Category: Libya

Does This Explain Something?
UPDATE: What a Cover-Up Looks Like

Posted on Comments

Why is Obama still leading Mitt Romney in Ohio, but trailing in Florida? This puzzle might be explained by the early blitz of attack ads the Obama campaign laid down against Romney in Ohio back in May and June, which created a sort of “opinion deficit” that Romney has had to try to make up during the past four months.

Yet Obama also hit Mitt early in Florida, and Romney has bounced back pretty strong there in the past two weeks.

Is it Libya? And is it possible that the deadly Bungle in Benghazi has raised concerns about the administration’s Middle East policy among a key constituency in Florida? A friend on Twitter called attention to an article by my American Spectator colleague Jay Homnick:

MIAMI — The Jewish outreach of the Romney campaign leaves a great deal to be desired, about which more on another day. One good thing this wing of the overall effort has been doing is involving Ambassador John Bolton in presenting to Jewish groups. His powerful pro-Israel record and reputation make his name a good draw in the circles of the more knowledgeable Jewish voters. It does not hurt that he has astonishing breadth of knowledge, pristine clarity of thought, and crystalline clarity of expression.
Sunday night he appeared here in Miami at a synagogue bordering the two communities of Surfside and Bal Harbor. The biggest concentrations of Jews in the Miami area are not near that spot, but its equidistance from Miami Beach and North Miami Beach situate it perfectly for such events.
The room was packed to the rafters, and there were no hecklers or provocateurs. The crowd listened raptly and applauded lustily. It is difficult to extrapolate from this to voting patterns on Election Day, but this much was clear: there is a strong Romney-Ryan contingent among both the religious and secular Jews of Florida. . . .

Go read the whole thing. And while we’re at it, remember during last week’s debate, when Joe Biden laughed while Paul Ryan talked about the seriousness of the Iranian nuclear threat?

Biden’s dismissive attitude toward the danger of a nuclear Iran, accusing Republicans of reckless warmongering for taking that threat seriously — how did that play with Jewish voters? Biden’s bulldozing aggression against Ryan may have cheered up demoralized Democrats, but the unseriousness of Biden’s attitude hurt Democrats among undecided voters. Jim Geraghty examines a poll that found the Republicans gained a 3-to-1 advantage from last week’s debate.

But why trust the polls, when we’ve got the word of the Lord?

“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee . . .”

You never want to get on the wrong side of a thing like that.

UPDATE: The big problem with the scandal now becoming known as “BenghaziGate” is that the Obama administration evidently decided to tell The Big Lie from the start, and so many officials repeated that lie so often that, once it became obvious they were lying, coming up with a plausible new lie was difficult. Ultimately, however, their problem is not their shifting lies, but rather the ugly truth of the administration’s failure. Even such a master of deceit as David Axelrod can’t hide from the facts:

Q. How soon after the attack did the President meet with the National Security Council, with people from state, with people from the…, the Director of National Intelligence, with all of the various people to try to sort out what happened in Benghazi?
A. Look. We are sorting out what happened there. Understand that the President the day after the attack called it an act of terror and charged everyone with responsibility for getting to the bottom of what happened. . . .
Q. Yes, the president made a statement and then he went to a fundraiser in Nevada. Question: Before he went to the fundraiser in Nevada, did he meet with his National Security Council to try to sort out the shifting stories. Because State says they never said it was a spontaneous demonstration; Intel, you are quite right, did. Did he meet with the National Security Council before he went campaigning in Nevada?
A. Chris, I assure you that the president was in contact with all those who had information and responsibility in the national security chain about this incident.

Via Memeorandum.

 

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 


Libya Cover-Up: Hillary Clinton Throws Obama Under His Own Benghazi Bus

Posted on Comments

The Benghazi blame game has been going on for more than a month since the Sept. 11 attack in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Last week there were signals that Team Obama was trying to make Hillary Clinton’s State Department the scapegoat, but anybody who knows the Clintons could have predicted she wasn’t going to take the fall. Today, Hillary struck back:

A confusing array of contradictions concerning the murders of four Americans, one of which was a U.S. ambassador, was made worse by Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks during the debate with Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan Thursday evening.
Today the confusion only worsened yet again when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that her agency was not the source of misinformation concerning the attacks, charging instead that the White House was the source of the false mantra that the murders were spurred by an anti-Muslim film made in the  United States.
Clinton told reporters that when Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her rounds on every Sunday morning news show to claim the film motivated the attacks, the information had been fed to her by the White House and not the intelligence community in the State Department or the CIA.
Not only does Clinton’s statement contradict early White House accounts but directly contradicts statements made by Vice President Biden during the debate.

