PDBs

In my last post, I wrote the following as a comment on the Democrat reaction to the rekindled interest in Benghazi:

... the administration's many protectors in the media and among most Democrats are using everything possible to delegitimize the Select Committee before it have even begun its work, denigrate those of us who would like answers to the questions listed above (e.g., "Benghazi truthers" or "Benghazi-ists"), and convince the American people that there is nothing new here, we should "move on." The viciousness of their attacks will escalate if the committee begins to cut the strands that make up the administration's web of lies.

Today, we learn that the Democrats are considering boycotting the select committee, apparently because they are fully satisfied that politically motivated lies conjured not to inform the public but to protect the election prospects of Barack Obama are perfectly acceptable behavior in our country. Every Democrat spokeperson, parroted by the administration's trained media hamsters, uses the word "conspiracy," in an effort to give those who are unsatisfied with the administration's stonewalling a patina of craziness. Stated simply, the Democrats want all of this to be over.

There is a way that can happen, and not surprisingly, it's well within the authority of the sitting president to make it happen.

Marc A. Thiessen explains how:

President Obama claims he was only repeating what the intelligence community told him when his administration asserted that the attack in Benghazi began with a spontaneous protest inspired by an Internet video. If that’s the case, there is a simple way to prove it: Give the new congressional select committee investigating Benghazi his daily intelligence briefings that show exactly what he was told.

There is precedent for doing so. In 2004, at the request of the 9/11 Commission, President George W. Bush declassified and publicly released the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) delivered to him before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. No sitting president had ever declassified a PDB while still in office. But Bush did it anyway, releasing the report titled “Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.” It warned that the FBI had detected “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings” but contained no actionable intelligence that could have stopped the 9/11 attacks from happening.

This president and his administration have been know to lie to the American public to gain political advantage. That's not opinion, it's fact as in "You can keep your doctor." But maybe that was a one off, maybe this time, the president is telling the truth.

Let's take a look at the intelligence briefings and find out. If, in fact, the CIA argued that it was the video and only the video that drove otherwise law-abiding Libyans to murder four Americans, the Select Committee will have answers to at least some of its questions and can move the investigative process forward rapidly.

Thiessen writes:

Of course, it is highly unlikely that is what the Benghazi PDBs would show. That’s because when the intelligence community presents judgments to the president, it always does two things: First, it attaches a level of confidence (low, medium or high) to its judgments. And second, it includes dissenting views, if there are any.

The PDBs would reveal what level of confidence the intelligence community put in the judgment that the Benghazi attack was video-related and spontaneous. They would also tell us whether that confidence level declined between the time of the Sept. 12, 2012, attack and when Susan Rice made her now infamous rounds on the Sunday shows on Sept. 16.

The Benghazi PDBs would also reveal what dissenting views in the intelligence community were presented to the president and his top aides. We know that by the time Rice went on the air, acting CIA director Michael Morell had informed the White House that the CIA station chief on the ground in Libya had dissented from the spontaneous-protest narrative. Moreover, Gen. Robert Lovell, who served as deputy director of intelligence for U.S. Africa Command at the time of the attack, testified last week that our military intelligence community determined within hours that “there was no demonstration gone terribly awry” and that this was a terrorist attack. The PDBs would tell us if, when and how those dissenting judgments were shared with the president and his top national security advisers.

Since the Democrats are sick of this entire affair and want it to end, why not lobby the president to release the PDBs related to Benghazi. If he and his administration are telling the truth, there's absolutely no reason not to do so.

UPDATE
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Ann Althouse takes a more detailed look at the Democrat's attempt to deligitimize anyone who still have questions about the administration's conduct. She suggests that behind the scenes, Democrat strategists are thinking something like this:

We need people to hear the word "Benghazi" as a buzzword of nuts. Somebody says "Benghazi" and the reflex reaction is "Oh, no, here we go again with the conspiracy theories." It should be like when somebody brings up Area 51 or Vince Foster was murdered. A normal person is like "Ugh! Leave me alone." That's the way "Benghazi" should feel. Somebody says "Benghazi" and all anybody thinks is "conspiracy nutcase." Nobody who wants to be considered mainstream in this election should be able to say "Benghazi" anymore. Case closed, and you've built in the respect for Hillary saying "What difference at this point does it make?" Everybody decent — if we get this idea across — will react to Benghazi with a Hillary-esque exasperated "What difference does it make?" If it makes a difference to you, you're crazy. This is a circus. You're a clown. A scary clown. Boo! Aliens! Benghazi! Vince Foster!

Aided and abetted by their trained hamsters in the media, the Dems are really good at this stuff. They might just pull it off. But if they think that's a win, they are sorely mistaken. Sadly, when we allow our leaders to lie with impunity, and then lie about their lies, no one wins.