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A month ago, an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi left four Americans dead, and Mitt Romney immediately tried to exploit the crisis for partisan gain. The effort backfired and even many on the right condemned the candidate's cravenness.
Though the incident left Romney hesitant to pursue Benghazi as a line of attack, the Republican again went on the offensive in last week's debate. Again, Romney's offensive backfired and left him looking rather ridiculous.
And on the eve of his third and final debate with President Obama, this time focused primarily on foreign policy, Romney very likely hoped to have one more chance to use Benghazi to undermine the president's standing on national security. Over the weekend, however, the Republican's entire line of criticism started to unravel.
The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren't supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.
"Talking points" prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, "The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."
The L.A. Times also reported over the weekend that the best available evidence still suggests the administration's early assessment was correct: the attack apparently wasn't pre-planned. A U.S. official explained that most of the evidence suggests that "the attackers launched their assault opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" earlier that day.
For weeks, the Romney campaign has pushed a fairly specific line to the media: the Obama administration deliberately misled the public, falsely claiming the violence was related to the online video, when it was actually an attack carried out by al Qaeda. The latest information suggests the Romney campaign had the entire story backwards.
There's a larger point to also keep in mind.
It matters, of course, that the Obama administration told the truth and the Romney campaign did not. But I'm also struck by the extensive sourcing that's served as the basis for several news reports over the last few days.
At a certain level, what we may very well be witnessing are intelligence officials intervening in the political discourse to set the record straight. Romney aides, with no evidence, have been aggressively telling reporters for weeks that Obama orchestrated an elaborate "cover up" for reasons that have never been entirely clear. Now the intelligence community is providing materials and information that, in effect, tell journalists and the public, "Team Romney's full of it."
If you're getting the feeling that intelligence officials trust Obama more than Romney, we're thinking along the same lines.
On a related note, Kevin Drum had a terrific Q&A on the Benghazi story over the weekend. It's highly recommended.
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Mitt Romney hates his country. Mitt Romney must hate America if he would willingly and gleefully release statement after statement denouncing our president and questioning our military and state department professionals bravely serving in the line of fire at a time of great danger and unrest. The families of those killed and the thousands of other brave men and women serving the interests of our nation abroad need and deserve our respect and a unified front to get through this tragic period. Mitt Romney has driven a stake through the heart and soul of America with his unskilled and ill-conceived response to foreign policy events. It makes you wonder what side Mr. Romney is on in this fight. - progressive
Just unbridled ambition with a heavy dose of arrogance.
It is so important to understand something before the debate tonight on foreign policy. While Romney rails against the president for his lack of consulate security, it is so important to know that it was our Republican congress which cut our embassy's security by 300 million dollars, it was done in an effort to make Obama look bad if something happened. When something did happen, like the vultures they are, they, through Romney and Ryan (who cut the funds) moved in immediately to blame the president.
congress cut almost $500M over the last 2yrs
Hmmm - almost makes you wonder who is really behind the attacks, doesn't it?
I posted this earlier today, but it is still pertinent.
Tonight, the focus will indeed be on the Bengazi attack on our consulate.
Over the past few weeks the Republicans have spent considerable capital on politicizing the event. Rep. Issa, for instance, released on Friday the names of Libyans who are now in fear for their lives.
Most of the noisemakers have been "chickenhawks". Men who had "other priorities". When called on to "ride to the sounds of cannons" they rode to France instead.
Unless one has experienced combat at street level, the Fog of War cannot be understood.
Romney as Commander in Chief? Perish the thought.
You have to remember that to these people see the lives of soldiers (and the poor generally) as so cheep as to be essentially worthless and therefor disposable.
#2.1 Exactly, they see them , to use an archaic term, as "cannon fodder".
Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall fame is quoted as saying, "You can say this about the poor (47% or 99%, take your pick), you can always hire half of them to kill the other half."
Members of the current Republican party don't see others as real people. If they did they could not justify their efforts to deny their fellow Americans the most basic right, the right to vote.
How will Romney get other countries to adopt representative government when they see him supporting the disenfranchisement of his own people?
Why hasn't any of Romney's sons served in the military? Missions to convert people to their faith is not the same as putting your life in danger for your country- even though Ann Romeny thinks it is.