If Obama thinks he’s gonna throw Hillary Clinton under his bus, he’s going to find out the hard way his bus ain’t big enough. He’s not looking too good in the polls lately — even PPP has him trailing Romney in Florida now — and rather than playing the Good Soldier in his doomed re-election campaign, why shouldn’t Hillary kick off her 2016 campaign by helping expose Obama’s bungling? And here’s a good laugh for you:

Axelrod defends White House on Libya,
says Romney seeking to ‘exploit’ issue

Oh, sure, like David Axelrod never exploited an issue . . .

 

 

Benghazi Tinfoil Fez

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

This is via Director Blue, who points to a Free Republic article that I will edit a bit for clarity:

The murder of Ambassador Stevens at Benghazi is Obama’s October Surprise gone bad, thanks to two former SEALS who were not supposed to be at Benghazi. But then I ran to the end of the story so let’s back fill the datapoints.

First President Morsi’s first public statement to us was that he wanted the blind imam who first bombed the WTC released. Now, Obama is forever dedicated to appeasing the Muslim world; bowing to them comes naturally to him. Obama knew that he had to obey Morsi’s request. However, he couldn’t release Omar Abdul-Rahman. There had to be a reason powerful enough to warrant his release. What better than to return to the Carter era of American hostages?

Obama saw a way to release the imam and secure his re-election in one act. Wheels were set in motion. Obama needed a cover story. The YouTube video that no one has seen, released in July. America could be shamed into releasing the imam, because someone posted an obscure video, and we have to follow Obama’s lead and bow to muslims.

Next, weaken the security at Benghazi by removing the security teams and employing Libyan bodyguards for the ambassador. In effect the embassy could not defend itself. The back channel had to be from the WH to the imam’s legal representatives. It was suggested that Obama needed a reason to release the imam that America could agree to. What better than hostages? They were informed that there were no security forces at Benghazi to defend Stevens, so over-run the embassy and take him hostage. Really easy.

What was not planned for were former SEALS Donerty and Woods. They were not part of Stevens security detail; they happened to be in Benghazi working for the CIA to located missing surface-to-air missiles.

So the terrorists plan the assault on the embassy thinking there would be no resistance. Well, two SEALS never backed down from defending America and Americans. These two heros gave their lives fighting to protect our embassy and our ambassador. No telling how many peaceful muslims they transported to the after life. However, the terrorists who thought this was just a walk in the park now sought out the Americans to kill them not hold them captive. The overthrow went from hostage taking to killing.

Now the WH knew the plan had blown up. There were no hostages only dead Americans. How to cover? Roll out the 14 minute video, no one has seen, as the cause. The WH cover up was in play.

With the killing of Ambassador Stevens, there could be no exchange, no October Surprise. Oh, what was the October Surprise? Well, Obama would spend a month negotiating with the terrorists for the release of Ambassador Stevens and, finally, and after his focused efforts on saving Stevens’ live, Stevens would be released just before the election. Obama would have sucked out all the energy from the campaign as everyone would be watching him, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, negotiate for the release of Stevens. The world would applaud him, the muslim would have their murderous imam back, he would be reelected and the destruction of America who go on.

We can only thank every day these SEALS for defending America with their lives.

A lot of datapoints, Benghazi, President Morsi, SEALS, blind iman, 14 minute You Tube video; withdrawal of security from embassy, October surprise and Obama’s October surprise.

Wonder which story makes more sense? Mine of the one the WH spins every day that keeps changing as the lies are exposed.

First of all, I don’t believe this. This sounds like a fantastic movie plot. This is one of those tritely plausible connections of dots by some external observer. The idea that any government leaders of any party would play such high-stakes games with peoples’ lives (as opposed to the individually low-stakes games of ObamaCare) is revolting, even for a figure like #OccupyResoluteDesk.

Should any plot as wild and fragile as this one have been driving Benghazi-quiddick (unlike a -gate, we have a death toll) then facts are likely to leak out. You just can’t coordinate across that many agencies without leaving loose information.

