CBS under fire for withholding Obama's Benghazi remarks

“The thing that is most egregious about CBS is that they edited out the part of the interview that would have undermined [Barack Obama] after the second debate.”

~Newt Gingrich

 

Dylan Byers and MacKenzie Weinger
Politico
11/5/2012

CBS News is continuing to draw fire for withholding footage of a Sept. 12 interview with President Barack Obama in which he said it was “too early to tell” whether or not the previous day’s attack in Benghazi, Libya, had been an act of terror.

That remark, which was not included in the “60 Minutes” package that first aired on Sept. 23, was also left out of a subsequent package that aired in the days following the second presidential debate, when President Obama said that he had called the attack “an act of terror” in his Rose Garden address on Sept. 12, which took place before the interview. The remark was not released until yesterday, a fact Bret Baier of Fox News called attention to earlier today.

In interviews with POLITICO, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said CBS had been “explicitly misleading” in order “to protect President Obama.” Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said he was “dumbstruck” by the network’s decision not to report on such a newsworthy item. On Fox News, Sen. John McCain said CBS was “not carrying out their responsibilities of informing the American people,” while conservative columnist Byron York wrote on Twitter that the network had “a scandal on their hands.”

Meanwhile, sources at rival television networks, who declined to speak on the record, expressed confusion over CBS’s decision.

“It’s surprising they held on to any of it,” one source said. “If [we had the interview], we would’ve put that stuff out the second it became news — again — after the debate. All of it.”

CBS News spokesperson Sonya McNair did not rebut the version of events as laid out by Baier.

“We’re proud of our Benghazi coverage, which from Libya to Washington has been the most comprehensive original reporting of any network,” McNair told POLITICO. She also provided a timeline of events, including the network’s coverage..

(The veracity of McNair’s assertion that CBS has had “the most comprehensive original reporting” is a matter of debate. Fox News reporters, chiefly Jennifer Griffin, have done a significant amount of original reporting, much of which has led to new revelations and important developments in what we know about the security situation surrounding the attack.)…

The article continues at Politico.com

RelatedState Dept Won’t Explain Why Classified Docs Still At Benghazi Consulate

Benghazi Reveals Obama-Islamist Alliance

The nature of the Benghazi disaster is now clear.  Ambassador Stevens was engaged in smuggling sizable quantities of Libyan arms from the destroyed Gaddafi regime to the Syrian rebels, to help overthrow the Assad regime in Syria.  Smuggling arms to the so-called “Free Syrian Army” is itself a huge gamble, but Obama has been a gambler with human lives over the last four years, as shown by the tens of thousands of Arabs who have died in the so-called Arab Spring — which has brought nothing but disaster to the Arab world.

For the last four years, the Obama policy has been to offer aid and comfort violent Islamic radicals in the delusional belief that their loyalty can be bought

Read the whole thing.

Update: Report: Obama never convened counterterrorism task force during Benghazi attack

...Counterterrorism sources and internal emails reviewed by CBS News express frustration that key responders were ready to deploy, but were not called upon to help in the attack…

Another senior counter terrorism official says a hostage rescue team was alternately asked to get ready and then stand down throughout the night, as officials seemed unable to make up their minds…

…Inexplicably, they also didn’t call on their rapid-reaction counterterrorism coordination squad, the Foreign Emergency Support Team, even though the consulate attack was, um, (a) foreign and (b) an emergency that (c) required support. So confused was the administration response, in fact, that CBS claims the FBI got a call from someone in Hillary’s office during the attack asking that agents be sent in, even though the compound hadn’t been secured yet and nothing by way of coordination with Defense and State had been arranged…

Beck’s Emotional Response to Bombshell ‘Stand Down’ Libya Allegations: ‘Today Officially Is the Day That I No Longer Recognize My Country’

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