"Aboard Air Force One, former President Bush shows photos of his paintings to... First Lady Michelle Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton..."

"... Valerie Jarrett, National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice, Attorney General Eric Holder and former First Lady Laura Bush, Dec. 9, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)"

"What caused NBC’s Meet the Press to fall behind Face the Nation and This Week?"

Jennifer Rubin tries to answer the question. She's got a list of 8 things, and I especially like:

2. Bob Schieffer has gotten feisty. He zings administration guests, asks probing questions, and gives snappy commentary. Given the choice between a Schieffer and a Gregory interview, I’d watch the former every time.

I agree! I think Schieffer got angry about Susan Rice lying on all the talk shows about Benghazi. He's been on fire since then. He's so old, so I was assuming he was coasting, but he woke up.

Something Rubin doesn't have on her list is: David Gregory is too concerned about being nice. He's always smiling and getting along with the guests. That is not what Tim Russert did. Russert intimidated the guests. He cornered them, often using a brilliant sequence of quotes displayed on screen. Very entertaining! Russert seemed to be directing the show toward us, the audience. Gregory seems more to be letting us watch while he socializes with his Washington friends.

Susan Rice as the new National Security Advisor.

And Samantha Power as the new U.N. ambassador.

ADDED: Rand Paul: "I can’t imagine... keeping Ambassador Rice in any significant position, much less promoting her to an important position." (Video at link.)

3 Pinocchios for White House aide's assertion that Republicans "doctored e-mails... to smear the president."

WaPo's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler looks at something Dan Pfeiffer said on 3 Sunday talk shows relating to the development of the talking points that Susan Rice delivered on 5 Sunday talk shows last fall.

[T]he reporters involved have indicated they were told by their sources that these were summaries, taken from notes of e-mails that could not be kept. The fact that slightly different versions of the e-mails were reported by different journalists suggests there were different note-takers as well.

Indeed, Republicans would have been foolish to seriously doctor e-mails that the White House at any moment could have released (and eventually did). Clearly, of course, Republicans would put their own spin on what the e-mails meant, as they did in the House report. Given that the e-mails were almost certain to leak once they were sent to Capitol Hill, it’s a wonder the White House did not proactively release them earlier.

The burden of proof lies with the accuser. Despite Pfeiffer’s claim of political skullduggery, we see little evidence that much was at play here besides imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors by journalists.

Is Glenn Kessler evening up the Pinocchios — giving Obama 4 Pinocchios after over-Pinocchioing Issa with 4?

I'm skeptical! I appreciate WaPo's Fact Checker taking on Obama's May 13th statement about Benghazi — "The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism." Kesser assembles all the relevant quotes and makes fine comparisons, pointing out the discrepancies. This is very well done.

But 4 Pinocchios? That's the most Pinocchios given in the Fact Checker Pinocchio system:

One Pinocchio = Some shading of the facts. Selective telling of the truth. Some omissions and exaggerations, but no outright falsehoods.

Two Pinocchios = Significant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.

Three Pinocchios = Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.

Four Pinocchios = Whoppers.

I've read Kessler's analysis — and you should too before commenting — and it supports a 2 Pinocchio rating. Even to go to 3 is a stretch.

What kind of game is going on here?  On May 7th, I wrote:

Last fall, before the election, Glenn Kessler gave Susan Rice a mere 2 Pinocchios for her infamous 5-talk-shows delivery of the miserably wrong talking points on the Benghazi effect. More recently, he gave 4 Pinocchios to Darrell Issa for suggesting that Hillary Clinton's signature on a document means she approved it.

Now, Kessler looks at the new information about the talking points....

Kessler had a new column on the Susan Rice 5-talk-shows lie, and but he didnot readjust the number beyond the original 2. Absurd!

And here's Dick Durbin on "Face the Nation" last Sunday:

[W]hen the Washington Post looked at the assertion as to whether Hillary Clinton should be held responsible and what came out at the hearing, they awarded it four Pinocchios, which means the lowest level of credibility that you can possibly have. It is unsubstantiated, and yet, the witch hunt continues.

Those Pinocchios become talking points. Kessler's fact-checking is high profile and powerful, but his game is ruined if it becomes apparent that he's pulling for one side. He needs to appear to be a neutral arbiter or the system of Pinocchios loses all meaning.

But suddenly loading 4 Pinocchios onto Obama? To my eye, it looks like Kessler is trying to rebalance a 4 that should have been a 2 with another 4 that should have been a 2.

I'm skeptical!

