New info on Benghazi fuels Republican case

WASHINGTON: Steady drips of information about the deadly attack on a US diplomatic mission in Libya last year are fueling Republican criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the crisis. The revelations are also bolstering ads designed to fire up the conservative base and undercut the Democrats’ early favorite for president in 2016 — former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Democratic and Republican strategists sharply disagree on the issue’s power to influence future elections. But after eight months of trying, Democrats are still struggling to move past last September’s terrorist attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, which killed ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Democrats insist that an independent inquiry, the dismissal of several State Department officials, and nine congressional hearings leave little new to say on the matter. But Friday turned up the sort of nuggets that feed conservative activists’ belief that a major scandal may still be at hand.
Newly revealed communications show that senior State Department officials pressed for changes in the talking points that UN Ambassador Susan Rice used to explain the attack a few days after it occurred. These senior officials expressed concerns that Congress might criticize the Obama administration for ignoring warnings of a growing threat in Libya.
The White House has insisted that it made only stylistic changes to the intelligence agency talking points, in which Rice suggested that spontaneous protests over an anti-Islamic video set off the attack. The new details suggest a greater degree of political sensitivity and involvement by the White House and State Department.
Rice and others eventually acknowledged that the Benghazi assault on Sept. 11, 2012, was a premeditated terrorist attack. Republicans say her Sept. 16 televised remarks were just the start of administration efforts to mislead Americans about what happened in Libya.
The Benghazi violence was heavily politicized from the start, occurring less than two months before President Barack Obama’s re-election. Moreover, the secretary of state at the time was Clinton, the former senator and first lady who infuriates many conservatives and ranks high in speculation about the Democrats’ 2016 presidential nominee.