the most corrupt presidential candidate in American history managed to get himself reelected.\u00a0 It probably can\u2019t be done.\u00a0 But, just for the sake of argument, it might be interesting to engage in a bit of conjecture about how Susan Rice got picked to go under the bus.<\/p>\n
First some background.\u00a0 On Sunday morning, September 16, five days after an Islamic terrorist group, Ansar al Sharia, attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, Barack Obama sent U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to appear on all five Sunday morning network talk shows.\u00a0 Rushing from one broadcast studio to the next, Rice appeared on ABC\u2019s This Week<\/em>, CBS\u2019s Face the Nation<\/em>, CNN\u2019s State of the Union<\/em>, Fox\u2019s Fox News Sunday<\/em>, and NBC\u2019s Meet the Press\u2026 <\/em>and all within a time span of just two hours.<\/p>\n The tale that Rice told at each stop was typical of what she stated on ABC\u2019s This Week, <\/em>where she said, \u201cOur current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous \u2013 not a premeditated \u2013 response to what had transpired in Cairo\u2026 In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated.\u00a0 We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to \u2013 or to the consulate, rather \u2013 to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo.\u00a0 And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons\u2026 And it then evolved from there.\u201d<\/p>\n So the question arises\u2026 and persists\u2026 why was the U.N. Ambassador chosen to deliver such a whopper to the American people when, in fact, she had no connection to and no responsibility for the consulate in Benghazi?<\/p>\n The most logical pecking order of people who should have been called upon to answer for what happened at Benghazi is, in order: Barack Obama, President and Commander in Chief; Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State; Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense; General James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence; Michael Morrell, Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Tom Donilon, National Security Advisor; and General David Petraeus, former Director of Central Intelligence.<\/p>\n As the principal architect and political beneficiary of the Benghazi fable, Barack Obama was not about to go on record as the bearer of what everyone would soon know was a false narrative.\u00a0 But because he had hopes of explaining away the Benghazi terror attack in a way that would not damage his \u201cal-Qaeda-is-on-its-heels\u201d narrative two months before the November election, he had to have a patsy to carry his tale to the American people who was not only credible<\/em>, but also expendable<\/em>.\u00a0 The one person who fit that description was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.\u00a0 And who is the only person who could make that decision, and who is the only person who could tell her exactly what to do and what to say?\u00a0 Ambassador Rice is not in Hillary Clinton\u2019s chain of command, so the order could have come from only one person: that would be Barack Obama.<\/p>\n He couldn\u2019t expect Hillary to play that role.\u00a0 As soon as the Benghazi story made the headlines, Hillary packed her polyester suits, grabbed her attach\u00e9 case and her \u201cbody woman,\u201d and got the hell out of town.\u00a0 In a brief statement issued from Lima, Peru on Monday, October 15, where she was presumably conducting nuclear disarmament talks with the Peruvians, Clinton said, \u201cI take responsibility.\u00a0 I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, after stopping off in Washington just long enough to pick up a few changes of \u201cundies,\u201d she was off again on an extended tour of Hawaii, Vietnam<\/a>, China<\/a>, Cambodia<\/a>, Malaysia<\/a>, New Guinea, New Zealand<\/a>, and Australia<\/a>, returning on November 8, two days after<\/em> the November election, when her testimony could not damage Obama\u2019s reelection chances.<\/p>\n Compelling diplomatic business?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Compelling political business?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 If Hillary had been in Washington and available to the Congress, she would have had some very difficult questions put to her.\u00a0 And since it was Bill Clinton who was most responsible for exciting the Democratic base and getting Obama reelected, the last thing Obama wanted was to see Hillary sitting before a congressional committee. \u00a0The only thing to do was to get her out of town.<\/p>\n But what of Leon Panetta, the Secretary of Defense?\u00a0 In terms of an attack on a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad, Panetta\u2019s only connection would have been in relation to a military rescue operation or a military response to al-Qaeda.\u00a0 But since it appeared as if he had disobeyed Obama\u2019s order to \u201csecure our people\u201d in Benghazi, Panetta was keeping a decidedly low profile.\u00a0 Obama didn\u2019t want Panetta having to answer questions about why he and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dempsey had disobeyed his order.