Serwer summarizes the Benghazi report released Wednesday:
The report, which the committee approved by a voice vote, concluded that the attacks could have been prevented and makes several recommendations for improving security of U.S. diplomatic facilities in areas where U.S. personnel are likely to face threats. It also faults the State Department for not responding to repeated requests for increased security at the facility, and for ignoring incidents prior to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack that indicated Americans there were at risk. The report also states that Stevens himself rejected two offers from General Carter Ham, the head of the U.S. military’s Africa command, for military protection the month before the attacks. The report concludes that the attacks were “likely preventable” had warnings about the “deteriorating security situation” been heeded.
He points out a few notable debunks. Such as:
Various versions of the talking points do not suggest the White House edited them to cover up references to Al Qaeda or to manufacture evidence of a protest.
Amy Davidson notes that the Benghazi tragedy “was more than a single misjudgment”:
The talking-points controversy was always strangely misdirected—in part because, as this report makes clear, there is a lot that was substantively wrong with the way things were managed in Benghazi.
That is true particularly if the subject of discussion is Hillary Clinton. She does not come out well in this report, in any part, although the Republican minority is more florid in its criticisms. The State Department made mistakes when she was its leader. One of the findings is that nothing changed even when “tripwires” meant to prompt an increase in security or suspension in operations had been crossed, and people in the Department knew it.
Aaron Blake interprets what the report means for Hillary:
The p-word — “preventable” — is what stings most for Clinton. The report says, conclusively, that State’s failures contributed to the deaths of four Americans on Sept. 11, 2012. And Republicans can and will say that people died because of those failures.
At the same time, the report doesn’t detail whether any of these warnings or requests actually reached Clinton’s desk. Had it done so, then she really would have been in trouble. While Clinton was, ultimately, the buck-stopper at State, she is more able to distance herself from the problems identified by the Senate report if it doesn’t specify that she was directly aware of them.
First Read doubts Benghazi will hurt Clinton as much as Bridgegate hurts Christie:
Hillary Clinton has 20 years on the national stage (including a thoroughly litigated presidential bid in ’08) to balance out a bad story, while Christie is still making his first impression on the national stage. And of course, a third difference is that no Democrats believe the worst about Hillary (and might try to take advantage of it) when it comes to Benghazi, while the same isn’t true for Christie. Plenty of Republicans, particularly conservatives who were never enamored with Christie in the first place, do believe the worst about Christie and the bridge.
Eli Lake focuses on the report’s criticisms of Gen. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, :
An addendum to a scathing report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Benghazi signed by six of seven Republicans on the committee singles out Dempsey for “failures in leadership.” Specifically, the six Republicans fault Dempsey for failing to have a plan to respond to an attack on Benghazi given the ample intelligence showing the desire of terrorists to attack Americans there, and for allowing General Carter Ham, who was the combatant commander for Africa Command, to not know the CIA maintained an annex in Benghazi near the U.S. temporary mission.
The Republicans slam Dempsey for failing to send more military support from the region as the attack was unfolding. “General Dempsey’s attempts to excuse inaction by claiming that forces were not deployed because they would not have gotten there in time does not pass the common sense test,” the senators write. “No one knew when the attacks against our facilities in Benghazi would end, or how aggressive the attacks would be.”
And Benen finds that the GOP hasn’t changed its tune:
Given the latest report, which reinforces the previous reports, are Republicans finally prepared to move on to some other alleged conspiracy? Of course not.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) saw the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee and said, “It should be clear, even to my critics by now, that Benghazi is bigger than Watergate.”
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) added, “I’m familiar with cover-ups throughout history, the Pentagon Papers, Iran-Contra, all of them. This is gonna go down as the greatest cover-up in history because the president and Susan Rice both knew it was an organized terrorist attack and deliberately sent Susan Rice to tell the American people it was not.”
It doesn’t matter that they’re wrong; they don’t care. They start with the conclusion and try to work backwards to find evidence that satisfies their goal.
The Dish 