So when Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, went on Meet the Press last month and announced that the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi came under cover of a spontaneous demonstration against an offensive video about the Prophet Muhammad, she was right except for the part about there being a demonstration at all. This is what Rice told David Gregory:
(O)ur current assessment is that what happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of-- of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video. What we think then transpired in Benghazi is that opportunistic extremist elements came to the consulate as this was unfolding. They came with heavy weapons which unfortunately are readily available in post revolutionary Libya. And it escalated into a much more violent episode.