Changing the story to suit the campaign

Ed Morrissey of HotAir is all over this morning's McClatchy report stating within the first 48 hours, the Obama administration suspected a terrorist attack, but then changed the narrative to say that the attack was the result of protests over a video.

HotAir: Barack Obama insisted in the presidential debate on Tuesday night that he had called the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” in his Rose Garden address the next day. Fact-checkers called shenanigans on that claim, but McClatchy notes that Obama did call it an “act of terror” the next day at campaign stops in Colorado and Nevada on September 13th. On the same day, the State Department refused to link the Benghazi attack to the YouTube video that media outlets like the New York Times and AFP had. Hillary Clinton called it a terrorist attack that evening.

However, the next day, things began to change, as McClatchy’s Hannah Allam and Jonathan S. Landay report in their in-depth look at how the narrative shifted toward the YouTube video instead of an al-Qaeda attack...

From McClatchy:

With images of besieged U.S. missions in the Middle East still leading the evening news, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney became the first official to back away from the earlier declaration that the Benghazi assault was a “complex attack” by extremists. Instead, Carney told reporters, authorities “have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack.” He added that there was no reason to think that the Benghazi attack wasn’t related to the video, given that the clip had sparked protests in many Muslim cities.

“The unrest that we’ve seen around the region has been in reaction to a video that Muslims, many Muslims, find offensive,” Carney said.

When pressed by reporters who pointed out evidence that the violence in Benghazi was preplanned, Carney said that “news reports” had speculated about the motive. He noted again that “the unrest around the region has been in response to this video.”

Carney then launched into remarks that read like talking points in defense of the U.S. decision to intervene in last year’s uprising against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi: that post-Gadhafi Libya, he said, is “one of the more pro-American countries in the region,” that it’s led by a new government “that has just come out of a revolution,” and that the lack of security capabilities there “is not necessarily reflective of anything except for the remarkable transformation that’s been going on in the region.”

By that Sunday, Sept. 16, the evolution of the narrative was complete when Rice, the U.N. ambassador, showed up on all five major morning talk shows to make the most direct public connection yet between the Benghazi assault and the incendiary video.

While she couched her remarks in caveats – “based on the information we have at present,” for example – Rice clearly intended to make the link before a large American audience.

Morrissey followed that up by an AP story revealing that the CIA had evidence within 24 hours that the consulate attack was carried out by 'militants', not a spontaneous mob upset about a video.

HotAir: Earlier this morning, McClatchy asked why the Obama administration changed its story on the Benghazi terrorist attack after three days from an initial, vague reference to terrorist attacks to a demonstrably false narrative about a “spontaneous demonstration” that never took place, and a YouTube video that had been on line for two months. That question got more pressing this morning, as the Associated Press reports that the CIA linked the attack to “militants” in eastern Libya.

If you haven’t already done so, be sure to read all of McClatchy’s report on the shifting narratives from the Obama administration. The CIA report would generally align with most of the messaging from the White House in the first two days. It’s not until the 14th that the Obama administration went all-in on the YouTube-video blameshifting that continued for more than a week...

From AP:

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.

It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S.

They're covering-up something all right...but it might have more to do with Obama's disinterest and fervent nonstop campaigning through the Benghazi attack and its aftermath, with trips to Vegas and beyond, over the concern of northern Africa erupting into an al-Qaeda haven, demonstrated on the world stage through the murder of an American ambassador and three diplomats. If the vast majority of Americans from all walks of life realized that, even the more liberal leaning, there's little doubt that even they wouldn't be interested in reelecting a president who prefers campaigning and insulting with petty talk of Big Bird, binders and Romnesia...over actually leading.