[ See my earlier post below, "Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has Secretive Meeting at White House with President Obama" 5/29/30 about yesterday's not-so-secret Clinton-Obama lunch ]
SELECTIVE RELEASE OF PORTIONS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S NEW BOOK “HARD CHOICES” DAY AFTER HER “SECRET” WHITE HOUSE LUNCH WITH THE PRESIDENT IS NO MERE COINCIDENCE
After the events May 29th and 30th, 2014, both the responsible right-wing press and GOP congressional investigators need to focus part of their Benghazi inquiries or at least a few of their queries on what was said about Benghazi during former Secretary of State Clinton's and President Obama’s not-so-well-kept secret lunch at the White House Thursday.
A key Benghazi portion of Hillary Clinton's soon to be released memoir was given a strategic pre-release to Politico, also sometime this past Thursday. According to some normally pro-Hillary sources, a 34-page chapter entitled “Benghazi: Under Attack.” from her soon-to-be-released book, “Hard Choices,” is Hillary Clinton’s most complete account of the 9/11/12 attack on the U.S. Special Mission (sometimes referred to as "embassy" or "consulate") in Benghazi to date (See e.g., “Exclusive: Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi chapter” by Maggie Haberman, 5/30/14, Politico [http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/hillary-clintons-benghazi-chapter-107240.html?hp=t1]; see also “Hillary Clinton: I won’t play politics with Benghazi” by Anne Gearan & Philip Rucker, 5/30/14, Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-i-wont-play-politics-with-benghazi/2014/05/30/d99b8cdc-e803-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html]). That particular chapter was a portion of her book that apparently had been released to Politico.
Ken Thomas of the Associated Press gives this take on the early-released portions of Clinton’s book: “Clinton takes responsibility for the loss of life in the attack but writes that there have been ‘a regrettable amount of misinformation, speculation and flat-out deceit’ by some in politics and the media. *** ‘I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans. It's just plain wrong, and it's unworthy of our great country,’ Clinton writes. ‘Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me.’ *** Clinton's account of the Benghazi attack is one of the most anticipated sections of her forthcoming book, which will be released June 10 and will describe her four years at the State Department....” ( See “Report: Hillary Clinton defends response to Benghazi” by Ken Thomas, 5/30/14, Associated Press [http://www.benningtonbanner.com/ci_25862983/report-hillary-clinton-defends-response-benghazi]).
The post in Politico did not publish the entire chapter but quoted heavily from it. Reports indicate that sources close to Mrs. Clinton confirmed that Politicos’s report of the contents of the chapter are accurate. According to Maggie Haberman’s account in the Politico post cited above, Hillary Clinton says, “...the details of the Benghazi attacks have been clouded ‘in part because of continuing turmoil in Libya. And despite the best efforts of officials from across our government … there will never be perfect clarity on everything that happened. … But that should not be confused with a lack of effort to discover the truth or to share it with the American people.’...”
In addition to the apparent release of the “...Benghazi..” chapter of Hillary Clinton’s book, the Washington Post article made particular note that, “Democratic political operatives, Clinton supporters and foreign policy experts met Friday to coordinate strategy for discussing the Benghazi attacks as Clinton begins the rollout of her book. Longtime Clinton message manager Philippe Reines spoke to the group, which gathered for a “much broader focus on national security, because it has bubbled up as an issue,” according to a participant in the meeting. The participant spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the closed-door session.”
Thus, with the selective release of the main Benghazi part of Secretary Clinton’s book together with the coordinated gathering of Clinton supporters to go over Benghazi talking points today, it is virtually impossible that these matters were not discussed between Mrs. Clinton and President Obama at their lunch yesterday. It was no accident that the unscheduled lunch happened so close in time to the selective rollout of Hillary Clinton’s cleaned-up written version of her Benghazi recollections. It would test credulity for anybody to claim that nothing about Benghazi and what Hillary had written about it, and how that was to be discussed by her supporters, had been discussed over Hillary’s and the President’s luncheon courses.
[THIS POST UPDATED 5/31/14 3:49 AM EDT]