No Romney thinks of other people's children as dispensable, or maybe even disposable he cannot be commander in chief.
Let us all trust the LA Times......ROFL....you are going to make yourself dizzy if you keep spinning!
I'd trust the L.A. Times before I'd trust Romney & Ryan.
Just sayin'.
I would like to ask everyone today, before you make up your minds about the election, to go to a site on You Tube: Naomi Klein-THE SHOCK DOCTRINE-The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
It takes a good hour and it explains the GOP's agenda quite clearly and quite factually.
You must first be prepared to see 9-11 as a business venture. I know, it sounds crazy. However, you will see quickly that it is historically accurate.
It isn't what we want for America. It will take us down.
Unlike you, idiot, trusting Faux Snooze.
Go back to Wingnut World, you've peed on enough fire hydrants here today, little one.
TC...
India is not a troll... I've been her friend over a year now, and she is anything but...
"The Shock Doctrine" is a documentary that is CRITICAL of the GOTP movement... FOX 'News' would HATE it, as it points out them for the right-wing propaganda machine they are...
David,
I believe TC was addressing pascoguy65, not India.
Context, David, context. Anybody recommending a video featuring Naomi Klein is not going to be to be "trusting Faux Snooze".
Not if they don't use the word 'libtard', anyways.
Be clear about something when they say that this is evidence of Obama's foreign policy "Unraveling' what that means id Obama "Unraveling" the Bush foreign policy. They want a state of perpetual uncertainty where they can create a "need" for massive defence spending. These are people who were terrified when the Soviet Union collapsed because they didn't have a monster to fight against anymore, they are trying to make us see a new one where there are only shadows under the bed. Why else would we ever need to peg defence spending to GDP?
Romney received his first intelligence briefing on Sept 17th. Susan Rice was attacked for what she said on the Sunday talk shows on Sept 16th. Was Romney given the same information as Rice and that Ignatius/LA Times have since revealed, but cynically criticized the administration's statements nonetheless? If so, is it petty for Obama to call him out on that in tonights debate?
Salrock, It is important to know that the Republicans set the president up to look bad over Libya. It is equally important to understand why Romney so wants to be president that he will lie, cheat, and steal to get that office, and what it means when they say it is his "time", or his "turn."
I mentioned a site above on post #3.2, it takes some time, but if you go to it, your eyes will be opened a bit wider.
They have an agenda that will harm this country. They need a venture capitalist to carry it out more easily.
Can you link that? My understanding is that romney should have the same access to cia information as obama , so I was under the impression that romney was receiving , or had access too , pretty much the same info as obama
Patango,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg&feature=related
Why would that be true? Romney isn't even a dog catcher these days.
Kragg, Exactly, Robme isn't even a part of the Chain of Command in any way shape or form to be entitled to classified CIA material.
Mr. Obama needs to point out tonight how Mr. Romney is acting like a blind reactionary, and how absolutely dangerous that is for anybody who wants to be Commander in Chief and put America's blood on the line.
If I hear the words "completely unraveling" one more time from the man washing clean pots & pans in an empty soup kitchen, I feel like I'm going to go postal. This from the party that taught the world the phrase "Cowboy Diplomacy", and gleefully brought us:
So once again opportunistic Romney get's a back-handed slam, didn't see that one coming. And I also wonder is the CIA trying to straighten the record because the "librul media" isn't even trying to uncover the truth about what really happened? It really is a shame that government organizations which at one time weren't in the middle of trying to get the truth out there have finally given up because the media isn't doing it's job of informing the public regarding TRUTH, details, specifics, FACTS - but it's a good thing they are, otherwise WE the PEOPLE would get nothing but "yellow journalism" parroted as "truthiness".
Exactly , you know it is bad when the profession propagandist at the cia are so upset with the flawed gop and msm propaganda , that even THEY feel it must some how be corrected
Basic Law 101: Never ask a question you don't already know the answer to.
Romney is not a lawyer. Nor, if you ask Mass. residents, an effective politician or job creator. What he is , is a fast talking pitch man, a snake oil salesman who will say whatever he thinks will close the deal for his owners, currently a group of people actively trying to steal your voting rights. The entire tempest in a teapot in re the fatalities in Libya is a smoke screen. Any time and energy spent on arguing about it helps to keep the old man behind the curtain from being noticed.
