Not Exculpatory
Here is CBS’s lede in the latest Benghazi break:
CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to “al Qaeda” and “terrorism” from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack – with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes.
That makes it sound like neither the White House nor Ambassador Rice intended to mislead anybody in claiming that the Benghazi attack was not preplanned but merely grew out of a protest against an anti-Mohammed video. Were they just victims of bad editing? Nope. Here is paragraph five:
“The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.” DNI spokesman Shawn Turner tells CBS News. That information was shared at a classified level – which Rice, as a member of President Obama’s cabinet, would have been privy to. [CBS News, November 20]
