◼ There is something particularly ugly in a democratic society when government officials lie — or in the case in point, tell half-truths. - Boston Herald editorial
Last week in the wake of a damning report on how some State Department officials handled the security situation at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi prior to and after Sept. 11, it was announced that four officials had resigned. Well, at least that’s what most of us thought they had announced.
This is the way State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland put it: that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “has accepted Eric Boswell’s decision to resign as assistant secretary for diplomatic security, effective immediately. The other three individuals (deemed responsible by the Accountability Review Board) have been relieved of their current duties.”
It seemed fitting punishment after the Review Board found “systemic failures” in security that led to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
But, it turns out that Boswell was merely switching desks at State, giving up his high-profile presidential appointment as assistant secretary, but not what were described by the New York Post as his “other portfolios.”
The other three — including the utterly reprehensible Charlene Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary who insisted on outsourcing security to “local Libyans and army men” — are merely on administrative leave and are actually expected to return following what amounts to a winter break.
That’s a far cry from the heads-will-roll statement initially put out by the State Department presumably to give the rest of us the impression that actions have consequences and that there is a price to be paid for incompetence — especially a level of incompetence that resulted in the deaths of four brave Americans. Headed into term two, this administration continues its lying ways.