If you believe in representative government, how can you possibly vote for any current Republican?
If you are a member of the Republican party who believes in representative government (you sure are being quiet about it) you should be leading the defense of THE basic right of our country.
Not for nothing, Mitt Romney promised his fat cat donors he would make political hay out of any national security incident that might occur. Given that he's on tape pledging to politicize dangerous situations, he should never have been allowed to have even a shred of credibility on this.
But the msm have his back once again
There are legitimate questions to be asked about how Benghazi happened (why were security requests denied?).
However.
Team Romney and other higher up Republicans are whoring this for votes and it's shameful.
One jackass blamed the unsecured documents at the consulate on the people who were being attacked.
Reasonable people understand that failures happen. Unfortunately, this failure cost the lives of 4 Americans. But reasonable people should also understand that despite FB, Twitter and the 24/7 news cycle...you just DON'T get all the right answers immediately.
I'm not voting for anyone who keeps trying to spike the football on American deaths.
To be clear, request pertaining to continuing a special security team's hitch at the embassy in Tripoli--not requests for more security at the consulate in Benghazi--were denied at the middle manager level because they had to spread things thinner as a result of the House GOP's cuts to the State Department's security budget.
There was no request made, much less denied, that had anything to do with security at the Benghazi consulate.
Thank you, @Steve. That is a detail that keeps getting constantly lost.
The only really legitimate question I have on Libya is, why was Ambassador Stevens at the Benghazi Consulate instead of the Embassy in Tripoli on the anniversary of 9/11? Even without any specific threat intel, it would seem wise to be in the more secure location on that day.
These guys aren't stupid and they aren't suicidal. I don't have the security clearance to know, but I believe that they had a good reason to be there.
the memos on the house.gov website mentioned specifically Benghazi more than once. I wasn't able to read through them all, I am not a security person in any form whatsoever. Do you know the meaning of the memos then? If I am reading them wrong, I'm open for correct interpretation.
Even though Mitt received his first 'intelligence briefing' he has yet to show that he is educated enough to make intelligent use of it, except for directing his blind trust to adjust his investments.
The Republican Congress CUT State Department funds for security.
I hope President Obama is able to use this "Zinger" tonight!
An investigation will ultimately determine what happened and whether mistakes were made in not shoring up security. But security is a double edged sword when it comes to diplomatic missions. We don't want our foreign service staff hunkered down in heavily armed camps since the whole point of foreign missions is to interact with the local population, which is not risk-free. So regarding security these are balancing acts and judgment calls and when something goes wrong it is not always the result of a bungle.
In Libya we do not want to turn every US outpost into another Green Zone filled with ugly Americans riding around in their convoys of black Suburbans speeding through local streets protected by trigger happy Blackwater guards who occasionally shoot up the place like that massacre of 16 innocent Iraqi civilians a few years ago in Nisour Square that got Blackwater kicked out of the country in 2007.
Putting boots on the ground by sending in a detachment of US Marines is equally problematic given the sensible determination to maintain a light footprint in Libya. So, maybe mistakes were made. But there are also pros and cons that have to be weighed whenever you add security to a foreign mission, and it may not have been an open and shut case of the administration dropping the ball here.
As for the political mileage Republicans are trying to gain from this tragedy, I am old enough to remember how Republicans said it would be unpatriotic for Democrats to criticize George W. Bush for the intelligence and leadership failures that led to 9/11; how Dick Cheney said Democrats would be undermining the war effort by opening old wounds by digging into what happened; how "terrorist czar" Richard Clark was called a royalty-hunting whore when he suggested the Bush administration dropped the ball on al Quaeda with their obsession over bringing down Saddam and Iraq; and how right wingers like Ann Coulter called 9/11 widows "harpies," "the witches of Brunswick," and women who liked their new-found celebrity a lot more than their dead husbands when they came forward to blame Bush for the deaths of their husbands and to demand an official accounting of how it happened, which resulted in a 9/11 commission that eventually did accuse the Bush administration of ignoring warnings when "the system was blinking red."
