White House photo
President Obama with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the morning of Sept. 12, 2012.
Reflecting on this week's debate, the argument over President Obama's response to the attack in Benghazi continues to be a stand-out moment. Mitt Romney thought he'd caught the president in an important misstep -- Obama said he'd called the attack an "act of terror" the day after the violence -- but the moment quickly collapsed when even the moderator conceded the president was correct.
Yesterday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.) tried a new line of attack: sure, Obama called the attack an act of terror while speaking in the Rose Garden the morning of Sept. 12, but he didn't use the phrase quickly enough in the speech.
"I'm going to use my words very carefully. I think the president's conduct and his behavior on this issue has been shameful. And, first of all, as far as it being an act of terror, the president was almost four minutes into his statement on September 12th before he mentioned an act of terror.... It wasn't until he was well into the remarks."
Oh for crying out loud.
Follow this circuitous line of criticism:
First Republicans said Obama didn't call the attack an act of terror until two weeks later. Then they said Obama may have used the phrase the day after the attack, but he didn't really mean it. Now the complaint has been reduced to King whining that the line should have been higher up in the speech?
In other words, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared together to address the crisis at 10:43 a.m., the morning after the attack. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee complained, on national television, that the president referred to the violence as an act of terror at 10:47 a.m., instead of 10:44 a.m.
This is what it's come to. Republicans were almost giddy with the prospect of complaining that Obama waited "almost two weeks," which has now been downgraded to "almost four minutes." No wonder Romney no longer seems eager to talk about the issue.
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I have three words: My Pet Goat!
June, because people do not believe this administration with respect to Libya it doesn't mean they hate Obama. Fox News did not speak for Jay Carney or Susan Rice, referring to the attack in Libya. Your problem is you can't admit Obama screwed up. You probably believe Sandusky didn't molest kids.
Les Pappas - I have to give your post a richly-deserved, Biden-esque laugh-out-loud.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.)?
Argues with all the strength of the Wicked Witch of the West (OZ), melting after water splashed in her face. The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee speaks with as much authority as the town drunk, wakened by a bucket water, he exclaims that he was just resting - to wait for the next drink.
Probably Running Unopposed?
Les - Both sides screwed up. Romney faceplanted because he foolishly chose to make a semantic argument instead of the substantive one. That's on him. The right can say "bb-b-b-but he really meant the substance!" That's not what he said. Romney made his choice, it was an exceedingly stupid one, and he paid the price for it.
The Administration at first tried to blame the film. But they well know that extremists will grab anything they can to inflame and incite violence. The film was used as an excuse for terror, State and the Administration should know better than to focus on the film when it's just a tool.
What really matters here. Lives were lost. Republicans voted to reduce security budgets overseas beneath the Administration requests by over $100 million. Therefore they are in no position to point any fingers on lack of security.
Umm, No. http://www.juancole.com/2012/10/a-letter-from-benghazi-on-crappy-republican-talking-points.html
Sorry, wrong link. Suffice it to say that the administration is not to blame for much more than not cautioning folks that early intel is often sketchy. Their communication on this sucks. But that's about it.
You might note if you follow the link that
The President makes one statement about an act of terror and then spends the next two weeks referring to a video and you want to say others are politicizing the issue. Are you really that objective? You are trying to blame others for the President's mistake. He tried to mislead the public and that's alright with you.
Peter King would have preferred "Be afraid. Be very afraid" kick off the press conference. Instead, I believe they chose to honor the dead first.
Here's a reminder. In an age of suicide bombers, IEDs and disgruntled youth, you're not going to stop every attack. How many armed men and women did we have in Iraq and look at the type of attacks that went on there. Same with Afghanistan. All you can do is try to get the best intelligence you can and try to provide what you think is adequate security. But even the latter has its limitations when you're talking about zealots prepared to die for the cause.
That conservatives are now reduced to moving the goal-post from "two weeks" to "four minutes" tells me the GOP knows this whole ginned-up thing is the dog that won't bark anymore.
Tom, if you listened to the hearings of state department officials they were asked about not having the money to provide the proper security. I've forgotten the ladies name but she said no. Crowley admitted to being wrong about the Rose Garden statement after the debate. The administration had plenty of time to say it was a video or maybe a terroist attack, they chose not to and continued to make it about a video.
"Crowley did not walk it back."
But those on the right will continue to lie about it if they think they can get away with it. They never hesitate to tell any self-serving lie they think they can gt away with.
Yeah, and President Obama didn't clean up this mess Bush/Cheney left behind with two wars and an economy going into the ditch. The new Romney strategy is the same old Republican bigoted one: black people are lazy.
This lazy president doen't move fast enough for superior white males with higher standards who were born with trust funds and have accumulated decades of government subsides to invest in other countries and and bank in Cayman Island tax shelters.
The Republicans don't have anything new to offer voters...just the same old failed policies and dog whistle campaign style. Just add a lot, lot more voter suppression techniques and unlimited SuperPac money to their mix.
We are not about to face the biggest barrage of GOP BS in history which will saturate the airwaves with the same old boring propaganda that doesn't impress after the Bush/Romney failures. Rove and Romney don't seem to notice that it's not working or that their main demographic group is getting continually smaller.
If you look at the polls you will see you are wrong. In the swing states women are equally split between Obama and Romney. The voting public is looking at the accomplishments of this administration and they see a big fat zero. So you can vote for Obama who hasn't a clue how the economy works or you can vote for a very successful business man who will apply his knowledge to get this economy going again
Les - You demanded intellectual honesty of June and then you refused to apply it to yourself. If you want an honest debate then walk your talk. if all you can do is be blatantly partisan and never admit to any faults of your candidate then you aren't just wasting our time but your own.
Romney chose semantics over substance. Everything that followed stemmed from that idiotic choice. Own up to that. Crowley wasn't wrong on the semantic point and that's the point your candidate chose to make. Own up to that. Republicans cut the overseas security budget and that makes them a partner in this mess. Own up to that. If you're incapable of doing so then you are in no position to demand intellectual honesty of anyone since you refuse to apply it to yourself.
Between complaining about the length of the American Health Reform law, astonishment that Obama READS his intelligence briefings, and now the opinion that four minutes is too long to wait for a favorite topic to show up in a speech, I don't think the federal budget is the only deficit Republicans should be addressing.
Honestly folks, isn't Ritalin on Congress' health plan's formulary?
Why doesn’t Obama just Blast Romney with this somewhat significant piece of information?
Mitt...your rant about Obama not being concerned with security for our Embassies and Consulates is a little misdirected... perhaps you should find out why things are so lax in that regard before you throw blame so carelessly...
You baselessly state: “I guess why be right, after all no one is worried about the security surrounding our ambassador and his aids in Libya ON the 10th anniversay of Nine Eleven.”
Read this and see if it makes a dent...
“Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) acknowledged on Wednesday that House Republicans had consciously voted to reduce the funds allocated to the State Department for embassy security since winning the majority in 2010.”
For the past two years, House Republicans have continued to deprioritize the security forces protecting State Department personnel around the world. In fiscal year 2011, lawmakers shaved $128 million off of the administration's request for embassy security funding. House Republicans drained off even more funds in fiscal year 2012 -- cutting back on the department's request by $331 million.
WTF???
I know they hate this guy, but,,,,,, WTF????
More than 5 weeks after the murders of Americans in Benghazi, and 5 long weeks to think about his response, President Obama has the gall to say:
"If 4 Americans get killed, it's not optimal". How lame!
I'm glad he's got free time to appear on Comedy Central. Maybe he can have his own show after he is defeated on November 6th.