Hillary's not only a congenital liar, she's deadly incompetent.

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Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium

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"Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady -- a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation -- is a congenital liar....Therefore, ask not "Why didn't she just come clean at the beginning?" She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends."

- William Safire, TheNYTimes, 1996

 

When I began my professional career, one of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was beware of those less talented than you as they will use any body to cover theirs.

In the case of Hillary Clinton with Benghazi, she used a 2 minute youtube trailer of a movie that hadn't been released to cover up her direct blame in the deaths of 4 Americans. She never read the cables the Ambassador sent her -not even the one on August 16. The transcript of her testimony via ABC NEWS:



"House Republicans slammed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today for her lack of awareness of State Department cables warning of security threats in Benghazi, Libya, prior to the Sept. 11 attack that killed four Americans, including Amb. Chris Stevens.

"In the second congressional hearing of the day reviewing a report by the Accountability Review Board on the State Department's security failures, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, asked Clinton this afternoon why her office had not responded to a notification from Stevens about potential dangers in Libya.  'Congressman, that cable did not come to my attention,' Clinton calmly told the House Foreign Affairs Committee hours after her Senate testimony this morning. 'I'm not aware of anyone within my office, within the secretary's office having seen that cable.'

She added that '1.43 million cables come to my office. They're all addressed to me.'


Not all cables that go to the State Department are addressed -literally- to Hillary Clinton. All cables that leave the State Department are, however, signed from Hillary. In the old days, her saying this under oath would've been called a outright lie and banter of perjury would be all over the Hill. But these days we all understand it was a cynical toss off remark meant to persuade the low information voter watching the evening news that all is well. The ugly reality is neither Hillary nor one of 60 people in her office read the August 16 cable from Ambassador Stevens telling them they could not withstand an organized attack. Just last week we learned there is another cable from the Ambassdor - sent on the day he died:

Just hours before he died in a terrorist attack at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Ambassador Chris Stevens sent a cable to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton painting a chaotic, violent portrait of the eastern Libya city and warning that local militias were threatening to pull the security they afforded U.S. officials.

Militia leaders told U.S. officials just two days before the attack that they were angered by U.S. support of a particular candidate for Libyan prime minister and warned “they would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi, a critical function they asserted they were currently providing,” Stevens wrote in the cable the morning of Sept. 11, 2012.  He also cited several other episodes that raised questions about the reliability of local Libya security.

“Growing problems with security would discourage foreign investment and led to persistent economic stagnation in eastern Libya,” Stevens cautioned.

The Washington Guardian obtained a copy of the memo, a weekly summary of events in Libya dated just hours before a band of terrorists struck the unofficial U.S. consulate in Benghazi and a neaby annex building where the CIA operated, killing the ambassador and three other Americans.

You'd think once State was notified there was an attack on the consulate Hillary might have thought to say 'let's look at all the recent cables from Libya and see what this is about'. But according to Hillary, that never happened. Unread cables remained unread as a 7-9 hour attack raged on at the consulate. Thanks to Jennifer Griffin of Fox News we now know that two military drones were rerouted and sent over the consulate in Benghazi during the attack:

Fox News has learned that there were two military surveillance drones redirected to Benghazi shortly after the attack on the consulate began. They were already in the vicinity. The second surveillance craft was sent to relieve the first drone, perhaps due to fuel issues. Both were capable of sending real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. Any U.S. official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call up that video in real time on their computers.



Yesterday and under oath, Hillary was asked about real time video -had she watched it with the President? :

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Charlene Lamb “testified she had actually witnessed this, the attack, in real-time on a monitor.”

“At any time did you see the initial attack on a monitor with the president?” Rohrbacher asked.

“Congressman, there was no monitor, there was no real time. We got the surveillance videos some weeks later, that was the first time we saw any video of the attack,” Clinton said in testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “There was a misunderstanding I think perhaps…she was talking to [diplomatic security] people trying to understand what was going on.”

Lamb was placed on administrative leave late last year, along with two other State Department officials. She told the House Oversight Committee in October that “When the attack began, a diplomatic security agent working in the Tactical Operations Center…alerted the annex U.S. quick reaction security team stationed nearby…from that point on, I could follow what was happening in almost real-time.”

We've been told the President went to bed 90 minutes after being told the consulate was under attack. Hillary could've made her boss look more on the ball and said 'We were watching that attack while it happened' which is what every American would hope is the truth. But no, that answer would've gone against the narrative of the attack being the fault of the video. Real time video of the attack would have told them immediately that there were no protestors, only terrorists at the consulate. And Obama would've been caught in his lie which may have lost him the election as a result.

Hillary has had 4 months to come up with a convincing set of facts as to why she blamed a video instead of her deadly mismanagement of State which resulted in the deaths Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Dougherty. She couldn't come up with a plausible one. So she stuck to her disproved narrative and this is why she lost her cool, treating a Senator as if he was her husband by screaming "What difference will it make?" to his perfectly reasonable question of why was the video blamed?

It will make a lot of difference to know why the video was blamed. Especially to the families of the 4 dead Americans. They would get what Liberals love; closure. Her lie probably made a (considerable) difference with the presidential election. And if she had done the manly thing and accepted blame on September 12, 2012, then the President would've fired her for incompetence. This would make a difference to the taxpayers. They are already on the hook for her Senator's pension but they wouldn't have to pay her State Department pension.

Hillary Clinton fired the entire White House Travel Department for far less mismanagement while at the same time alleging through the FBI they had broken laws. All of the fired were all cleared of charges - one declared fully innocent by a jury after 15-20 minutes of deliberating the case.