God rest those who died in Benghazi.

Update: linked at The Lonely Conservative

Benghazi Breakdown: Team Obama, Liberals Now in Full Freak-Out Mode

Posted on Comments

First, the headline:

Mother of Slain State Dept. Official Tired of Being
Lied To and Stonewalled by Obama Administration

Next, the video, which got the AOSHQ Flaming Skull Alert:

Now, we point out that Stephanie Cutter has doubled down on her outrageous claim that the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi is only the subject of controvery because — wait for it — Republicans “politicized” the issue. This is the kind of harmonic convergence of self-serving bullshit unprecedented since the days when LBJ lied America into a shooting war in Southeast Asia.

And it reminds me of something else:

Let anyone who watched the moonbat brigades in action during that era testify to their own memories, but I recall it this way: It started with the 2002 mid-terms. Democrats had been expecting to make the usual congressional gains that the party out of power makes in the next election after losing the White House and, instead, the Republicans actually gained seats. This completely demoralized the Left and within a few months, we invaded Iraq.

OK, so the Left then mounted its typical anti-war movement, with the Netroots latching onto Howard Dean as their Gene McCarthy/George McGovern peacenik presidential candidate. Dean melted down in Iowa, and instead the nomination went to Vietnam-era peacenik hero John Kerry who got “Swiftboated” (a term that means “unfairly telling the truth about a Democrat”) and Bush got re-elected in 2004.

The absolute nadir for the Left was when the exit polls showed that Bush had won Ohio because of so-called “values voters” who had turned out in droves to vote for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. This was a horrid shock to the Left to learn that their two favorite issues — treason and sodomy — had been rejected by the American people, and so they vowed revenge against those damned flag-waving homophobic heartland Republicans.

As I say, this was the Golden Age, with the Left so completely discredited, disempowered and disconsolate that their pitiful crusades — “Indict Karl Rove!” — were fodder for endless mockery by conservative bloggers, who could laugh at the madcap antics of the Kossacks back then.

That era ended when Democrats won the 2006 mid-terms (thank you, Jack Abramoff, and thank you, Mark Foley) and the painful shoe of despair was on the other foot after Obama got elected in 2008. But it seems the karmic wheel is now beginning to turn.

Notice Nate Silver’s slo-mo walkback, his Forecasting Model™ now giving Romney a 32.1% chance of victory, and Nate compelled to pretend there are “a couple of rays of hope” for Democrats.

Whistling past the graveyard much, Nate?

They’re trying to stave off complete panic, and if Paul Ryan does well in tonight’s debate with Joe Biden — my prediction is that Ryan will stomp Joe the way Godzilla stomped Tokyo — we’re likely to see one of the most memorable freak-outs in the history of liberal freak-outs.

Sully’s liable to be on suicide watch if the polls keep trending this way another week, and if analysts ever start moving states like Pennsylvania and Michigan into the “toss-up” category . . .

Oh, it will be epic.

UPDATE: Top thread at Memeorandum, with reaction by Gateway Pundit, Phil Klein, Da Tech Guy, The Lonely Conservative and this memorable response by Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom:

Good lord. It’s long past time to vote these scumbags out: it’s time to tar and feather them and put them in stocks so that we can all take turns throwing rotten vegetables at their ugly treasonous faces.

Once these things start going sideways — with mainstream outfits like CNN sniffing the scent of Fear and Loathing — it’s gonna be hard for the White House to put Humpty-Dumpty together again. Yet we must maintain momentum to maximize the impact.

 


@AmbassadorRice: The Shameful Stain That Is Susan Rice, Now on Twitter

Posted on Comments

“Four dead Americans, and she’s doing a happy dance because she thinks the UN is gay-friendly now? What delusional fantasy world is she living in?”
— Sunshine State Sarah

What part of “misplaced priorities” is so hard to understand here? Does Ambassador Rice think gay people are too stupid to understand that they’re being dragooned into service as human shields to protect the (suddenly) endangered employment of herself and her boss?

That is to say, what she’s doing here is attempting to drape herself in the mantle of “human rights” and “equality,” to suggest to gays that if she gets thrown under the administration’s bus — of if President Obama doesn’t get re-elected — somehow these values as they pertain to “LGBT voices” will be jeopardized, not by bigoted foreigners, but rather by those evil homophobic Republicans.

