Did You Know...

**Written by Doug Powers

During the VP debate, Joe Biden joined other Dems and rolled over on the intelligence community by citing bad intel for the initial explanation that a YouTube video was responsible for the Benghazi attack.

Two can play that game:

Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.”

File that brushback pitch under “how to keep yourself from ending up under the blame bus in 25 words or less.”

With that return poke in Joe Biden’s eye out of the way, who did give the “stand down” order and denied the request for help? I’ll bet the CIA knows, and everybody else realizes that, which is why we likely won’t see Biden or anybody else in the administration publicly scapegoating the intelligence community over Benghazi again.

Update: By the way, Fox News stands by their story about help being denied. On the surface the CIA’s statement looks more like a rebuke of various politicians and administration officials (or a preemptive move against upcoming allegations) than a denial of the Fox News report. The Fox story never reported exactly which agency or person ordered the stand down, while CIA’s statement comes across as if they’re defending their agency against a direct accusation of the CIA making the “stand down” call. The CIA didn’t claim nobody in the US government denied help to those on the ground in Benghazi — they said that if it happened nobody in the CIA had anything to do with it. At least that’s how I read it. Your mileage may vary.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe