RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the spring of 1998, Prudence Bushnell, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, sent an emotional letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright begging for a more secure embassy in the face of mounting terrorist threats and a warning that she was the target of an assassination plot.

The State Department had repeatedly denied her request, citing a lack of money. But that kind of response, she wrote Albright, was “endangering the lives of embassy personnel.”

A matter of months later, on Aug. 7, 1998, the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were simultaneously attacked with car bombs. In Kenya, 12 American diplomats and more than 200 Africans were killed.

As in Benghazi, requests for more security were denied, warnings were issued, prior incidents were ignored and Susan Rice went on TV to explain it all.

Within 24 hours, Rice, then assistant secretary of state for African affairs, went on PBS as spokesperson for the administration — just as she was regarding Benghazi when she parroted the administration’s false narrative on five Sunday talk shows on Sept. 16, 2012, that Benghazi was caused by a flash mob enraged by an Internet video. Then, as now, she worked for a Clinton.

Also then, as now, she went on TV to claim, falsely, that we “maintain a high degree of security at all of our embassies at all times” and that we “had no telephone warning or call of any sort like that, that might have alerted either embassy just prior to the blast.” There were plenty of warnings and our East African diplomats were begging for help as Ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi.

What, you didn’t think they sent out Susan Rice at random to lie about Benghazigate? It helps to have prior experience lying to the American people and covering up administration malfeasance.

There is a striking pattern of denial in Susan Rice’s press conference from 1998 where the operative phrase was, “I know nothing.”

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Did you have any warnings?

SUSAN RICE: We had no telephone warning or call of any sort like that, that might have alerted either embassy just prior to the blast. And beyond that, as we go through the investigation, we’ll look for other information that might have been helpful.

And who was responsible for the attack? Rice had no idea either.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Have you gotten any calls, any information from groups claiming responsibility?

SUSAN RICE: We have not-the U.S. Government has not gotten any calls directly. A Cairo-based newspaper has received one claim. We have no further information at this stage, no reason to assume that it’s credible.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Who was the group that claimed responsibility there?

SUSAN RICE: I don’t have the name handy. It was not a well-known group.

That unknown group was the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places aka Al Qaeda. Now that name might sound obscure, except for the fact that Osama bin Laden had titled his declaration of war against the United States against “the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.”

But Rice couldn’t even be bothered to remember the name of the group that took responsibility. And warnings that Bin Laden was planning to carry out an attack were similarly ignored.

On June 12, the State Department warned that bin Laden was reportedly threatening “some type of terrorist action . . . in the next several weeks.” And in a July 29 report, the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute quoted bin Laden as telling an Arabic newspaper, “We had thought that the Riyadh and Khobar blasts were a sufficient signal to sensible U.S. decision-makers to avert a real battle between the Islamic nation and U.S. forces, but it seems that they did not understand the signal.”

But again it’s not as if Rice could have known that. It’s not as if she can read. Or remember.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what instructions are being issued now to other embassies?

SUSAN RICE: All of our embassies around the world have received warning of this, notice of this, and are taking appropriate precautions. We maintain a high degree of security at all of our embassies at all times, and obviously that high degree of security has been increased even further as a result of this information.

And no American embassy or mission was ever successfully attacked by Al Qaeda again while a Democratic administration sat on its ass. Nor did Susan Rice come out to lie to the American people ever again. And if you think otherwise… well you just might be racist.