Anyone with a modicum of intellectual honesty knows that Susan Rice lied on September 16, 2012, when she blamed the Benghazi attacks on a video. Now, thanks to a House Subcommittee, there may be evidence that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney lied on September 10, 2012.

The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight Investigations, chaired by Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) is attacking the Benghazi stonewall from an interesting, new angle. It has to do with the Obama administration’s contention that the reason no help arrived in Benghazi was because resources could not have been mobilized in time. Roby is leading an effort that includes conceding that point while opening up a new front.

Roby: Pursuing Benghazi from a different angle.

Instead of focusing on whether resources could have been deployed, Roby’s Subcommittee is parking a refutation to that assertion and shifting toward a new question:

Why weren’t those resources ready?

Fox News’ James Rosen has picked up on this and grilled White House Press Secretary Jay Carney about a Press Release issued by Carney one day before the Benghazi attacks last year. Before taking a look at the video of the exchange between Rosen and Carney, have a look at the Press Release:

Press Release issued by Jay Carney one day prior to Benghazi attacks.

Rosen bases his questions to Carney on the inconsistencies between the assertions in the press release and how ill-prepared the military was to meet the standard implied that it had met, in the press release. There’s another aspect to this too. General Carter Ham, who was the commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) at the time, was not consulted prior to the release.

Via Fox News:

General Carter Ham, then the commander of U.S. Africa Command, the combatant command with jurisdiction over Libya, told the House investigators he was not consulted as part of the meetings referred to in the White House press release.

Here is the October 17th exchange between Rosen and Carney. Note how Carney – more than once – objects to Rosen’s use of the word “poor” to describe the ability of the military to respond on the night of the Benghazi attacks (based on the standard set in Carney’s press release, “poor” would be a word he should agree with). Instead of addressing this fact, Carney does what all smear merchants who are busted do – he smears his accuser by charging that Rosen is just trying to “Creat(e) an exchange for Fox”:

After the Accountability Review Board (ARB) completed its report, Chairmen Thomas Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen took questions at the State Department. Here is a portion of what Mullen said, via Terence Jeffrey CNS News from last December:

“We looked at the force posture very specifically, and while we had a lot of forces in Europe both at sea and on land, it is not reasonable that they could have responded… in any kind of timely way,” said Mullen. “This was over in a matter of about 20 or 30 minutes with respect to the Special Mission specifically. And we had no forces ready or tethered, if you will, focused on that mission so that they could respond, nor would I expect we would have.” {emphasis ours}

Mullen didn’t “expect” that “forces” would be “ready or tethered” for an attack lasting “20 or 30 minutes” but would he expect them to be able to respond to an attack that lasted nearly two hours? Note what Jeffrey wrote next:

“…a CIA timeline of the Sept. 11 events, which was provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official, and which generally comports with the description of events in the ARB’s own report, shows that about one hour and fifty minutes elapsed between the time the State Department’s “Special Mission” compound first came under attack and the moment when a rescue team from the nearby CIA “Annex” was able to extract the surviving U.S. personnel from that mission.” {emphasis ours}

When dealing with bureaucrats and administration officials in a corrupt government, it’s important to examine what was not said. In the case of Mullen, he did not say forces could not have been ready to respond to a one hour and fifty minute firefight or a firefight that lasted eight additional hours. He simply shortened the time of the first firefight and applied a standard to a shorter battle that didn’t exist.

Notwithstanding Mullen’s attempt to massage facts, the debate between investigators and State has focused on whether military resources could have been deployed. Congress has argued that they should have been deployed; the ARB and Obama administration have both argued that they couldn’t have gotten to the fight in time.

Based on a certain press release dated September 10, 2012, which was attributed to Jay Carney, we may have yet another Benghazi lie on our hands.