As for "the truth",
what is now emerging is that the White House was *not* part of the process by which the initial State Department talking points were put together. Those were based on arguments between the CIA and State on which of them would get to present the narrative. State won, and based on worries that Congress would lambaste them on security issues chose to downplay the involvement of militia fighters. The omission of the mention of the terrorist group involved was negotiated by State with the CIA based on worries by State that that would reveal classified information (as was any initial mention of the CIA annex). The CIA was willing to release the name initially, but State, FBI and Justice disagreed, feeling also that it would interfere with the investigation on site. The CIA also removed mentions of Ansar Al-Shia, again for reasons of intelligence sourcing, but left in mentions of five other attacks, which State removed on the worries about blame for security faults.
So the truth is that the White House was not involved. The edits were led by Victoria Nuland, the chief spokesperson for State, who was afraid that Congress would come after them, not the White House. And note that Congress *was* informed of the situation on the ground as it was understood by both the CIA and State, and it was not an issue until the Republicans hauled it out, twice, to make it one. The fact that they did so by stretching the truth in numerous ways speaks for itself.
The worst sin here seems to be that the State Department didn't want to be jumped by Republicans for arguably poor preparations (and bad judgement on the Ambassador's part, I guess). Ironically, that left them often to another line of attack which they did not anticipate.
The Intelligence Committee was briefed by the CIA and State in November and Congress had access to the information over the months following the attack. They were made aware of the details and Republicans waited until now to turn it into an issue. They were aware that the CIA had characterized this as terrorist activity, but did not want that released right away because of it's possible effects on the investigation, and the classified nature of the information.
Finally, as for truth, it was the Ambassador who decided to break protocol and spend the night in Benghazi, something he'd never done before, in spite of knowing the history of recent attacks. He was scheduled to return to Tripoli for the night, then would come back the next day. If we're crucifying people for bad decisions, doesn't he come into the picture at all? He was the one making the choices, after all.
Or maybe that's just something to be ignored, seeing as his choices can't be pinned on Obama, and he functions better as a dead martyr than a leader who made a bad judgement call.
...
Congress knew terrorists were involved, within days. McClatchey and other news sources reported within 12 hours that the Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister had stated that this was terrorist action. The CIA put that in it's initial assessments. State removed most of the mentions but still alluded to it. Justice and FBI want the information held back. State ultimately prevailed after about 12 or 14 drafts between them and the CIA. Oh, and the transcripts of those drafts and deliberations were given to the Committee two months ago. The Republicans on the Committee said nothing about it until now.
The White House insisted that the term "consulate" be changed to "diplomatic post". That's the extent of it's editing.
Quite a smoking gun.
