Top story: The almost 100 pages of White House Benghazi emails have shown Republicans once again to have overplayed their hand.
- The final verdict? “There is no evidence of a grand conspiracy to invent a #Benghazi cover story in the email dump.” (Steven Dennis)
- “The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails.” (The Washington Post)
- You can read the emails here. (First Read)
- The key source of debate was between CIA and State Department. (The Atlantic)
- “That is the opposite of the line peddled by GOP sources Friday portraying some kind of sinister role for WH.” (Ryan Lizza)
- The big item out of the emails is that then-CIA Director David Petraeus was unhappy with the final with the final talking points. (The New York Times)
- “Then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public.” (The Associated Press)
- This is probably another skewed poll but Pew Research says most Americans aren’t paying attention to the Benghazi investigation. In fact the number — 44% — is less than the amount by which Mitt Romney won. (Pew Research)
- “Larger journalism problem now than when my Dad cited it as 1st WaPo ombudsman 43 yrs ago: ‘tendency to make big pictures out of small facts’.” (John Harwood)
- But it’s not just that Republicans were wrong (mostly). They also unfairly maligned Susan Rice and owe her an apology. (Jeffrey Goldberg) and former NSC spokesman (Tommy Vietor)
- “So are Rs drifting from Rice’s Benghazi talking points to Carney’s WH talking points about Rice’s Benghazi talking points?” (John Harwood)
- “Her crime was simply to lean on a document that was produced in a chaotic atmosphere by bureaucrats working with imperfect information and perhaps some turf to protect.” (Bloomberg View)
John Flowers