The Dangers Of Handling Every Situation As If It Were A Public Relations Crisis

Yesterday PJ Media posted an article about an email that has been released as part of the ongoing investigation into Benghazi. The email was sent at 9:11 p.m. Eastern Time on the night of the attack on Benghazi. The email was sent to YouTube to warn of the “ramifications” of allowing the posting of an anti-Islamic video.

Think about that for a minute. On November 4, 2012, I posted the timeline of the Benghazi attack (rightwinggranny.com). The attack began at roughly 4 o’clock in the afternoon Washington, D.C. time. By 9 o’clock the attack had been going on for five hours. By approximately 6 o’clock, the White House had received three emails blaming the attack on Ansar al-Sharia. Why in the world was the White House worried about YouTube and a video that no one had watched until the White House started talking about it?

It’s time for a little common sense here. Protesters don’t usually carry mortars. Also, how many people in Libya have internet access? How many views had the video had at the time of the ‘protests’?

Representative Darryl Issa is quoted in the article at PJ Media:

He contends the document contradicts the White House assertion that it was the CIA who first pinned blame for the attack on protests in response to the anti-Islamic video.

“The e-mail shows the White House had hurried to settle on a false narrative — one at odds with the conclusions reached by those on the ground — before Americans were even out of harm’s way or the intelligence community had made an impartial examination of available evidence,” Issa said.

The article concludes:

While the White House was ringing up YouTube, Americans on the ground in Benghazi were reporting that Ansar al-Sharia jihadists were running the attack. Personnel in Tripoli wanted to help. The White House settled on blaming a movie, rather than re-examining its own policies and decisions leading up to the attack, or sending in troops and air assets that could have saved lives, pretty darn early.

And the terrorists who mounted the attack remain at large.

The White House was more worried about public relations than it was concerned about the safety of Americans.