KILLING THE PIG: The AP bungles some new information!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2012

Gets helped by baboons at Salon: Yesterday, right around noon, new information surfaced about the killings in Benghazi.

The AP’s Kimberly Dozier reported. Here’s the way she started:

DOZIER (10/19/12): CIA found militant links a day after Libya attack

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.

In her first paragraph, Dozier said that the CIA reported, within twenty-four hours, that the Benghazi killings were “carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob.”

Forgive us for standing aside from the mob. But that’s pretty much what Susan Rice said on that week’s Sunday programs!

On Face the Nation, Rice stressed, several times, that she didn’t yet have all the facts. But when gave the current assessment, she seemed to say that the serious violence started when extremist elements (i.e., militants) arrived on the scene with heavy weapons:

RICE (9/16/12): But based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what— It began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo, where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video.

But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent.

In Rice’s account, a spontaneous protest was underway when heavily-armed extremists showed up—militants. That’s when the real violence started.

In fairness, there is one point of ambiguity in Dozier’s opening paragraph. Was “a spontaneous mob” on the scene at all? Or was no one there but the militants?

What was the CIA saying about that point in the early days after the killings? A good deal later in Dozier’s report, she seems to clear that up:

DOZIER: U.S. intelligence officials say in this case the delay was due in part to the time it took to analyze various conflicting accounts. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the incident publicly, explained that "it was clear a group of people gathered that evening" in Benghazi, but that the early question was "whether extremists took over a crowd or they were the crowd," and it took until the following week to figure that out.

According to Dozier’s new information, Rice’s statement on Face the Nation seems to have comported with the state of the intelligence. Within the first week after the attack, intelligence still seemed to think that a spontaneous crowd may have present before the militants arrived. Intelligence said it was the militants who carried out the attack.

That’s pretty much what Rice said on the Sunday shows—unless you read Dozier’s report. Remarkably, this is the fuller start to yesterday’s report:

DOZIER (10/19/12): CIA found militant links a day after Libya attack

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.

It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S.

That highlighted statement is hard to parse. Obviously, the Benghazi killings weren’t carried out by “the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world.”

It’s hard to know what Dozier meant by the word salad she oddly produced. According to Dozier, the administration maintained that the murderous attack in Benghazi “was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.”

We have no idea what that could mean—but sometimes, word salad serves a purpose. Plainly, Dozier makes it sound like the administration was contradicting the state of the intelligence.

That doesn't seem to be true. But that's sure the way it sounds at the start of Dozier's report.

We’re sorry, but it’s just as we’ve told you: When ugly right-wing attacks gain purchase, compliant journalists frequently bend to their will. They may produce strange jumbles of words—salads designed to make it sound like the right-wing claims have merit.

So it seems to have happened with Dozier. In just the second paragraph of her report, she makes it sound like the administration was contradicting intelligence in the early days after the attack. But as we’ve shown you, Ambassador Rice went on TV and repeated the state of the intelligence, at least as it is described in Dozier’s new report.

Rice isn’t mentioned in Dozier’s report. For the most part, Dozier examines what the CIA was reporting to Congress. She focuses on testimony by CIA head Petraeus.

But last night, on CNN, a flash mob seized what Dozier wrote—and they spent the next twenty minutes trying to kill a pig named Ambassador Rice. (Real target: Obama.) Before we return to the bad things they did, let’s look at yesterday’s new information as it’s presented by David Ignatius, who writes more clearly than Dozier.

We'll review Ignatius in our next post. At any rate:

On September 16, Rice seems to have comported with the state of the intelligence, as least as it is reported by Dozier. Unless you let yourself get tricked by familiar jumbles of words.

How dumb is the career liberal world: How dumb is the career liberal world?

Can we start with hopelessly dumb? Yesterday, Salon simply reprinted Dozier's report, without a word of comment. Be sure to note the incriminating headlines the baboons at Salon dreamed up:

SALON (10/19/12): CIA found militant link a day after Libya attack

Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack came by spontaneous a [sic] mob

WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press...

Yes, Salon actually posted those headlines. Even ignoring the typo, the Romney campaign couldn't have penned headlines which were more incriminating.

The administration did not maintain publicly for a week that the attack came from a spontaneous mob. Just go back and read what Rice actually said.

But that's what Dozier hoped you would think—and the apes at Salon were buying!

Good God! Our liberal team is just helpless! We tell you our team is hopelessly dumb—but your lizard brain won’t believe us.