I thought that Jay Carney was terrible during the Friday press conference.   He looked frustrated and he gave answers that were so obviously incorrect that even the liberal media noticed.  Then I saw Obama at his press conference today, and he made Carney look good.  Obama is still claiming that he declared it an act of terrorism on September 12, but we know that is a lie.  The following interview given to CBS the same day proves that Obama did not call it an act of terrorism.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/11/05/benghazi-attack/1684503/

Kroft: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya attack. Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?

Obama: Well it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans

CBS conveniently did not release this interview until the day of the November election.  If they had released it right after Obama told the same lie during the debate it might have had a major impact on the election.

But what may cause the most problem for Obama is when he said the following:

“Keep in mind by the way these so-called talking points that were prepared for Susan Rice, five, six days after the event occurred, pretty much matched the assessments that I was receiving at that time in my presidential daily briefing.” 

He claimed that the daily Presidential briefing pretty much matched the talking points prepared for Susan Rice.  The President’s Daily Brief is prepared by the Director of National Intelligence.  That would be James Clapper.  Since the CIA reported that this was a terrorist attack and never mentioned the video, it seems unlikely that the Presidential Daily Briefing would even mention the video.  Clapper denied making the changes to the original CIA talking points.  It is hard to believe that Obama’s Presidential Daily Briefing made any reference to the video.

Somebody is going to demand to see that Presidential Daily Briefing.  Even if they can’t get access to the briefing itself, they can sure call Clapper and ask him if the Presidential Daily Briefing made reference to the video.  Based on past performance, Clapper has tried to avoid answering questions that could embarrass the President, but I don’t think he will lie if asked a direct question.

Investigators now have grounds to ask:  “what did the President know and when did he know it.”  In his clumsy attempt to put out the fire, Obama just may have poured gas on it.  Perhaps as bad as Jay Carney was last Friday, Obama would have been better off if he had sent in the Carney.

TDM