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The Benghazi attack has turned deeply political even within the State Department, with Clinton turning message management over to one of her most trusted aides, Philippe Reines. Reines, a veteran of Clinton's Senate days and presidential campaign, is a key member of a separate crisis management team that has operated from an office on the ground floor of the department's headquarters. It has focused on preparations for last week's congressional hearing and the department's internal investigation. State Department spokesman Mark Toner called it "a small group of people helping to get materials together for Congress and to support the process." Clinton, meanwhile, has been largely shielded from the Benghazi fallout. Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was tasked five days after the attack with presenting it as a protest gone awry, and Clinton conspicuously avoided questioning as that account unraveled. Even in Clinton's own department, officials have been left in the dark by some of the maneuvering. Some say privately that they see Clinton's gesture less as a case of her falling on her sword for the administration, but presenting herself as the statesman who has accepted her part in any failure. By doing so, they said, she is winning praise from some Republicans and taking herself out of the blame game she said in her statement that she wanted to avoid. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., suggested a more muddied picture, noting that "there are many people that believe that Secretary Clinton may have further political ambitions and this could obviously harm that in one way, but also bring in some additional support, possibly from President Obama, who can't run again." Obama has consistently trumped Romney in polls on foreign policy questions with his frequent reminders to voters that he ended one war in Iraq and was ending another in Afghanistan, and that Osama bin Laden was killed on his watch. But the Benghazi attack has allowed Republicans to widen their criticism of the president, which primarily had been focused on his record on creating jobs and cutting into America's $16 trillion debt. Outrage has spiked since Vice President Joe Biden's comment in last week's debate with Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, that "we weren't told" about requests for extra security at the consulate
-- just a day after State Department officials told Congress they were aware of, and rejected, several such requests. Spokesmen for both the State Department and the White House took pains to make clear that Biden's "we" referred to the White House, where such security requests would not go. Clinton backed up Biden's assertion. "The president and the vice president certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals," she said.
[Associated
Press;
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