XPost: dc.politics, atl.general, uw.clubs.vietnamese   
   XPost: alt.politics.bush   
   From: multiple.felonies@hillaryclinton.com   
      
   Although Hillary Clinton prefers to describe Sidney Blumenthal   
   as nothing but “an old friend,” NR has obtained an exclusive   
   copy of one of the now-infamous e-mails he sent Clinton on the   
   war in Libya, and it suggests otherwise. The e-mail, which   
   Blumenthal provided to Benghazi Committee investigators earlier   
   this week, shows him advising Clinton on a most delicate matter:   
   How she should respond to the fall of Libyan dictator Moammar   
   Qaddafi.   
      
   Blumenthal e-mailed a list of talking points to Clinton the day   
   after rebel forces captured Tripoli, prefaced by a   
   congratulatory statement exhorting the former presidential   
   candidate to make sure she received credit for the U.S.   
   intervention in Libya. The message was only recently provided by   
   Blumenthal to the congressional panel investigating the Benghazi   
   terrorist attacks, despite Clinton’s previous assurance that she   
   had turned over “all” her correspondence pertaining to Libya.   
      
   “First, brava! This is a historic moment and you will be   
   credited for realizing it,” he wrote in the August 22, 2011 memo   
   to Clinton. “When Qaddafi himself is finally removed, you should   
   of course make a public statement before the cameras wherever   
   you are, even in the driveway of your vacation house. You must   
   go on camera. You must establish yourself in the historical   
   record at this moment. The most important phrase is ‘successful   
   strategy.’”   
      
   Blumenthal’s e-mail, included below, provides a window into how   
   Clinton’s brain-trust plotted her movements in the days leading   
   up to the fall of Qaddafi’s regime. It also makes explicit the   
   degree to which her advisers misjudged the situation on the   
   ground in Libya and the Middle East, and shows that her team   
   wasn’t above making foreign-policy statements with an eye on   
   President Obama’s looming reelection bid — and her own political   
   future.   
      
   The longtime Clinton loyalist expressed contempt for the   
   “flamingly stupid ‘leading from behind’ phrase” that a White   
   House official coined to summarize Obama’s foreign-policy   
   doctrine. “To refute this passive construction on US policy and   
   help remove it as an albatross from the administration as it   
   enters the election year, do not be defensive but rather simply   
   explain that the US had a strategy from the start, stuck with it   
   and has succeeded,” Blumenthal wrote.   
      
   Clinton echoed that sentiment while cooperating with CBS for a   
   story about how she formed an international coalition against   
   Qaddafi in the absence of direct orders from the president. “We   
   set into motion a policy that was on the right side of history,   
   on the right side of our values, on the right side of our   
   strategic interests in the region,” she is quoted in the story,   
   published Oct. 31, 2011. A week earlier, she had “established   
   herself in the historical record,” as Blumenthal advised, but   
   she did so by visiting Tripoli rather than with an impromptu   
   speech from her the driveway of her vacation home. “I am proud   
   to stand here on the soil of a free Libya,” she said during the   
   trip. “The opportunity now in Libya is to not only chart a new   
   future for Libyans but to stand as a model for democracy and   
   freedom.” The statement comports with Blumenthal’s suggestion   
   that Clinton emphasize that the Libyan intervention “helped   
   advance the cause of democracy and freedom throughout the Arab   
   world.”   
      
   Blumenthal also advised Clinton to tie the Libyan intervention   
   to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s struggle to stay in power.   
   “We have put Assad on notice that the sands of time have run out   
   for him as well,” he wrote in the talking points. Clinton did   
   not make such a claim in the battery of interviews she conducted   
   during the Libya trip, but she waged an internal struggle from   
   2011 to 2012 to persuade President Obama to back the Syrian   
   rebels. (He refused, but Blumenthal must have appreciated   
   Obama’s statement that the death of Qaddafi signaled to the   
   Middle East that “the rule of an iron fist inevitably comes to   
   an end.”) Blumenthal concluded with a flourish, invoking the   
   ancient Greek goddess who functioned as the Muse of History.   
   “This is a very big moment historically and for you,” he wrote.   
   “History will tell your part in it. You are vindicated. But   
   don’t wait, help Clio now.” On August 8, 2012 — just under a   
   year after Blumenthal wrote his triumphant note — U.S.   
   Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens sent a cable to the State   
   Department warning of a “security vacuum” in Benghazi to   
   buttress his repeated requests for increased security. “His   
   requests for additional security were denied or ignored,”   
   according to a colleague. On September 11, 2012, he was killed,   
   along with three other Americans, in a terrorist attack on the   
   Benghazi consulate.   
      
   Full memo below:   
      
   http://www.scribd.com/doc/268992426/Sidney-Blumenthal-Memo   
      
   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419931/nr-exclusive-   
   blumenthals-e-mail-hillary-spinning-qaddafis-fall-joel-gehrke   
             
      
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