Since when is the White House supposed to be a public conduit for live intel?

[jberryhill]

In an emerging situation with the perpetrators at large, what useful purpose is served by providing live reports of what is known?

That seems to be the premise of Romney's whole Libyan schtick - that the White House is not providing instantaneous reportage of what we know about terrorist operations.

Are we supposed to think that would be a good idea in all circumstances?

Even if he was correct, I still wouldn't get the point.

[pointsoflight]

1. They're clearly reaching for anything that might get a foot hold.

[Angry Dragon]

2. Since Willard demands it

President Obama should tell Willard he will tell the country everything he knows about Benghazi as soon as Willard releases 10 full years of tax returns, all Mass. governor papers, all Olympic records, and all Bain papers

[underthematrix]

3. LOL!! only the most idiotic peeps

would answer yes to that question. First of all, BENGHAZI was a CIA operation, which is why the Obama administration stated the four killed died in the line of duty. The anti-Islamic 14 minute hate film is tied to the extreme US conservative right, which is funded by the K*Koch brothers and Adelson (recall he pledged $100 million dollars to elect mittnocchio and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just for ads). Then there's BLACKWATER, an anti-Islamic private international security firm which could have conducted the operation that led to the killing of the Ambassasor and his 3-man SEAL team. I have always been puzzled how they were able to overcome the SEALS. That seems very very strange.

The GOPKKKers can try to make Libya an Obama nightmare but there are many, many people who have voiced their suspicion that right wing nutjobs, especially the 2 billionaires were behind the protests and the killings. Recall the Egyptian President has already said some protesters reported they were paid to protest.

I doubt PBO would acknowledge any of this if it were true or not because it would raise a much larger question about what is going on in the US - some sort of coup d'etat, telegraphed by Sen. McConnell the day PBO was inaugurated?

[Rincewind]

4. I don't understand why

it's so damned important when the word terrorism was first used. It doesn't change what happened, and the first reports are always either incomplete, or wrong to some degree.

[JDPriestly]

5. Exactly! Republicans are horrible at keeping intelligence secrets themselves although

they scream the loudest when non-Republicans say something that Republicans think should not be said.

[jberryhill]

7. Not only bad at keeping them secret...

...but politicizing them. Their agenda drives their interpretation of events instead of fact gathering and objective analysis.

[cliffordu]

6. That is an excellent question,

and not one that a single fucking republican can answer.

[limpyhobbler]

8. yeah but had they been more open earlier that would have been better. nt

The government was kind of spreading the meme that the attacks were a reaction to the anti-Muslim film trailer. It looked like they were trying to turn it into a freedom of speech issue. As in "they hate our freedoms", that kind of thing.

I don't think it's a big scandal or anything like that. But they could have handled it better. In hindsight. Monday morning quarterbacking. Looking back, the government could have handled the information release a little better, but maybe there was no way for them to know that at the time.

The information came out eventually, in a reasonable amount of time, so that's the most important thing. You're quite right there is no need for them to be live blogging the intelligence on the whitehouse website.