The trouble started when Maryland Democrat Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence asked Petraeus to provide the committee members with talking points on Benghazi so that they didn’t say too much. The Post quotes Ruppersberger as saying “We didn’t want to jeopardize sources and methods, and we didn’t want to tip off the bad guys. That’s all.”
Then the Post says
What Petraeus decided to do with that request is the pivotal moment in the controversy over the administration’s Benghazi talking points. It was from his initial input that all else flowed, resulting in 48 hours of intensive editing that congressional Republicans cite as evidence of a White House coverup.
A close reading of recently released government e-mails that were sent during the editing process, and interviews with senior officials from several government agencies, reveal Petraeus’s early role and ambitions in going well beyond the committee’s request, apparently to produce a set of talking points favorable to his image and his agency.
Both the White House and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state claimed that all the editing of the talking points was done by “intelligence agencies,” which wasn’t quite true, since the State Department was active, with the intent of avoiding criticism, in “suggesting” changes. But the White House’s hands are much cleaner than the howling Republicans would have it and those of their beloved Gen. Petraeus, much less.
Afterwords
I am one of those who believe that half of the reason that President Obama insisted on getting into Afghanistan just as he was getting out of Iraq was to keep the General “inside the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent pissing in,” to quote the immortal Lyndon. The care and feeding of that mighty ego has cost the U.S. plenty.
