White House Slams GOP's 'Obsession' with Anti-Islam Film

White House Slams GOP's 'Obsession' with Anti-Islam Film

In the days following the 2012 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, the Obama administration insisted protests against an anti-Islam film posted to YouTube incited the attackers. Wednesday, after Secretary of State Hillary testified in front of the Senate over her role in the episode, White House spokesman Jay Carney blasted Republicans for their “obsession” with the film.

During her testimony, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continued to blame the Benghazi attack on “militants” and got agitated over a question from Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), who asked why the administration illegitimately focused on the video for so long.

As Sen. Johnson tried to pin Clinton down on the issue, the Secretary raised her voice, saying, “The fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest? Or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?”

When reporters asked Carney about Clinton’s testimony, the House spokesman was dismissive.

The Republican Senator’s question about the video, Carney said, was “an obvious political obsession over a series of talking points that again bears no relevance on the central issues.”

No relevance?

In fact, Hillary Clinton herself appeared in a video–as did the President–apologizing to the Muslim world over the video and making sure that Muslims knew that the U.S. denounced it. The only reason this ad was created was because Obama et. al. maintained that the video was a main catalyst for the violence during that period. The video ad ran in Pakistan in the days after the attacks in Benghazi.

Thus, it was the Obama administration that “obsessed” over this anti-Islam video. Republicans just want to know why the Obama administration purposefully lied about the attacks on Benghazi for so long.

That seems pretty relevant.

It all brings to mind Bill Clinton’s claim that it “depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is” when we have an administration basing a week of responses to Benghazi predicated on the claim that it was all over a YouTube video but then blasting Republicans for pointing out that the administration had said this.

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