"Should a five-year-old have a gun?/Why Ann doesn't like to take positions on policy questions/Gun deaths are declining, but what about spree killings?..."

"Chris Christie: Can a fat man win the presidency?/Howard Kurtz, Jason Collins, Tina Brown, and honesty/Benghazi: scandal or hype?" — those are the basic topics, as framed by the Bloggingheads enterprise, as I talk for 70+ minutes with Bob Wright.

Here's the whole thing:



I'll pull out some choice bits in a little while.

WaPo's "Fact Checker" on about the Benghazi talking points.

Last fall, before the election, Glenn Kessler gave Susan Rice a mere 2 Pinocchios for her infamous 5-talk-shows delivery of the miserably wrong talking points on the Benghazi effect. More recently, he gave 4 Pinocchios to Darrell Issa for suggesting that Hillary Clinton's signature on a document means she approved it.

In his interview, Issa presented this as a “gotcha” moment, but it relies on an absurd understanding of the word “signature.” We concede that there might be some lingering questions — such as whether anyone in Clinton’s office saw this cable before it was issued — but that does not excuse using language that comes close to suggesting Clinton lied under oath.

Now, Kessler looks at the new information about the talking points:

The key new disclosure is that senior levels of the White House and State Department were closely involved in the rewriting of the talking points. Previously, Obama administration officials had strongly suggested that the talking points were developed almost exclusively by intelligence officials....

The biggest unknown is whether the “building leadership” in the State Department who objected to the initial talking points included anyone on Clinton’s immediate staff. (One presumes that nit-picking over wording would not have risen to Clinton’s level.) Certainly, someone senior made a call to the White House that resulted in quick action....

Clinton, during her testimony before the Senate and the House in January... stressed it was an “intelligence product” and said she was not involved in the “talking points process” and she “personally” was not focused on them — odd locutions that leaves open the possibility that she was aware of the internal debate at the time....

As more information emerges, we will continue to track how the administration’s statements hold up over time and whether more Pinocchio ratings are appropriate.

ADDED: As Instapundit puts it: "WaPo Fact-Checker Rowing Back Previous Support For Hillary, White House."

"For there to have been a demonstration on Chris Stevens's front door and him not to have reported it is unbelievable."

"I never reported a demonstration; I reported an attack on the consulate. Chris - Chris's last report, if you want to say his final report - is, 'Greg, we are under attack,'" said Greg Hicks, who was "the highest-ranking U.S. official in Libya after the strike." This was quoted on yesterday's "Face the Nation," where the guest was Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chairs the the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, before which Hicks will testify this week.

"...I've never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day," Hicks continued in his interview with investigators. "The net impact of what has transpired is, [Rice,] the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world, has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar of doesn't know what he's talking about. ....My jaw hit the floor as I watched this....

"You can't insult a foreign leader in a greater way than happened literally here, just those few days later," Issa said. "Ambassadors know that the one thing you can't do is contradict your host, especially at a time when you need their cooperation. This was a fatal error to our relationship, at least for a period of time. And we can't find the purpose. [Secretary of State Hillary Clinton] should have been among - above all else - the person who was on the same sheet of music with the Libyan government, and she wasn't."

Watch this segment of the show:



Here's the very meaty transcript.

"Sen. Lindsey Graham... is threatening to place a hold on key administration national security nominations unless President Obama explains..."

"... how the White House reacted to the Benghazi attacks and who 'changed' the talking points used by U.N. ambassador Susan Rice during back-to-back appearances on the Sunday political talk shows in September."

"Lady Jerks of 2012: A Year in Review."

Today seems to be my day for finding screwy ideas in Slate. This one seems to be a twist on the old feminist bumper sticker "Well-behaved women rarely make history." I can't quite tell whether Amanda Hess is trying to encourage/facilitate female jerkiness or what. Yeah, there's the ancient problem of wanting to be liked, which is really only a problem if you want it too much and want it above other, better goals. It's perfectly idiotic to think that the solution to the excessive desire to be liked is to be unlikeable.

But, whatever... the women Hess recognizes as the "Lady Jerks of 2012" are: the CIA agent who complained that she shouldn't have had to share the Distinguished Intelligence Medal for finding bin Laden; Anne Hathaway, the actress who talked back haughtily when asked about the photographs that paparazzi somehow were able to take of the body part Hess refers to as "her vagina"; Julia Gillard, the prime minister of Australia who called some political opponent a misogynist; Taylor Swift, the pretty young singer who crashed a Kennedy wedding with her Kennedy boyfriend; and Susan Rice, who, as Hess would have it, lost out on getting to be the next Secretary of State because people thought she was “prickly,” “hard-headed,” “temperamentally unfit,” and “always right on the edge of a screech.” Hess writes: "The personality police eventually moved Rice to withdraw her name from the running." That's not what I heard!