As far as the cable not coming to her attention, read closely how deadly of an error that was by Hillary. From October 31, 2012:

CATHERINE HERRIDGE: Well, the status of the cable is that I really believe, having read it, that it is the smoking gun warning here. You've got this emergency meeting in Benghazi less than a month before the attack. At that briefing, the people are told that there are 10 -- 10 -- Islamist militias and al Qaeda groups in Benghazi. The consulate cannot sustain a coordinated attack and that they need extra help. And this information goes directly to the office of the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. So again, you're got the culpability of the State Department. This is a very specific warning that they are in trouble, they need help and they see an attack on the horizon.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, what's the date on this cable?

HERRIDGE: It's the 16th of August.

VAN SUSTEREN: Is there any response or any indication that there's been any direct response to that cable between the 16th of August and the 11th of September?

HERRIDGE: I don't know what the classified traffic was between the 16th and the 11th, but I asked the State Department today specifically, given the warnings and how detailed they were and the intelligence that al Qaeda and these militias were operating in Benghazi, was any extra security considered or put in place in light of the 9/11 anniversary? You're three weeks out. I think that's the critical question. And the State Department said to me today they wouldn't comment because it's classified. And they are also waiting for the outcome of this investigation.

VAN SUSTEREN: Who was the signatory to the cable?

HERRIDGE: Ambassador Stevens.

VAN SUSTEREN: And you say that it was -- it went to the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Was there any indication that it actually went to her? I mean, I don't know what the office (INAUDIBLE) the office could be -- as far as I know, could be 60 people down a chain of command.

HERRIDGE: The copy to her, and then it routes (ph) out, in this case, probably, typically to diplomatic security, their Near East Asia desk and others. But it is specifically addressed to her office.

VAN SUSTEREN: How did you get to see it?

HERRIDGE: It came to me through confidential sources.

VAN SUSTEREN: And why -- I mean, it sounds to me that things are starting to break down because we're starting to get, you know, information from -- from different sources. Both you and Jennifer Griffin are getting it. Is there sort of a brewing dissatisfaction in how this administration is disseminating or not disseminating information?

HERRIDGE: I can't speak for why these sources come forward, but I believe, based on this cable, that the point that was being made that they wanted made publicly, not just in a classified setting, is that the warning that came from Benghazi was very specific. It said, We cannot withstand an attack. The militias are everywhere. Al Qaeda is here. This was known to the U.S. intelligence community, as well, and that they really could not see a situation where the security was going to turn around. They said it was trending negatively. This comes three weeks, three-and-a-half weeks before the attack. I can't think of anything that would be more specific than if these groups had emailed the State Department and said, Here's the time, here's the place and here's the method of the attack, because the cable names the two groups, al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia, that we believe were responsible for this assault.

VAN SUSTEREN: How long is this cable? I mean, is it a page, two pages?

HERRIDGE: It's a little over a page.

VAN SUSTEREN: So it's quite detailed.

HERRIDGE: It's very detailed. There can be no doubt that this is really a cry for help from the people on the ground. They also talk at length that they think the 17th February Brigade -- this is the Libyan militia that's supposed to be friendly to the United States that's really tasked with being the police force in Benghazi, has been infiltrated by our enemies. It says the 17th February Brigade is not sharing information with the Americans anymore. So that's us. And we had information right after the attack that this brigade just kind of melted away during the attack. They were nowhere to be found.

VAN SUSTEREN: What would be the reason or is there any reason supplied as to why that cable wasn't acted on? Is there any -- is there any sort of -- I mean, did the person you spoke to -- does anybody have any idea? Did it get lost in the shuffle or there was a diplomatic or political reason? Or is there any reason it wasn't acted on?

HERRIDGE: Well, someone has said to me, looking at this whole story, don't see a conspiracy when you can just see incompetency. I think we sometimes know that things move very slowly in Washington, D.C. So I think that's -- I think that's one element. But if you couple this with the fact that we were coming up to the 9/11 anniversary and you couple this with the statements that a videotape was somehow responsible, what you see is that that is completely undercut. This cable says the militias and al Qaeda are here. We essentially think that we are next. So to take this attack and to suggest for such a long period of time that it was a video, when you have this classified cable in the intelligence? It just doesn't match up!

VAN SUSTEREN: What is your -- why do you think that we're not getting much information out of the administration? Is it in part because it's the CIA or is it a situation where they're trying to cover mistakes?

HERRIDGE: I believe they're trying to have a real investigation. I believe that we are also in the middle of something called an election, in the final days. And what I see is a growing body of evidence that the State Department has culpability for the death of the ambassador and those three Americans. The warnings were specific. They were direct. They named the enemy. And they said that this consulate needed more support. And it also indicated in the cable that the consulate should probably move long-term into the annex. We now know that's the CIA facility in Benghazi.

VAN SUSTEREN: Catherine, thank you. And obviously, very disturbing. And you know, working in Washington, we all know people who are at the State Department and how hard they work and they want to take such good care of their people. So you know, it's -- there's no...

HERRIDGE: I think it's important that the people who lost their lives have themselves honored with the facts, and I think we're starting to get the facts.

VAN SUSTEREN: Without any doubt. I'm in agreement with you on that. It's -- you know, the facts need to -- as -- we need to get the facts. Catherine, thank you.



We'll see if Catherine Herridge has sources who will go on record saying that Hillary did in fact read the cable. And then we shall see what difference it makes...if any.

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Comments

[Jacobite]

My dear Mrs. P, please update your blog with other news as well - especially given the recent events in the Church, and the latest news on the British Royal Family (Wills is turning out to be a lazy whinger).