re: New York Times claims they had a reporter on scene at Benghazi

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I just don't see how anyone can fault the CIA for putting this stuff in the initial intel assessment.

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I understand why and how it happens, and don't "fault" it.

It's just that's it's such a minor and largely insignificant aspect of any investigation into the Benghazi events, it creates unnecessary confusion in the mind of the casual reader/citizen/voter. It's a matter of connecting the dots over a 19-day period. Jonathan Karl and the over-hyped "talking points memo", the Lara Logan fiasco and that entire bushwhack job that occurred on "60 Minutes", and now this surprisingly weak Kirkpatrick attempt to kill the Benghazi story only fuels the fire in the direction they don't want it to go.

Kirkpatrick, the NYT and the people at CBS all want the public to focus on the shiny object - the CIA in Benghazi. That shiny object is a very real but peripheral issue in the Benghazi investigation.

Kirkpatrick wrote all those words but really wanted the reader to walk away remembering one sentence subtly slipped into the final page, with no premise attached, but intended to deliver a sledgehammer blow to distract the reader. That sentence reflects both Kirkpatrick's and the NYT's longstanding obsession with blaming the CIA for everything that has gone wrong in American foreign policy since the Kennedy administration.


"Other Benghazi Islamists insist, bizarrely and without evidence, that they suspect the C.I.A. killed the ambassador." - This sentence is thrown down onto the page with absolutely no lead-in and no exit. Completely standing apart from anything else in his report. "bizarrely and without evidence" he makes sure to say, but if that is the case, why say it at all, especially since the story gives it no context, nor do the sentences preceding it or following it? Its purpose is beyond clear, and it's aimed right at the conspiracy-theory dunces. It's there to distract them, i.e., the "shiny object" some of that crowd can't resist. Kirkpatrick wants a Hannity or a Billy Cunningham type to run with something like that, to illustrate that those questioning the Administration's Benghazi explanations are right-wing nut jobs.

Since the suggestion is "bizarre" and "without evidence", why not just say something like "Other Islamists believe, bizarrely and without evidence, that the fricking moon is made out of cream cheese and iguana eggs"?

Plant a crazy idea, watch a few run with it, brand those few as being representative of those pursuing the Benghazi story, thus discrediting the pursuit itself, and yuck it up over martinis somewhere in Manhattan.

Fortunately (or unfortunately if you're Kirkpatrick or the NYT), no one bit into the apple (at least so far), and the Benghazi story lives on, completely unscathed by the NYT's "boom", which turned out to be a "splat", like a bug on a windshield.

They're trying to rein in a wild horse with a lasso made of yarn.