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Fact-checker slams Rice for Libya comments
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, earned two Pinocchios from The Washington Post's fact-checker after telling several Sunday news shows that last week's deadly attack in Libya was unplanned and provoked only by an anti-Islam video.
Rice stuck to those talking points even after the president of Libya's National Congress, Mohamed Magariaf, told CBS that “the way these perpetrators acted and moved, and their choosing the specific date for this so-called demonstration ... leaves us with no doubt that this was preplanned, predetermined.”
“The administration obviously wants to play down the possibility of a planned attack because that would raise broader questions about whether U.S. intelligence and embassy security in Libya were adequate. But Rice’s comments strain credulity, especially after Libya’s president declared without a doubt that the attack was planned,” The Washington Post concludes. “We may adjust depending on the information that emerges in the coming weeks, but at the moment the publicly available evidence stands in stark contrast to Rice’s talking points.”
According to the Post's rating scale, two Pinocchios are reserved for statements that contain “[s]ignificant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.”
