Deputy White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that Republicans owed Susan Rice an apology after they misled the country about the Benghazi emails -- a story that was hyped by his network's correspondent Jonathan Karl. After Stephanopoulos feigned ignorance on the matter, Pfeiffer should have told him ABC owes her an apology as well.

Karl gave a sorry excuse for apology this weekend, saying that he regrets that "the email was quoted incorrectly." More like he regrets getting caught. So to sum things up after reading his statement and listening to this interview -- not only is ABC refusing to come clean about the names of the Republicans who lied to them and conned them into hyping and giving new life to this so-called scandal that was being ignored by most of the networks other than Fox until Karl and ABC decided to lend it some credibility -- Stephanopoulos decides to sit there and pretend he doesn't have any idea why someone might want Republicans to apologize to Susan Rice after what they did to her.

Instead he decided to ask Pfeiffer about the emails without a word on Karl's "apology" or any acknowledgement of his network helping to spread lies for Republicans by hyping doctored versions of them. Stephanopoulos should have been opening This Week with a statement from the network on their shoddy "journalism" and with Karl's statement instead of trying to pretend it didn't happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's move on to Benghazi. The White House released over 100 emails this week detailing the communications with the State Department, and other government agencies over what was happening in those days and weeks after the attack out in Benghazi. I want to go back to something that Jay Carney said at the beginning of all of this, back in November about the kinds of changes the White House and the State Department were responsible for in those now infamous talking points?

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CARNEY: Well, the White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two -- these two institutions were, changing the word consulate to diplomatic facility, because consulate was inaccurate.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you continue to stand by that? Because the emails you released show a host of communication indicating that the -- the changes were far more extensive?

PFEIFFER: No, what -- what the email -- the email showed three things. I think this is very important because they undermine all of the allegations that Republicans have been making for months about this. First, the emails show that all of the drafts of the talking points include -- written by the CIA include reference to -- to the influence of a protest here. Second, references to al-Qaeda and terrorism were not taken out by the White House as Republicans have asserted, but taken out by the CIA.

And third, it shows that everyone here was trying to get it right the best we could, and that the primary driving objective for the White House, the CIA and the State Department was to ensure we did nothing that -- that interfered with the investigation of the people who did this.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it also does show that the -- that the changes were more extensive than changing the word mission -- consulate to diplomatic facility?

PFEIFFER: But what they do -- what they absolutely show beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that the Republican allegation that the White House, the State Department, someone else changed the CIA's assessment for political reasons, that is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be false. And so hopefully we can put this all behind us, and I -- frankly I think that many of the Republicans who have been talking about this, now that they have seen the emails, owes Ambassador Rice an apology for the things they said about her in the wake of the attack.

STEPHANOPOULOS: An apology for what?

PFEIFFER: For -- they -- for accusing her of misleading the country. For saying that she didn't -- that -- that somehow we were -- that she was involved in some sort of political whitewash of what happened there. What she said is what the intelligence community believed at the time. And when we got further information, we told the American people what that was. That's how people know what happened here.