“You guys tried to obstruct me. You fought me. Only I deserve the award.”

— The female undercover CIA agent heading up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, quoted by the Washington Post, hitting reply-all on an email crediting many of her colleagues for the mission.

Former Sen. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) is being vetted for a possible top national security post in the Obama administration, The Cable reports.

“Hagel was a harsh critic of George W. Bush’s foreign policy, especially his decision to invade and occupy Iraq, which he once called ‘an absolute replay of Vietnam.’ In the years since, he’s remained a strong critic of Republicans in Congress.”

The New York Times reports an inquiry into e-mail exchanges between Gen. John Allen and a Tampa socialite has narrowed to 60 to 70 emails that “bear a fair amount of scrutiny.”

“The official did not disclose the content of the e-mails, but senior Pentagon officials have described the voluminous correspondence between General Allen, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, and the socialite, Jill Kelley, as potentially ‘inappropriate communication.'”

The Economist: “At the most fundamental level, the reason it is absurd to suspect the existence of a ‘cover-up’ over the Benghazi attack is that such a cover-up could not have had any conceivable goal.”

“Back to the beginning: the underlying accusation about Benghazi is that the Obama administration deliberately mischaracterised the terrorist attack there as having grown out of a spontaneous demonstration because that would be less politically damaging. Such a cover-up would have made no sense because the attack would not have been less politically damaging had it grown out of a spontaneous demonstration. The attack on the Benghazi compound would not have been any less politically difficult for the administration if it had grown out of a riot, nor would any normal voter have expected it to be less politically damaging, nor would any normal campaign strategist have expected any normal voter to have expected it to be less politically damaging.”

The FBI found a substantial amount of classified information improperly secured on the personal computer of disgraced CIA director Gen. David Petraeus’ mistress, the New York Post reports.

“The files were discovered on a machine removed from Paula Broadwell’s Charlotte, NC, home as the feds investigated her sordid affair with the military commander whose biography she co-wrote. Investigators also found documents Broadwell admitted taking from secure government buildings, a source told ABC News, adding the government demanded that they all be returned.”

Tres Sugar: Seven bizarre details from the Petraeus affair.

U.S. official says Army has suspended Paula Broadwell’s security clearance, the AP reports.

Gen.. David Petraeus will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein told Politico. But the exact schedule has not been set for his testimony.

High-level officials at the FBI and the Justice Department were notified in the late summer that agents had uncovered what appeared to be an extramarital affair involving CIA director David Petraeus, the New York Times reports.

“But law enforcement officials did not notify anyone outside the F.B.I. or the Justice Department until last week because the investigation was incomplete and initial concerns about possible security breaches, which would demand more immediate action, did not appear to be justified.”

“You know what, somebody the other day said to me that this is as bad as Watergate. Well, nobody died in Watergate. But this is either a massive cover-up or an incompetence that is not acceptable service to the American people.”

— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in an interview with Face the Nation, on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.

A White House official tells The Cable that Vice President Joe Biden “speaks only for himself and President Barack Obama, and neither man was aware that U.S. officials in Libya had asked the State Department for more security before the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.”

Biden has come under fire for saying at Thursday night’s debate, “We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there.”

NBC News reports Mitt Romney said today, “The vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of State
Department officials. He’s
doubling down on denial.”

Eli Lake: “In the days following the killing of the U.S. ambassador and two ex-Navy SEALs, President Obama and top State Department officials portrayed the attack as a spontaneous reaction to an Internet video depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammad as a lascivious brute…”

“Now there is mounting evidence that the White House’s initial portrayal of the attacks as a mere outgrowth of protest was incorrect — or, at the very least, incomplete. The administration’s story itself has recently begun to shift… telling Congress on Wednesday that the attackers may have had links to al Qaeda and Carney characterizing the incident as a ‘terrorist attack.'”

Four U.S. Army soldiers “killed a former comrade and his girlfriend to protect an anarchist militia group they formed that stockpiled assault weapons and plotted a range of anti-government attacks,” the AP reports.

“The prosecutor said the militia group had big plans. It plotted to take over Fort Stewart by seizing its ammunition control point and talked of bombing the Forsyth Park fountain in nearby Savannah, she said. In Washington state, she added, the group plotted to bomb a dam and poison the state’s apple crop. Ultimately, prosecutors said, the militia’s goal was to overthrow the government and assassinate the president.”

“An onslaught of bombings and shootings killed 93 people across Iraq on Monday, officials said, in the nation’s deadliest day so far this year,” the AP reports.

“The attacks come days after the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq declared a new offensive and warned in a statement that the militant group is reorganizing in areas from which it retreated before U.S. troops left the country last December. Al-Qaida has been seeking to re-assert its might in the security vacuum left by the departing Americans, seizing on Baghdad’s fragmented government and the surge of Sunni rebels in neighboring Syria to sow instability across Iraq.”

The suicide bomber who blew up a bus full of Israeli tourists this week was reportedly a Swedish citizen who had been held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp from 2002 to 2004, the Times of Israel reports.

“He’s the most dangerous president we have ever had on national security.”

— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), in an interview with the Daily Beast, claiming President Obama has “revealed the methodologies we use” and has been “purging the FBI files of anything that could be considered anti-Islamic.”

Vice President Joe Biden went off-script with a deeply personal moment with family members of fallen service members. It’s definitely worth watching.

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“Of course, even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.”

— Mitt Romney, quoted by Politico, on whether he would have given the order to go after Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Bill Clinton cuts a very powerful video extolling President Obama as commander in chief.

[Read more…]