I know that in today's politics we have largely decriminalized hypocrisy. But even in this cynical political environment, the mileage Republicans are hoping to gain from the tragedy in Libya, given their own recent history, is repulsive.
We must remember too, that the truth of Bush's failings for 9/11 wherein he and his administration ignored the warnings, took so long, that he was able to win a second term.
Benghazi is just one of many failures of the Obama administration. The media pummeled Bush for his "Mission Accomplished" comment. It was just that, one mission in a host of many that was accomplished and a pat on the back and recognition to those who made it a success was appropriate from their Commander in Chief. Obama is touting 2 of what he calls "successes." Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive. Bin Laden is dead and there are thousands of others lining up and spreading out across the world to take his place. Mission accomplished? GM is still in business but is still limping terribly and probably will never be able to pay the government back. Ford did not accept money and is still getting right along nicely. Government intervention did not really heal GM. Maybe prolonged its misery. Time will tell. Mission Accomplished? Who believes that melarkey? And to Melanie,yes failures happen on every level. Intelligence is telling us that they had a couple of months warning of the trouble stirring in that area and nothing was done. I think that was plenty of time. A little taller wall and some razor wire is not exactly a good defense for our diplomats. The administration wanted to make it look like everything was lovely in the neighborhood under his watch prior to this election. You know.... his foreign policy is SO successful. NOT! Right along with his economic policy.
Yet there’s only one Detroit automaker still in hock to U.S. taxpayers and – guess what? – it’s not GM or Chrysler. Ford Motor owes the government $5.9 billion it borrowed in June 2009, the same month GM filed for bankruptcy. By Sept. 15, Ford needs to start paying that money back....And the Energy Department doled out billions more to Ford and others to preserve auto-making jobs in the U.S. while steering the industry toward cleaner vehicles.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2012/08/29/automakers-report-card-who-still-owes-taxpayers-money-the-answer-might-surprise-you/
Whatev.
Well I will certainly be happy when Willard is in the Whitehouse and he demands every day to see a complete printout of every US facility that has security , so he can micromanage each and every facility. As for GM , if they had gone out of business you would have been astounded at how many ancillary industries would have collapsed also. It would have dragged the entire economy into the ditch. Why do you hate America?
Yeah!! and and those one the right who called twitt craven for trying to making political gains should be pilloried and purged (along with those righties who want midiott to show his tax returns)... We must cleanse the repuke party until it is as pure as the,,,.
snark, snark (new word for me,,, I hope I spellled it wright)
jes33, I have a bad headache this morning. What drugs are you on as I think I could use some.
I believe this one has yellow hair. The Rolling Stones are releasing their new hit "Gloom and Doom". on Nov. 13th. I can smell burning rubber and I can feel something sticky, Could it be Rubber and Glue? Who you gonna call "Ghost Busters". We've been slimed. Are you taking any prescription medication?
First it was not a "comment" and it is an apple to oranges comparison.
For an apples to apples comparison, you have to answer the question:
Did the media demand to know exactly what happened days and weeks after 9-11?
I don't expect you to answer honestly. But, my point is that you're wrong.
But, Ford begged Congress to help GM and Chrysler because they feared their company would go down with the other 2 if they didn't get the help they needed. That is a fact,
You provide nothing to support this assertion (wishing thinking). What a patriot you are.
I wonder how the more than 1 million people who kept their jobs, because of government intervention, feel about that?
"I still have a job to go to, I feel miserable" "This sucks, I was able to keep my job through the great recession."
Yeah, I'm sure that's how they felt.
Thanks Rollo. jes33 makes a lot of statements and I too am curious what his source/s of information are.
much less snarkdelocious if not posted directly below the post being snarkadidlyowed. is snarknosnausity really a word?
Several days after the attack, Rachel Maddow reported on her show that it looked like a planned attack and was not a spontanious riot in the area. At the same time, the Obama administration was saying the attack was in response to the video's release.
My point is this, when a story is unfolding in the wake of a disaster, nobody knows exactly what's what. And who cares? The attack happened for whatever reason, maybe for all of the above...and Mitt Romney is an idiot when it comes to foreign policy.
