Was Susan Rice Off the reservation? Or maybe the pros were now on the reservation while the Obama-Hillary groupies were in charge. Certainly the events appear to reflect that version of events far more aptly.
State Department employees were surprised to see then UN Ambassador Susan Rice appear on Sunday talk shows in 2012 blaming the attacks on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, on an internet video, a report released Tuesday revealed.
Rice's comments were "met with shock and disbelief by State Department employees" who worried about White House involvement in the way the attack was being characterized to the American public, according to the report released by the Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi.
Susan Rice was off the reservation.
The senior Libya desk officer for the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs wrote in an email to colleagues: "I think Rice was off the reservation on this one," according to the report. The deputy director for the bureau's Office of Press and Public Diplomacy responded: "Off the reservation on five networks!"
Except it was the White House calling the shots.
The bureau's senior adviser for strategic communications assigned blame to the White House.
"Luckily there's enough in her language to fudge exactly what she said/meant," he wrote, referring to Rice. "WH [White House] very worried about the politics. This was all their doing."
Most of the media is ignoring core material like this because they're also worried about the politics.
The deputy director for the State Department's Office of Maghreb Affairs was also surprised that Rice drew a connection to the video.
"The description of what was said — and, again, I didn't watch the program myself — it just sounded more definitive of what potentially had happened," she testified.
She continued: "I was surprised in the way that they were described in the press clips, that there was an indication that there was some connection to the anti-Muslim video of concern that had been circulating online, that there was some connection to that."
Rhodes had his narrative. And the media saluted and reported what they were told.