In all seriousness, it's rather difficult to have a genuine intellectual debate or discussion with someone who is two inches short of barking at the imaginary pixies flying around their head.
And when you dare to actually say what you think of the ideas the GOP has adopted and seemed to be addicted to they snap back at you defensively to further justify and rationalize the lunacy.
Case in point: Where Former Rep Jane Harmon says to a Fox News panel that Benghazi is about as real and genuine an issue as "Aliens being held at Area 51 and Vince Foster being Murdered".
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
"This was an intelligence failure, but it wasn’t a conspiracy," Harman said on "Fox News Sunday" about the way the administration handled the aftermath of the attack. "And there aren’t aliens in Area 51, and Vince Foster wasn't murdered. And it's time to move on, and focus on the real problems in Libya."
"You’re right, there wasn’t a conspiracy in the United States to mount the Benghazi attack," Hume responded. "The question was, in the aftermath of the attack, when the administration sent its U.N. ambassador out to explain it to everybody — and she did so falsely — that there wasn’t a conspiracy to create the false talking points she used."
More over the flip...
All of this vitriol has occurred because a newly released memo by former White House Adviser Ben Rhodes which was sent to Then-U.N. Ambassador Rice before her rounds on the Sunday Talk Shows.
The GOP Conspiracy Theory is that Rhodes [on behalf of the White House] doctored the talking points for political reasons. There are two really big problems with this idea.
1) GOP assumes Rhodes Memo was ONLY about Benghazi.
The first hot line that Conservatives have jumped on this one:
To underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure of policy
So the argument Conservatives are making is that when Rhodes said "These Protests" - he could only have meant that Benghazi was inspired by the Youtube Video, not the protests that took place the exact same day, and at the exact same time at our embassies in Tunisia, Egypt, Qatar, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Yemen and the Sudan. This was a point specifically made by WH Press Secretary Jay Carney in a vigorous exchange with ABC's Jonathan Karl.
If you look at that document, that document that we're talking about today was about the overall environment in the Muslim world -- the protests outside of Khartoum -- the embassy in Khartoum, outside of the embassy in Tunis, the protests outside of the embassy in Cairo. These were big stories. These were -- this was a big problem. And this was an ongoing story through that weekend when Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows. So to suggest that we wouldn't have answers to questions about those situations -- and unless you're telling me now that those protests didn't have anything to do with the video, it was entirely appropriate to have a question-and-answer document prepared for the video.
It's not like Conservatives are claiming that Benghazi was "a protest" - in fact, they claim the opposite. So how is Rhodes statement even
relevant unless he - and others - really
thought, honestly, that this was about a series of "protests" at the consulate and at other sites?
And that, in a proper world, would be the end of this line of argument. Benghazi itself wasn't the only event that week in the muslim world, far from it - unless somehow "These Protests" is some magic code-language for "The Attack In Benghazi" - which common sense says, it isn't.
This isn't the first time ABC's Jonathan Karl has been caught misreading and misinterpreting emails and memos on Muslim protests - for which he was forced to apologize.
In fact, Karl had never seen the emails in question -- his story was based on "summaries" of the emails and "detailed notes" from a source who, it turned out, had misrepresented what the documents actually said. After media observers slammed Karl's "sloppy" reporting, ABC News issued a statement saying that the network "should have been more precise in its sourcing of those quotes, attributing them to handwritten copies of the emails taken by a Congressional source. We regret that error." Karl himself apologized in a statement to CNN.
In the first video Brit Hume asked Harmon "How did the idea of the video being the cause get in the talking points" - and the answer, which Harmon
whiffed on, is simple. It was the most logical, simple assumption in the midst of a great deal of confusion since
Eight of our Diplomatic Sites were either Attacked or Breached on the same day. To think that it might have been for all the same reason, is not that big a stretch. We now know it was technically wrong, but that was
a much shorter logical leap than the opposite - that just ONE of the events was a deliberate planned attack by al Qaeda and all the rest weren't. At this point we still don't know that the Benghazi attack - which took place in a fairly recent War Zone with thousands of well-armed militia fighters - was "planned" ahead of time, only that it wasn't inspired by the video alone. Al Qeada and even Quadafi sympathizers could have been involved - but Al Qaeda has never taken direct credit for it (which they would usually do quickly) and even Ansar Al-Sharia who called for attacks, actually asked for them
at the Embassy in Tripoli several hundred miles away, not in Benghazi. Al-Sharia leadership even admitted they
didn't call for the Benghazi attack.
2) GOP assumes Rhodes CHANGED the Talking Points from those provided by CIA and State
In the section of this email that does address Benghazi, Rhodes states the following.
Indeed, the only substantive information specifically about Benghazi in the Rhodes email was the response to the question about actionable intelligence, which stated that "the currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US Consulate and subsequently its annex."
This doesn't say the video sponsored the attack, it's says that at that particular time they thought the
Protests at the other Embassies inspired the attack in Benghazi - and frankly - that makes sense. With the U.S. Ambassador away from his own Embassy where he would be secure, with scant protection, he became a
target of opportunity while there was chaos among several U.S. Embassies.
In order for the GOP Conspiracy to be true, Rhodes would have had to have Prior Knowledge of a Different Set of Talking Points from the Intelligence Community.
Only he didn't.
Just that morning the CIA has provided their initial draft of Talking Points for the Mideast and those points exactly match Rhodes' when it comes to Benghazi.
So Rhodes initiates a "coverup" by quoting the CIA
word for word to Rice?
Yeah, sure.