Since Mitt knows so, so much, maybe HE planned the attack. I hope the debate is not focussed on Libya because it's ALL A SMOKE SCREEN!
What's up with Saudi Arabia? They're as quiet as a church mouse.
I'm singing James Brown's song, Do You Like Good Music..
Spot light on Mr. Mut-mood- dinner-jacket
yeah, yeah
Spot light on human trafficking
yeah, yeah
Spot light on China
yeah, yeah
what else???
They should both agree before the debate not to discuss Benghazi. Out of respect for the 4 heroes who have lost their lives and their families, we should honor the families wishes and not make the tragedy political. President Obama tried to get this point across to Romney at the last debate, but no, Romney just went ahead and plowed right through, discussing it anyway, ignoring the families request. He knows no shame. Nothing is sacred to this man except his own selfish ambition of wanting to become the worst President the World has ever known.
Unfortunately that will not happen in that Romney totally disregarded the wishes of the family in the last debate and daily on his & Ryan's stump speeches. Therefore it does have to be brought up. Romney cannot be given a pass at this point as to now stay silent would do exactly that. He has to be allowed to continue to 'step in it' as he did with his 'fact free' statement when it happened and his 'Crowley Checked' debate.
That Darrell Izza and Jason Chaffetz did the 'Friday dump' of all the intelligence documents without any concern of the named individuals has further politicized this.
I would love it that we could respect the families wishes -- but at this point, it is too politicized and we cannot pretend to live under a rock. This now is a very important issue that Romney, Ryan and the GOP keep pushing and it has to be addressed. They have accused so many like Obama, Clinton, UN Ambassador, etc. and the media has reported on a daily basis -- not all true.
Angel#77: You're absoluely right....and one of the young men killed in the attack was from Massachusetts. So, while the parents of this young man are GRIEVING the loss of their beautiful, young son... truly heart breaking, they have to take time out to tell Romney to STOP politicizing the death of their son.
Romney sticks his face in front of the cameras, on an on that he had met this young man while being Governor of MA, blah, blah... NO SHAME!
Oh yeah, another dem who does not want to discuss Obama's failures. When they specifically asked for more security and they did not get it, is that not a failure?
Has anyone who reads the Maddow Blog been following the case of Pat Smith, mother of a man killed at Benghazi? The right-wing media seem to trying to adopt her as one of theirs.
In particular, the UK tabloid the Daily Mail (non-Murdoch, by the way) ran an article recently claiming that she was furious at Obama for using the term "optimal" in his interview with Jon Stewart. In an interview with the Boston Herald, however, Smith herself denied saying the quotes attributed to her in this article.
And two days ago, Murdoch's New York Post has chimed in with an article that quotes her as saying,
“Everyone’s giving me different answers. I don’t have good answers, and they are not giving me good answers. Some of the people [from the government] looked me right in the eye and lied to me. . . .Somebody is lying, or else these crooks are running our country, and I don’t choose to believe that. . . .My son is dead, and I don’t know why, and I don’t know why nobody went out to help my son."
I have no idea if Mrs. Smith is really in sync with the right-wing media, or (as I suspect) simply a grieving mother who is unaccustomed to getting barraged by phone calls from reporters, and who is therefore not cautious about her comments.
References:
Daily Mail article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220241/Barack-Obama-Benghazi-attack-Mother-diplomat-criticises-Presidents-optimal-comment.html?ito=feeds-newsxml (along with attractive thumbnails of young female celebrities)
Boston Herald interview:
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1061168977
New York Post article (I'm using Bitly because the Post used some pretty crude language in their own link):
http://bit.ly/OQc8Am
scholar -- The first to 'use' her was Anderson Cooper on his AC360. In fact he's done it a few times now. He was still PO'd for being called out for using the Ambassador's journal on air on his show. The Ambassador's family was infuriated he did that.
