http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/24/spin-can-expect-from-obama-at-un/ http://www.eyeontheun.org/ President Obama is fond of boasting about his foreign policy prowess and is anxious to use his UN General Assembly address on September 25 to amplify that claim. His competence took a hit this past week after he pontificated on CBS – less than 24 hours after the murder of our Libyan ambassador […]
http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/hillary-clinton-aide-tells-reporter-to-fuck-off
On Sunday morning, BuzzFeed correspondent Michael Hastings emailed Philippe Reines, Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide and personal spokesman at the State Department, asking a series of pointed questions about State’s handling of the Benghazi fiasco, and Reines’ over-the-top attack on CNN. The emails quickly got personal, with Reines calling Hastings an “unmitigated asshole” before an exchange of harsh words on both sides.
The email chain concluded with Reines writing that Hastings should “Fuck Off” and “Have a good life.”
The full exchange (with one typo fixed) is below.
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 10:32 AM
To: Reines, Philippe I
Subject: Request for comment
Hey Philippe:
A few quick questions for you. Why didn’t the State Department search the consulate and find AMB Steven’s diary first? What other potential valuable intelligence was left behind that could have been picked up by apparently anyone searching the grounds? Was any classified or top secret material also left? Do you still feel that there was adequate security at the compound, considering it was not only overrun but sensitive personal effects and possibly other intelligence remained out for anyone passing through to pick up? Your statement on CNN sounded pretty defensive–do you think it’s the media’s responsibility to help secure State Department assets overseas after they’ve been attacked?
Let me know if you have a second.Michael
______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:
Good morning Michael
I’m adding my colleague Toria Nuland who I believe you know. She has addressed much of your questions below during her daily press briefings, so I’ll let her weigh in to remind you of what’s already been thoroughly answered. As far as the tone of my email, I think you’re misreading mine as much as I’m misreading yours as being needlessly antagonistic.
But on your questions pertaining to CNN’s handling of the diary:
• You know that all USG personnel were evacuated from Benghazi after the attack. So I’m not sure why you’re asking why State didn’t find the diary first.
• On material, I’ll let Toria reiterate, but the answer is no. Though you might want to ask CNN if they took anything else from the crime scene that they haven’t yet told anyone about.
• In terms of the media’s responsibility, I’ll start with the outlandish statement that I believe the media does have responsibilities. Your question seems to imply they have none and any expectation of responsible behavior is too much to ask. To be specific:I believe CNN had the responsibility to act as human beings and be sensitive to their loss when they first approached the family.
I believe CNN had a responsibility to not make promises to the family it would not keep.
If that’s too much to ask, I believe CNN had at the very least a responsibility to make their intentions on the use of Chris’s diary clear to the family from the outset.
I believe CNN had a responsibility to not deceive its own viewers for more than 48 hours on the source of their reporting, using convoluted attribution they themselves had to clarify, before admitting it was the diary they were relying on.
I believe that when they finally did admit to using Chris’s diary, they had a responsibility to their viewers and to the family to explain why they broke their pledge.
I believe that many within CNN agree with everything I’m saying.
More than anything else, I believe that CNN – since they had already read every word of the diary before calling the family on Friday the 14th, the day Chris’s remains were returned home – had all the information they needed at that point to make an editorial decision on whether the contents of the diary compelled them to report on it. I believe the time to invoke their standards to justify using the diary came six days late. I believe that CNN, if they felt strongly that they had an obligation to use the diary should never have presented the family with a choice in the first place that they’d later disregard.
http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4563 A few more “really bad weeks” like last week for Mitt Romney and somebody will have to stick a fork in President Obama. He’ll be done. Despite the hammering Mr. Romney took from the president and his media claque, he moved from 5 or 6 points behind in the Gallup Poll to a dead-even […]
http://www.meforum.org/3343/christian-persecution Two Christians living in the Islamic world under arrest and awaiting execution—the one charged with apostasy, the other with blasphemy—were just released. According to a September 8 report on CNN, “A Christian pastor sentenced to death in Iran for apostasy was reunited with his family Saturday after a trial court acquitted him… Pastor Youcef […]
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3365/offense-against-the-prophet Politicians in the world’s most powerful nation are trying to outdo themselves in showing they feel more offense even than those people who claim to be most offended. If a film flops in the middle of the internet and nobody hears it, can it still be “offensive?” “Anti-Muslim film” is by now probably one […]
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3364/european-union-hezbollah These measures indicate that Western Governments are aware of the threat Hezbollah poses to Western security. Nevertheless for reasons of appeasement, they refuse to declare the organization a terrorist group — a classification which would allow the blocking of Hezbollah funds and the seizure of its assets. The Lebanon-based Islamic organization Hezbollah is one […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/obama_hurt_my_feelings_when_he_destroyed_the_constitution.html No, you weren’t dreaming when you read the statement of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, as homicidal mobs raged outside its doors on 9/11. “The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers […]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NI25Ak01.html SAMARIA – I am in Samaria, the northern half of the West Bank, inside a cement shed in a drab industrial park loaded with high-tech equipment, hearing a harangue by a fiftyish fellow wearing a knit skullcap , a torn t-shirt, shorts and sandals. His name is Amichai Lourie, and he points to a […]
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/24/as-the-world-burns For the last week, the election debate has been focused on the existential question of how much impact will result from Mitt Romney’s “47%” remark. The campaign suffers from a malaise that can only be cured by a real crisis such as Obama replacing Joe Biden with Paris Hilton or Dave Letterman. In that […]
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19096.xml For the last two weeks, the American people have been encouraged by Team Obama – both official spokesmen for the administration, its champions in the press and other partisans – to believe a number of national security calumnies that can only be described as surrealistically epic lies and dangerous deceptions. Far more than the […]