After sending their initial draft to the White House, the STATE AND CIA MADE CHANGES to delete references to Ansar Al-Sharia and Al Qeada - not the White House.
Sept. 14, 4:42 p.m.
CIA officials circulate a revised copy of the talking points for review before sending to the White House. This draft cuts an explicit mention of “ties to al Qa’ida” in the second bullet point due to concerns from the general counsel about potential criminal prosecution. The draft also adds language about CIA warnings to the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the State Department about threats to diplomatic facilities, including from extremist groups tied to al-Qaeda.
IMO Taking out al Qeada when you
don't yet know if their involved makes sense, if it's possible al Qeada either a) Didn't do it and now you've created a
Plausible Alternate Suspect for anyone you do try to prosecute for it and if b) They DID do it, so now a new potential
drone strike target - in Libya - has been
Warned that we're coming after them and will deploy counter-measures to avoid detection. Unlike Television Detectives, the real FBI and CIA actually want
evidence before they go out talking about who they think did what, rather than making random accusations against non-targets just to "shake people up". Sometime people start
running when they know you're chasing them. Why do that when you can catch them much more easily by
keeping your mouth shut until you have them?
State made changes too...
Sept. 14, 7:16 p.m.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland e-mails for the first time to ask for information about “knowing” that the perpetrators were extremists. She asks for answers to the expected follow-up questions of “how do we know, who were they, etc.,” so as to be prepared when asked by the media.
At 7:29 p.m. a CIA official e-mails Nuland’s question around internally, asking “Can we soften this a bit?”
Sept. 14, 7:39 p.m.
Nuland e-mails again, this time raising concerns about giving the media and Congress information that the State Department isn’t making public because they don’t want to prejudice the investigation, including a reference to the extremist group Ansar al-Sharia.
Additionally, Nuland objects to the second-to-last bullet point because it would “feed” congressional criticism of the department by potentially creating the impression that it did not heed CIA warnings.
Sept. 14, 8:58 p.m.
The CIA circulates a revised draft of the talking points that addresses FBI and State Department concerns. The major change is a removal of references to Ansar al-Sharia so as not to prejudice the investigation. It also softens language about the involvement of Islamic extremists in the demonstrations.
So, from what we already know from already released emails - the CIA changed the Talking Points after sending them to the White House in order to make sure that they didn't say anything prematurely that would
damage their prosecution case, based on input from State and FBI. There was a deletion made to avoid political concerns -
from Congress - not the Presidential Election - about whether the State had ignored "warnings" from the CIA - and that
came from State. Again, not the White House.
The new email from Rhodes doesn't change any of this. The White House did not choose to shave off references to al Qaeda or Ansar al-Sharia simply to score political points. That. Just. Didn't. Happen.
Yet, the Delusional GOP Conspiracy Cult continues to believe that they did manipulate the truth for political reasons. And how could they Not think that? It's what the GOP would have done. In fact, that's what Mitt Romney Did while the attack was still in progress.
“I think it’s a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values, that instead when our grounds are being attacked and being breached, that the first response of the United States must be outrage at the breach of the sovereignty of our nation,” Romney told reporters. “An apology for America’s values is never the right course.”
So part of "America's Values" is to stand behind an act of religious slander that accused the prophet Mohammad of being a pedophile? And sadly, Romney wasn't alone in his tendency to try and shoot for political advantage first, and aim later.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
A minute after midnight, Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus tweeted: “Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and Pathetic.”
Later in the day, former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tweeted: “The attacks on our embassies & diplomats are a result of perceived American weakness. Mitt Romney is right to point that out.”
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said that “Governor Romney is absolutely right, there is no justification for these deadly attacks and we should never apologize for American freedom.”
But others said that regardless of the critique, the timing of it was poor. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said Romney was “right on the larger point,” but “I probably would have waited a day or half a day.”
Because being
cravenly political in the midst of a national tragedy - is how the GOP rolls.
And because of the already released emails, we know their WAS NO Benghazi "Conspiracy". The same way there are no Death Panels in Obamacare. And No mandatory RFID Chips. The Books Weren't Cooked on the enrollment numbers. Nearly 90% of those who've received their Bills have paid their premiums. Executive Orders and Prosecutorial Discretion are not "Tyranny". The Employment Numbers weren't Skewed to benefit the President. The President wasn't born in Kenya and mysteriously smuggled to Hawaii in a suitcase on a plane as a baby. Evolution is not a "theory", it's the basis of our understanding of basic biology. Climate Change is not a Hoax to screw with the Koch Brothers. And Exxon. Either of them could easily invest in renewable energy, they just won't. America is a not a "Christian Nation" by law or intention. Conservatives aren't the only "True Americans", while everyone else is a Traitor/Socialist. There is no Tooth Fairy. There is no Big Foot. There is no Easter Bunny. God doesn't Hate "Fags", he "hates" the Selfish and the Greedy since their less likely to get into heaven than "a camel through the eye of a needle". There is no [single] Santa Claus and he's Not "White", anyone who feels the true spirit of Christmas - the joy of giving and charity, which is also a key teaching of Jesus - can be Santa Claus for a day, a month or a lifetime and "They will have a Kingdom in Heaven". Even a Jew can be Santa Claus - or a Muslim - if they want to be.
These kind of Crackpot Conspiracies are now part of mainstream GOP "Thinking". It's time we admit, they are far beyond reason or rationalizing with - they need to be purged from our body politic until they prove their willing to come to the table with coherent ideas and solutions.
Until then, none of them deserve to be taken seriously.
Vyan