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President Barack Obama called Thursday for tighter security for U.S. diplomatic facilities to prevent an attack like the one in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The Benghazi attack is a political controversy. Republicans claim the administration watered down the facts in talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for television appearances while Obama was running for re-election. Republicans on Capitol Hill claimed they found proof in White House emails that they leaked to reporters last week. It turns out some of the quotes were wrong.

Republicans have charged that the State Department under Hillary Clinton was trying to protect itself from criticism. The White House released the real emails late Wednesday. Here's what we found when we compared them to the quotes that had been provided by Republicans.

On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes: "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation."

But it turns out that in the actual email, Rhodes did not mention the State Department.

It read: "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."

Republicans also provided what they said was a quote from an email written by State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland.

The Republican version quotes Nuland discussing, "The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda."

The actual email from Nuland says: "The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings."

The CIA agreed with the concerns raised by the State Department and revised the talking points to make them less specific than the CIA's original version, eliminating references to al Qaeda and affiliates and earlier security warnings. There is no evidence that the White House orchestrated the changes.

SirNitram wrote:Oh look. Republicans committing fraud. Let's listen for the cries to arrest these lawbreakers...

*Cicada*

General Havoc wrote:

SirNitram wrote:Oh look. Republicans committing fraud. Let's listen for the cries to arrest these lawbreakers...

*Cicada*

You know, maybe the reason you're not hearing any cries is because some people recognize that being a douchebag is not illegal?

For six thousand years, every politician on the face of the Earth has lied about what his opponent said. This makes the republicans scumbags. It does not however amount to fraud, nor is it actionable, nor is it illegal. And whining about why nobody arbitrarily arrests everyone who disagrees with you is exactly why nobody can have a reasonable conversation about politics anymore.

I could send a memo to CNN tomorrow about how I found an Email from Obama saying he wanted to murder all of the adult Christians in the country and forcibly convert their children to Islam and it would not be illegal. And while you'd be perfectly within your rights to call me a fucking asshole for doing this thing, you would have no recourse at law to arrest me. This is by design. And if you do not understand why it's by design, then we need to have a very different conversation.

Batman wrote:Um-if they actually altered the emails, yes, I agree that could legally be considered fraud...if you can prove they did it. Since the UNaltered emails apparently are there for everyone to read I unfortunately have to agree with Havoc here-objectionable, underhanded, and stupid beyond belief (i.e. standard current GOP modus operandi) but not technically illegal. At least from what I can tell from the sources provided they didn't manipulate the actual content (which far as I understand it would be fraud) of the emails, they just lied about it.

General Havoc wrote:Apologies are one thing, but journalists do not burn sources, here as much as anywhere else. And your insistence that this points to moral failures on the part of large institutions makes much of what you say suspect.

If that is truly "all you know" about a subject, then you know nothing.

SirNitram wrote:

General Havoc wrote:Apologies are one thing, but journalists do not burn sources, here as much as anywhere else. And your insistence that this points to moral failures on the part of large institutions makes much of what you say suspect.

If that is truly "all you know" about a subject, then you know nothing.

If that source purposefully misleads you, why protect them?