Now that their guy will be in the White House for another term, the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, has apparently commenced its "Cleaning up Benghazi" project -- as, naturally, has the Obama administration.
As part of that effort, the wire service's Greg Risling, reporting from Los Angeles at 6:14 p.m., made only the vaguest of references to how the film "roiled the Middle East" and "sparked violence ... killing dozens," without mentioning how it was dishonestly leveraged by terrorists as cover for protests and violence, and of course without mentioning how Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and so many others in his administration spent well over a week -- despite clearly knowing better -- citing the film as the cause of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya which killed four Americans, including Libyan ambassador Christopher Stevens. Excerpts follow the jump (saved here in full for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes; bolds are mine):
Calif. man behind anti-Muslim film gets prison
The California man behind an anti-Muslim film that roiled the Middle East was sentenced Wednesday to a year in prison for violating his probation stemming from a 2010 bank fraud conviction by lying about his identity.
U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder immediately sentenced Mark Basseley Youssef after he admitted to four of the eight alleged violations, including obtaining a fraudulent California driver's license. Prosecutors agreed to drop the other four allegations under an agreement with Youssef's attorneys, which also included more probation.
None of the violations had to do with the content of "Innocence of Muslims," a film that depicts Mohammad as a religious fraud, pedophile and womanizer.
However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale argued Youseff's lies about his identity have caused harm to others, including the film's cast and crew. The movie sparked violence in the Middle East, killing dozens.
"They had no idea he was a recently released felon," Dugdale said Wednesday. "Had they known that, they might have had second thoughts" about being part of the film.
Youssef's attorney Steven Seiden said his client admits to being the film's scriptwriter but had no other involvement except what he described as being a "cultural adviser."
Youssef, 55, was arrested in late September, just weeks after he went into hiding when the deadly violence erupted in the Middle East.
Enraged Muslims had demanded severe punishment for Youssef, with a Pakistani cabinet minister even offering $100,000 to anyone who kills him.
... Federal authorities have said they believe Youssef is responsible for the film, but they haven't said whether he was the person who posted it online.
Administration officials claimed that the short film was the cause the Benghazi attack and other Middle East protests and violence shortly after the September 11 U.S. Embassy breach in Cairo and the Benghazi attack in Libya. That posture didn't officially change until September 19, when Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee that "I would say yes, they (the four Americans) were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy."
White House spokesman James Carney acknowledged the next day (HT Gateway Pundit) that the White House “hadn’t” called Benghazi a “terrorist attack."
The Administration's Press appears to believe that most Americans shouldn't know any of this. After all, it's cleanup time.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