“Defend me, you faggots — I’m on your side!”

If Andrew Sullivan had any shred of integrity remaining, he’d see through this shameless pander for what it is, and denounce it as an insult.

Related: “How dare you call our entirely discredited cover story on Benghazi false, or something.”

Also: “Our country is being run by liberal college students.”

The ‘Dilbert’ Factor in Libya

Posted on Comments

“Mother, do not wonder that my loyalty is growing weak. . . . I am sick and tired of the disaster and the fools that bring disaster upon us.”
— soldier in the 79th New York Infantry regiment, 1863

The cartoon strip “Dilbert” is popular because it relates an experience common to nearly everyone who has ever worked inside a dysfunctional workplace: A clueless boss, backstabbing colleagues, and the plight of the competent, hard-working guy who is just trying to do his job.

What we call “office politics” is a constant hindrance to effective teamwork. It is unfortunate that so often people are both incompetent and ambitious, that such creatures seek positions of authority for which they are not qualified, and that once they obtain these positions, the incompetents “bring disaster upon” the loyal subordinates whose valuable advice they habitually ignore.

Thus I was reminded of that New York soldier’s letter home to his mother, complaining about the incompetence of Union army commanders, when I saw the video in which former State Department security official Eric Nordstrom complained about the unhelpfulness of his superiors:

On the one hand, there is this specific situation and the disaster in Benghazi, but on the other hand, Nordstrom’s complaints about his bosses reflect an all-too-common experience, something with which many people can empathize. Too bad that this “Dilbert” situation took place under circumstances where human lives — and, indeed, the national security of the United States — were at stake.

“One of the last things my husband said to me before he was killed, when I would ask him, ‘Chris, what do you need over there? What can I send you?’ he said, ‘I need a new president.’”
— Jane Horton, whose husband was killed in Afghanistan

Amen, Mrs. Horton!

 


The Libya Question: What Did Obama Know and When Did He Know It?

Posted on Comments

We seem to be looking at a classic Washington cover-up scandal:

The State Department is now telling a new story about the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11. It’s completely different than what we heard from President Obama and other officials in the days after the terrorist attack.

It’s amazing the things you can learn when you start issuing subpoenas and requiring people to testify under oath under penalty of perjury.

UPDATE: Hard-hitting new ad on the Libyan scandal:

UPDATE II: If you’ve seen a few cover-up scandals like this over the years, you know that the next thing that happens — once it becomes obvious that the liars won’t get away with it — is that the administration finds a Designated Scapegoat to take the fall.

Whose résumé will get updated with the unfortunate “resigned in disgrace” entry? I nominate the odious disgrace that is Susan Rice.

Trust me: Hillary is waaayy too powerful to take the fall for this.

UPDATE III: The pattern of such scandals makes the course of events fairly predictable. First of all, the people who did the right thing — the honest, competent professionals — have an inherent interest in establishing the fact that they weren’t the ones who screwed up. Take, for example, former State Department security officer Eric Nordstrom:

[N]ot only did Nordstrom repeatedly request more security for the diplomatic mission, the State Department didn’t even bother to respond to his last two requests

UPDATE IV: Joel Engel at Legal Insurrection:

In yet another story that you won’t find in the New York Times, Charlie Spiering in the Washington Examiner reported that Hillary Clinton was scheduled to meet President Obama at the White House today “as more damaging details about the terrorist attack against a United States consulate in Libya emerge.” . . .
Their story is unraveling, and only the acquiescence of the mainstream press has kept it from becoming a full-blown scandal.  So what did the president and his secretary of state discuss today?  Foreign affairs?  Or better lies?  My guess is better lies.
Clinton’s State Department, and therefore in all probability the White House, had forewarning of at least a growing danger when“foreign fighters” began flooding over the Egyptian border prior to the attacks.  And, worse than doing nothing, they actually prevented security from being beefed up, though they had been warned that the level was “inappropriately low.”

Don’t expect this story to go away. There is a limit to the media’s ability to ignore such a scandal, when people like CNN’s Anderson Cooper and ABC’s Jake Tapper are so clearly fed-up with the administration’s routine incompetence and brazen dishonesty.

UPDATE V: Despite months of constant practice, Jay Carney still isn’t very effective in his capacity as Official White House Liar:

 

PREVIOUSLY: