Picture the Situation Room

President Obama Receives Hurricane Sandy Updates in Situation Room (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) by way of the Hinterland Gazette [?]: 

clockwise from top left:,Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano; FEMA AdministratorCraig Fugate; Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center; Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood; and Secretary of EnergySteven Chu. Pictured, from left, are: Clark Stevens, assistant press secretary; Emmett Beliveau, director of the Office of the Chief of Staff;John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism; Richard Reed, deputy assistant to the president for homeland security; Chuck Donnell, senior director for resilience; Asha Tribble, senior director for response; Chief of Staff Jack Lew; Alyssa Mastromonaco, deputy chief of staff for operations; Press Secretary Jay Carney; and David Agnew, director for intergovernmental affairs.

 

Writing for this Hinterland Gazette, Janet Shan:

I have no doubt that President Obama will handle this exceptionally well, as he did when he sent Navy SEALs to assassinate Osama bin Laden.

 

 

 

No such photo seems to exist for the White House Situation Room on 9/11 of this year, when our consulate in Benghazi was under attack and four Americans were killed.

 

Update: Hot Air tells us that this morning there's a "blistering column" at the Washington Times by retired Admiral James A. Lyons, who was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations:

Obama needs to come clean on what happened in Benghazi; the American people deserve to know the truth

There is an urgent need for full disclosure of what has become the “Benghazi Betrayal and Cover-up.” The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI and the Pentagon, apparently watched and listened to the assault on the U.S. consulate and cries for help but did nothing. If someone had described a fictional situation with a similar scenario and described our leadership ignoring the pleas for help, I would have said it was not realistic—not in my America – but I would have been proven wrong.

[....]

Having been in a number of similar situations, I know you have to have the courage to do what’s right and take immediate action. Obviously, that courage was lacking for Benghazi. The safety of your personnel always remains paramount. With all the technology and military capability we had in theater, for our leadership to have deliberately ignored the pleas for assistance is not only incomprehensible, it is un-American.

 

Meanwhile, also from Hot Air ... "another curiosity." 

General Carter Han, who commanded AFRICOM on September 11th, had already been rotated back home.  Now we find out he’s leaving the Army altogether.

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

So far, all the major potential culprits in this cover-up are presenting a united front -- and keeping their mouths shut about what really happened. Clinton, Panetta, Petraeus have all evidently decided to heed Ben Franklin's advice and hang together for fear of hanging separately. It's hard to imagine that any one of them gives enough of a damn about Obama to keep quiet for his sake; it's more likely that they're staying mum to save their own scurvy skins. Maybe General Han -- once he's formally out of the service -- will have something noteworthy to say. The country needs a whistle-blower.