It is now known publicly, what was then known to the administration—-that there was in fact no demonstration at the Benghazi consulate prior to the attack.

Rice said in the interview that it had developed, initially, almost as a copycat of the demonstrations elsewhere, and that then extremists came and that the situation then escalated into a much more violent episode.

That wasn’t true. The Benghazi incident did not begin as a demonstration. It began as an outright attack. The first people on the scene were carrying guns and shooting or moving into position to shoot better.

It can’t get any clearer than that. Rice’s talking points, assuming as I do that she didn’t stray from them, were at variance with the facts as then known to the authorities, and as now known to all of us.

Her talking points were also at variance with what Petraeus put together. After they left his shop, they were edited. He didn’t write the false script she was given.

The issue is not whether the assault was decided on just hours earlier rather than weeks earlier, nor is it whether the decision to attack was taken in response to the video. The issue is whether there had been a demonstration, that then escalated into an assault as others came to the demonstration and, under cover so to speak of the demonstration, mounted an assault.

There was not any such demonstration. There was not any conversion of the demonstration that wasn’t. There wasn’t any “more violent episode”. It was all violent, right from the start.

It couldn’t get any clearer.