\u00a0 Or, worse yet, having Panetta reveal that Obama had not given such an order\u2026 Obama\u2019s public pronouncements to the contrary.<\/p>\n General James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)?\u00a0 In his previous incarnation he served as Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI), an oxymoron if ever there was one.\u00a0 Clapper’s role in the Benghazi scandal shouldn’t surprise anyone. \u00a0It certainly didn’t surprise author Bob McCarty, who\u2019s upcoming book, The Clapper Memo<\/em>, will expose some of the DNI\u2019s earlier exploits as USDI which are now \u201ccoming home to roost\u201d in the form of so-called \u201cGreen-on-Blue\u201d attacks in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n If there is a chief suspect in the effort to find who it was that rewrote the CIA talking points of September 12, which identified Ansar al Sharia as the al-Qaeda subsidiary responsible for the Benghazi attack, the finger would most logically point to General Clapper.\u00a0 And since Obama must have known that his Director of National Intelligence was not a man to be trusted with the responsibility for carrying out an assignment of such strategic political importance\u2026 and get it right five times within two hours\u2026 he knew that General Clapper was not his man.<\/p>\n Michael Morrell, the Acting Director of Central Intelligence?\u00a0 This is the same Michael Morrell who in testimony before a congressional committee on Thursday, November 15, attempted to shield Susan Rice from criticism.\u00a0 He told the committee that Rice had been provided with an unclassified version of the deadly attack in Benghazi that was incorrect.<\/p>\n He failed to explain to the committee how or why, if the CIA knew on September 12, the day after the Benghazi attack, that the attack was carried out by an Islamic terrorist group, they allowed the U.N. Ambassador to appear on five Sunday morning TV interviews four days later, carrying a totally false narrative.<\/p>\n National Security Advisor Tom Donilon?\u00a0 When the White House leaked classified information detailing the Navy SEAL methodology that brought Osama bin Laden to justice in Abbottabad; identifying the Pakistani doctor who assisted U.S. intelligence personnel in locating bin Laden; and providing details of the US-Israeli cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear program, it didn\u2019t take then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates long to figure out who was responsible for the leaks.<\/p>\n As Jake Tapper of ABC News has reported, \u201c\u2026 Gates went to see Donilon, offering up a barbed assessment of how the White House had handled the aftermath of the (bin Laden) raid.<\/p>\n \u201c \u2018I have a new strategic communications approach to recommend…\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c \u2018What was that?\u2019 Donilon asked.<\/p>\n \u201c \u2018Shut the f_ _ k up,\u2019 the defense secretary said.\u201d<\/p>\n Donilon\u2019s credibility was so damaged by that episode that Obama didn\u2019t dare send him before the five Sunday morning talk shows carrying a false version of the Benghazi attack.<\/p>\n And finally, General David Petraeus.\u00a0 In the days following the Benghazi attack, Obama knew two very important things about his Director of Central Intelligence.\u00a0 First, in spite of numerous denials to the contrary, Obama had to have known that Petraeus was under investigation by the FBI in connection with the Paula Broadwell affair.\u00a0 In other words, he knew that his Director of Central Intelligence was in a potentially compromising position.\u00a0 And finally, he knew that he could count on a man of Petraeus\u2019s caliber to go only so far in parroting a false narrative in which politics trumped all other considerations.<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s only choice was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, another incompetent hanger-on who had ambitions to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.\u00a0 Her ambition would dictate that she do what she was told without asking too many questions.\u00a0 And with an ethically neutral mainstream media as watchdogs, there was a very good chance that they could pull it off.<\/p>\n Sorry, Obama.\u00a0 Your luck just ran out.\u00a0 There\u2019s room for only so many \u201cexpendables\u201d under that bus of yours and now you\u2019ll have to pay the price.\u00a0 Most importantly, if we\u2019re lucky, and if we can find just a few members of Congress with the backbone to do what\u2019s right, it appears all but certain that we\u2019ll find an impeachable offense or two in all of this… just something to make your second inauguration a most memorable one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trying to make some sense of the Susan Rice fiasco is like trying to make some sense of how the most incompetent and the most corrupt presidential candidate in American history managed to get himself reelected.\u00a0 It probably can\u2019t be … Continue reading