Maria Bartiromo.
BARTIROMO: Senator, I don’t understand. This whole Benghazi story boggles the mind. I mean, It was September 11th. The embassies were burned, our ambassador was murdered. The Wall Street Journal reported that the CIA told the President for ten days in his daily briefings that we could see an attack on the U.S. consulate and there was [sic] the result of protests. Why would the President not call it out for what it was on day one? Why wait so long to tell the American people that it was a terrorist attack? Is it to justify defense cuts? To make everybody believe since bin Laden is dead, everything’s quiet on the home front? I don’t even understand why the President of the United States would not call it what it was from day one.
MCCAIN: I think primarily it was this narrative that the President has been saying for so long that he got bin Laden, which we all appreciate, but then that al-Qaeda is on the run.
Watch it:
Bartiromo’s framing answers her own question (and refutes McCain’s response): aside from three clear references to “acts of terror” directly after the attack, the reason Obama wasn’t out front blaming al-Qaeda or another group was because, as Bartiromo notes, the CIA was telling him it was the video and that there’s scant evidence al-Qaeda was responsible.
President Obama’s plan for military spending is supported by top Pentagon brass, while Governor Romney’s plan ups military expenditures by an unnecessary and unpaid-for $2.1 trillion.
Previous in TP Security
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the ThinkProgress Privacy Policy and agree to the ThinkProgress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policies as applicable, which can be found here.