that language raised red flags at the state department where victoria nuland e-mailed that the mention of prior attacks could be abused by members of congress to beat the state department for not paying attention to agency warnings. so why would we want to feed that either? concerned. at white house meeting the following day, officials further diluted the language. that sunday susan rice followed the talking points on all five talk shows. >> what happened in benghazi was, in fact, initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in cairo. >> reporter: once that assessment was discounted, the white house insisted it had only changed one word and on friday stood by its story. >> the cia was the agency that made changes to the edits -- i mean to the talking points and then produced the talking points. >> reporter: a thorny issue for the obama administration and analysts say perhaps a larger problem for former secretary of state hillary clinton said to be