Just when you thought the Benghazi-gate scandal couldn't get any more bizarre, a Tampa Bay shock jock named Bubba the Love Sponge makes an appearance. I'm not sure what's more surprising, that or the fact that CIA Director David Petraeus and General John Allen viewed him as enough of a threat to warrant reaching out to State Department socialite Jill Kelley to reach Tampa's mayor in order to prevent the Love Sponge from following through on a pledge to "deep fat fry" a Qur'an.
Does Bubba the Love Sponge Clem have anything to say about the fact that Tampa's mayor called him a "complete moron" in an email to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley?
Does he ever.
"For Bob Buckhorn to call me a moron? I mean, are you kidding me? Let's talk about moron status," the shock jock told the Tampa Bay Times.
So why did Tampa's mayor call the Love Sponge a moron?
Kelley emailed Buckhorn earlier this year, saying then-CIA director David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen were emailing her about a plan Clem had to "deep fat fry" a copy of the Koran. She said Allen was worried that the radio stunt could put troops in harm's way and was going to call her from Afghanistan to discuss a next step.
In an email response to Kelley, Buckhorn wrote, "This Bubba the Love Sponge is a complete moron."
Clem said the people who got him to stop the Koran burning were his lawyer and the heads of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and the Tampa Police Department. But he said Kelley "probably did get intel to have me stop it, and that's the problem itself."
A Bubba's Army truck circled the Bayshore Boulevard block of the Kelley home for about a half-hour Friday, pumping a parody to the tune of Falco's Rock Me Amadeus about Petraeus.
Ladies and gentlemen, Bubba the Love Sponge is now officially part of Benghazi-gate but the much larger issue is that four star Generals like Petraeus and Allen are more concerned with what a small town Gainesville pastor and a Tampa Bay radio personality do with Qur'ans than what radicals who follow the Qur'an plan to do to us.
Before checking out the video, have a look at the Love Sponge van as it circled Jill Kelley's home while blaring the Rock Me Amadeus parody:
The headlines that seem to be dominating the news relative to the closed-door testimony of former CIA Director David Petraeus in front of House and Senate Intelligence Committees was that someone changed the CIA's talking points before U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice recited them on five Sunday talk shows on September 16th. Petraeus reportedly told the committees that he knew the attack was coordinated and not the result of a spontaneous reaction to a video.
That is indeed significant but there is another aspect of Petraeus' testimony that warrants further investigation. When House Intelligence committee member, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) was asked if the extramarital affair Petraeus engaged in with biographer Paula Broadwell in any way influenced the former CIA Director's testimony on September 14th, King volunteered that Petraeus said that it did not.
Hopefully, the next question that was asked was:
Did you know at the time of your September 14th testimony that the administration knew about your extramarital affair?
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters indicated on November 9th that he thought the administration likely held the affair over Petraeus' head, as did Charles Krauthammer on November 13th. If such a thing were true, it would constitute blackmail and be a much more serious infraction by the White House than altering the CIA talking points from September 14th by taking out any reference to al-Qaeda and putting in that line about the attack being caused by the anti-Muhammad video.
While it is a bit of a bombshell for Petraeus to admit that he knew the 9/11/12 attack was terrorism and not related to a video, he almost had to concede that ground based on what had come out so far. Not doing so would have opened up an entirely new can of worms.
Also take note of what King said in the above video when Petraeus allegedly insisted that he knew it was terrorism all along. King made reference to the fact that Petraeus clearly left a different impression during his September 14th testimony. Here is the opening of an ABC news report at the time:
The attack that killed four Americans in the Libyan consulate began as a spontaneous protest against the film “The Innocence of Muslims,” but Islamic militants who may have links to Al Qaeda used the opportunity to launch an attack, CIA Director David Petreaus told the House Intelligence Committee today according to one lawmaker who attended a closed-door briefing.
Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intel committee, said Petraeus laid out “a chronological order exactly what we felt happened, how it happened, and where we’re going in the future.”
“In the Benghazi area, in the beginning we feel that it was spontaneous – the protest- because it went on for two or three hours, which is very relevant because if it was something that was planned, then they could have come and attacked right away,” Ruppersberger, D-Md., said following the hour-long briefing by Petraeus. “At this point it looks as if there was a spontaneous situation that occurred and that as a result of that, the extreme groups that were probably connected to al Qaeda took advantage of that situation and then the attack started.”
This is important because it looks like Petraeus wants to say he didn't say what he said. King made reference to that but doesn't underscore it enough. On September 14th, Petraeus seemed to allege that the attack began as a spontaneous reaction which drew in al-Qaeda elements. On November 16th, he seemed to say the attack was coordinated and planned in advance by al-Qaeda elements.
Let's go back to that October 26th speech by Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' mistress. In it, she said two things of import relative to the discrepancies between how Petraeus testified on September 14th and November 16th. First, at the 1:30 mark, Broadwell asserts that Petraeus knew what was going on within twenty-four hours of the attack in Benghazi and then says everyone thought that all of the protests were the result of the video.
So which is it? Did Petraeus know within 24 hours of the attack that it was an act of terrorism that had nothing to do with the video or did he think it was the result of the video? Inconsistencies between what he said on September 14th and November 16th absolutely exist. That is what makes this an issue of Petraeus' credibility.
That is why questions about the possibility that Petraeus' September 14th testimony being unduly influenced by an administration that knew of his extramarital affair should continue to be asked.
That would mean blackmail, which would be an impeachable offense. This debate about whether the talking points were changed, though important, pales by comparison.
This is great on so many levels. First of all, our newly elected U.S. Senator from Texas Ted Cruz is absolutely right here. Mitt Romney did french kiss Barack Obama in the third debate. The first debate between the two won a lot of people over to Romney's side because it was the first time we saw the Republican nominee actually fight. He surged in the polls, gaining about 5 percentage points.
In the third debate - which was supposed to be about foreign policy at a time when Barack Obama was on the ropes over Benghazi - Romney stopped fighting.
I can honestly say that as the sages were championing Romney's performance as brilliant and presidential, I was yelling at my television in real time and didn't even watch the entire debate. It was truly pathetic.
It's also nice to see someone talk like this after winning an election.