"Maybe she can get one of those Wisconsin doctors to write her a fake note."

Instapundit's intro to "Where’s Hillary’s Medical Report?"

Here's my original 2/19/11 report on the doctors offering to write sick notes for protesters who were skipping work for the Wisconsin protests:

At first I thought it was some sort of comic street theater, but it was, apparently, real doctors, defending what they were doing.... I asked if it was dishonest or unethical, and the answer was that everyone has symptoms, perhaps a migraine, diarrhea, or insomnia....

In that light, I'm sure Hillary does have symptoms. She's probably suffering horribly from the anxiety around the Benghazi attack and the possibility that she might have to speak about it. And she keeps telling us she's tired:

RUSH: Susan Rice last night on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.  He played a portion of his interview with Susan Rice, and then he asked her, "Why was it you that Sunday morning?" Why did they send you out there to every Sunday show, five of them?  "Of all the people in government, why the US Ambassador the United Nations answering questions about the attack at Benghazi?"

RICE:  Secretary Clinton had originally been asked by most of the networks to go on.  She had had an incredibly grueling week dealing with the protests around the Middle East and North Africa.  I was asked. I was willing to do so. It wasn't what I had planned for that weekend originally, but I don't regret doing that.

RUSH:  Did you hear what she just said there?  She said they asked her to go 'cause Hillary was tired. Hillary Clinton had originally been asked by most of the networks to go on.  It was Obama who shut it down.  Obama wanted Susan Rice out there.  He wanted somebody far away from the story telling this lie that it was the video that led to the unrest.  Somebody close to it woulda had a little bit tougher time with any credibility telling the lie. But you get Susan Rice, she's distant. She is the UN ambassador, got nothing to do with Benghazi, not in the State Department. She has no representation at the consulate or at Benghazi, send her out there, and so Brian Williams said, "Why send you?"  "Well, you know, Hillary, she originally was asked, but she really had a grueling week.  I mean, dealing with protests in the Middle East and North Africa, she was really tired."

Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice — the spent and the expendable.

Susan Rice.

Contrasting cartoons.

Susan Rice withdraws.

"I didn’t want to see a confirmation process that was very prolonged, very politicized, very distracting and very disruptive because there are so many things we need to get done," she says.

I stand by what I said 2 weeks ago: We were "being played by a political maneuver designed to keep us from looking deeply and broadly into the issues surrounding the Benghazi attack." We were lured into focusing on and talking about Rice:

She was sent out onto 5 Sunday talk shows a few days after the attack, to say something about that terrible video, which is itself a contrivance, a distraction. So make it about the video and embody that in a specific person, whom we never noticed before. And let's yammer about her for weeks and months until we're tired of talking about her, and then — who knows? — John Kerry is the real choice for Secretary of State. Rice was always expendable. She was the capsule into which the Benghazi scandal was enclosed for burial. Once we're tired of Rice... we'll automatically already be tired of talking about the Benghazi scandal, which never even broke!

Ah, but the news comes out today — coincidence? — that Hillary Clinton is going to testify on Benghazi before both the House and the Senate committees.

"President Obama is 'genuinely conflicted' about whether to nominate his favored candidate, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, or Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of State..."

Why are we being told this?

Despite harsh criticism of Rice from Republicans, Obama is leaning hard toward her because she’s been one of his closest advisers since 2007, and “she and the president are on exactly the same page on all foreign-policy issues,” said an Obama team official who is privy to the transition discussions. “She represents Obama’s foreign policy in a way that Kerry doesn’t, in other words a new way of being a Democrat on foreign policy.” It was a reference to Obama’s carefully cultivated self-image as a tough commander in chief willing to apply diplomatic leverage to get what he wants and use power aggressively, especially covertly.

In addition, Obama is developing an ambitious foreign-policy agenda for the second term, including nuclear nonproliferation, and “it would be clear to foreign leaders that when Susan Rice is speaking she’s speaking for the president,” the official said. At the same time “he really respects John Kerry, who did an amazing job on debate prep. He respects Sen. Kerry as a leading figure in our party,” said this official, who like others spoke only on condition of anonymity about transition deliberations. Both this official and a senior administration official used the same words in describing the president as “genuinely conflicted” over the choice, which could come as early as next week.

That doesn't sound "genuinely conflicted," so the question is why does he want to be seen as "genuinely conflicted"?