Why we'll never stop arguing about Benghazi

The journalism’s been all over the map. The volume of reporting on Benghazi is enormous—and that means alternate explanations are available to those seeking one. And not just on Fox News: According to previous Times reporting, for example, U.S. officials believed members of the Jamal network, named for Egyptian militant Mohamed al-Jamal (also known as Muhammad Jamal Abu Ahmad) and known to have al Qaeda ties, had participated in the Benghazi attack. But when the State Department formally designated the network a terrorist group in October 2013, it made no mention of Benghazi—and Kirkpatrick doesn’t mention Jamal in his story. That may be because the connection is murky: When Egyptian authorities captured him and several others in December 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported, “Aside from a possible indirect connection through Mr. Ahmad, U.S. officials have said they can’t confirm connections between the five men detained in the raid and the Benghazi attacks.” Even so, the mere fact that people with al Qaeda ties were present wouldn’t prove that al Qaeda planned the assault.

A matter of interpretation. Perhaps the most suggestive evidence tying the Benghazi attacks to al Qaeda is an intercepted phone call first reported by Eli Lake of the Daily Beast. Lake’s sources saw the gloating call as evidence that the assault was a planned terrorist attack, but the Times is dimissive. Writes Kirkpatrick: “The only intelligence connecting Al Qaeda to the attack was an intercepted phone call that night from a participant in the first wave of the attack to a friend in another African country who had ties to members of Al Qaeda, according to several officials briefed on the call. But when the friend heard the attacker’s boasts, he sounded astonished, the officials said, suggesting he had no prior knowledge of the assault.” Analysts tend to work in shades of gray, not black and white—leaving ample room for individual officials to view the same evidence differently. How are readers to judge whose anonymous sources have it right?