More than a full month after a terrorist assault left four Americans including an ambassador dead, and a couple of weeks after the Obama administration blamed that assault on a movie, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken responsibility for security at the sacked US consulate. Clinton reportedly took responsibility during an interview with CNN in Lima, Peru.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday tried to douse a political firestorm around the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, saying she is responsible for the security of American diplomatic outposts.
“I take responsibility” for the protection of U.S. diplomats, Clinton said during a visit to Peru. But she said an investigation now under way will ultimately determine what happened in the attack that left four Americans dead.
The attack on the night of September 11 killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans at the American consulate in Benghazi.
The Obama administration has been heavily criticized after Vice President Joe Biden said during last week’s vice presidential debate that the White House did not know of requests to enhance security at Benghazi, contradicting testimony by State Department employees that requests had been made and rejected. After the debate, the White House said the vice president did not know of the requests because they were handled, as is the practice, by the State Department.
Clinton said President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are not involved in security decisions.
“I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha,” she added, noting that it is close to the election.
A government official taking responsibility for something that went wrong. Fascinating.
Actually, Hillary’s responsibility-taking is about as deep as most probably expected. She says she’s responsible for those security people who work for her screwing this whole thing up.
Barack Obama once wielded executive responsibility as a weapon against Mitt Romney, but as Benghazi grew into a full blown scandal, where has he been? I mean, between the fundraisers. Through his vice president last week, Obama disavowed knowing anything about the security situation in Benghazi.
For what it’s worth, that’s a very plausible excuse. It’s probable that Obama did not know about the security situation in the nation he helped lead from behind into whatever it is now. After all, Obama had not been attending his Presidential Daily Briefings too often in the months before the attack, and he had skipped several briefings the week before the attack. How was he to know that the Islamist state growing up in Libya would breed attacks on Americans?
I mean, other than common sense telling him that. How was he to know?
More: Now that Hillary has accepted responsibility for security, it’s time someone accept security for telling the American people that a movie, rather than terrorism, caused the attack in the first place. Any takers? Barry? Hillary? Gen. Petraeus? Anyone?
These folks need to be brought in for questioning under oath.
Update: Sens. Lindsay Graham, Kelly Ayotte and John McCain released a statement tonight reacting to Clinton’s remarks:
“We have just learned that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has claimed full responsibility for any failure to secure our people and our Consulate in Benghazi prior to the attack of September 11, 2012. This is a laudable gesture, especially when the White House is trying to avoid any responsibility whatsoever.
“However, we must remember that the events of September 11 were preceded by an escalating pattern of attacks this year in Benghazi, including a bomb that was thrown into our Consulate in April, another explosive device that was detonated outside of our Consulate in June, and an assassination attempt on the British Ambassador. If the President was truly not aware of this rising threat level in Benghazi, then we have lost confidence in his national security team, whose responsibility it is to keep the President informed. But if the President was aware of these earlier attacks in Benghazi prior to the events of September 11, 2012, then he bears full responsibility for any security failures that occurred. The security of Americans serving our nation everywhere in the world is ultimately the job of the Commander-in-Chief. The buck stops there.
“Furthermore, there is the separate issue of the insistence by members of the Administration, including the President himself, that the attack in Benghazi was the result of a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a hateful video, long after it had become clear that the real cause was a terrorist attack. The President also bears responsibility for this portrayal of the attack, and we continue to believe that the American people deserve to know why the Administration acted as it did.”
IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS….
Except if it’s about Benghazi and/or could harm Obama’s re-election.
Does the left have any memory at all? GWB was “responsible” for Katrina’s damage in NOLA. Great job, Brownie= Great job, Hillary. The argument was that Bush appointed Michael Brown and it was his fault.
But now I guess we can’t have a President responsible for anything.
It happens to be true that Embassy security falls squarely under Clinton’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. She was not going to win this one.
BUT…Ambassador’s do not actually represent the Secretary of State. They are the personal representatives of the President of the United States. In fact, the post of UN Ambassador had been elevated in prior administrations to a quasi-Cabinet level position (believe that’s no longer operative). Rice could certainly have taken her orders directly from Obama.
Obama elevated US Ambassador to the UN to cabinet rank in 2009.
– Bolton goes back, Portman as SOS.
Thank you. I stand corrected.
I still recall it happening under a previous Administration as well.
What Janet “Waco” Reno was to Bill Clinton, now Hillary “Benghazi” Clinton is to Obama?
The intrenched federal bureaucracy’s attitude towards its political overlords is Nemo me impune lacessit. Since few can wage covert war with the administration better than the denizens of Foggy Bottom this got even more interesting.
A PREDATOR DRONE WAS ABOVE THE BENGHAZI CONSULATE WHILE IT WAS BEING ATTACKED.
Instead of shooting the attackers, it shot a video. If it fired on the attackers, they would’ve scattered like cockroaches. Lives might’ve been saved.
Why the Predator didn’t attack the attackers is Question #! when these lying cowards testify before Congress.
I realize that’s a typo, but it’s an appropriate one! It actually IS “Question #!”
Empty chair in the White House. Empty pantsuit at State. Empty uniform at CIA.
Uh huh. “I take responsibility” doesn’t mean anything anymore. Used to be, up until the Clinton administration at least, the responsible party would resign or be fired. Now it’s just a way to change the subject.
“THERE NEEDS TO BE AN AMERICAN DESK AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT.”
Attributed to John Loftus
It’s probable that Obama did not know about the security situation in the nation he helped lead from behind into whatever it is now.
A President who took Commander in Chief seriously would have standing orders to all cabinet members to inform him immediately when a security situation worsened. But Obama thinks C-in-C means he gets to send out drones and raids for media applause, as if he were still in the gangs of Chicago. Overall responsibility does not penetrate the skull of this executive class warrior.
We will not find him ‘taking responsibility’, even by the belated and evasive lawyerly standards of Hillary.
And that, Hillary my dear, is a vast LEFT-wing conspiracy. How does it taste?
But she said an investigation now under way will ultimately determine what happened in the attack that left four Americans dead.
That’s the crew that took a month before it did a 1-day visit to the wreckage of the consulate and safe house. Its findings will hit the press safely after the election, unless it goes for broke three days before and ‘finds’ that George Bush was responsible despite the heroic efforts of Obama & Co.
O&H still have a lot of explaining to do about their concerted insistence before God and everyone that that rude video trailer was the root of all evil and the Cause of It All.
Wow. What on earth do the ObamaTrons have on Hilary/the Clintons?
What does this recent maneuver mean? Is Hilary falling on the sword or staking a new claim? In the Truman WH, the buck stopped with the president (chief executive). In the Obama WH, the buck stops with the SOS, a WH appointee.
Time for a new acronym: CICINO (commander in chief in name only).
cough***Huma***cough!
“Forgive Barry and Joe, folks. They know not what they do.”
Hillary was leaving anyway. Now she has her excuse. Either way, she’s setting herself up in 2016 by forcing Obamee to own Benghazi. If he doesn’t, the Hillary bloc walks on him in 3 weeks, and he knows it.
When he “takes responsibility” for Benghazi, Romney wins. If he doesn’t and leaves Hillary out to rot, Romney wins in a landslide and the GOP takes the Senate too. Obamee will be made to do so, especially after his crushing debate defeat tonight seals Romney’s win.
Mark Halperin already has Romney winning Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. Ohio gives Romney 266 and any other state, most likely Colorado, wins him the election.
Hillary gets to walk away from this train wreck. Obamee doesn’t. Payback for 2008 is a beeotch, huh Barry?