It is becoming increasing clear to me that once again, the GOP is trying valiantly to "get" Obama, any way they can, by connecting him to some scandal, real or imagined. They have been frothing at the mouth over Solyndra, Fast and Furious, and other garbage that in the end wound up as nothing more than a witch hunt. Same here. Hence Issa's race to judge. In the end the ONLY things that are of any importance is what happened, who did it and to bring them to justice. All of the foot stomping and teeth gnashing is show, a terrible show. Are we really arguing semantics here? Are we really wasting all this time whether the President said this was an Act of Terror/Terrorist Act? Seriously? Bottom line is that it was a DEADLY act, and frankly we should spend more time getting to the bottom of it rather than moaning and groaning about exactly what we should call the event. Did mistakes happen? Certainly. Was it negligence? We need to find out exactly what happened first before we make that determination. Again, we NEED TO FIND OUT EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. We can not proceed half-cocked based on rhetoric or political pandering or rumor. The way to proceed is based on facts. Did Mr. Romney have all the facts when he blurted out his statement on the matter while the events were still unfolding? No he did not, but he indeed went forward with that statement in order, once again, to make the president look bad TO LOW INFORMATION VOTERS who won't bother to find out what REALLY happened. "Well, Romney said that Obama sided with the terrorists, so it must be so."
This is nuts! Shock and awe...over what exactly? Maybe we need to ask Romney to try and get some of his own stories straight first, before he goes blaming someone else. This Romney fella has more stories and versions of stories you could possibly imagine. Let's ask him to put his policies on the table in chronological order, let's see the master of nothing try and do that. Or the magic trick of hiding the tax returns and wagging the tail or the dog or whatever it is. He is a wizard of deception. His problem lies in his delivery.
The whole problem with the teapubs and making issues that eventually end up to be nothing is that once the accusations are made, most people don't hear the result of it being nothing. The accusations are out there, repeatedly for enough time that people are believing it and then they remember the accusation and nothing of resulting hot air with no grounds. Teapubs know this and if you think I'm wrong, check out a few blogs. They are still talking ACORN, birth certificate, Kenya, Muslim, Clinton refused Osama on a platter and voter fraud even though it's being committed by teapubs on a regular basis.
Think about it. In this country if someone is arrested for something they didn't do or even are accused of something they didn't do and then the guilty person is finally found, they STILL believe the first person is guilty of SOMETHING because they were arrested/accused in the first place. That's the mentality of this country and the teapubs use it to their advantage with lies and false accusations.
You thinkd turning over guns to Mexican drug cartels is nothing. That's where dems and republicans differ. Thousands of people have been killed with those guns.
The point being...Issa's Fast and Furious "hearings" had nothing to do with finding out what went so wrong. They had everything to do with bringing down Obama. That is all. I will repeat that. Issa's hearings had nothing to do with finding out the truth, they only served to somehow, some way tie Obama to a scandal. It was a complete waste of time, and a complete disservice to the victims. Issa's "hearings" were nothing, meant nothing, and did nothing but waste time and money. It is the same now with this Benghazi document dump. He doesn't care what happened and why and who was involved, and he certainly doesn't care about the lives he endangered with this document dump. Issa only sees yet another opportunity to try to nail Obama.
Case in point.
Mitt Foreign Policy and crisis management:
Assess all situations for political advantage and immediately feed press.
Use Mitt-centric world view to blame, inflame, and finger point.
Determine any facts contrary to Mitt-centric world view as "liberal" cover up.
Double down on inflammatory statements until facts become irrefutable.
Go sullenly silent behind the Smirk of Superiority.
Take revenge by getting wife to make cutting anti-liberal remarks.
The eyes bulging out before turning his back on us, that's a new one. Was that supposed to be the stern Daddy look?
Angel -- I've continued to mention that many times. I refer to it as the eyebrow raising as to calling Obama a liar and daring him to come back with a response. Romney was then handed his head on a platter by being 'Crowley Checked' aka fact checked.
"Please proceed, Governor...." is turning out to be one of my favorite debate lines ever.
June - Jon Stewart did an excellent job using that phrase. It was brilliant!!
Need more coffee,
Please go to link on #5.3. For the rest of the story.
June,
When President Obama said "Please proceed, Governor...." what I heard was "Here Governor Romney, let me hand you some rope with which to hang yourself."
double post
Romney's desperate to make Benghazi 2012 into Teheran 1979, so he can appear to be Reagan to Obama's Jimmy Carter. That's clearly the scenario his Bushy neocon advisers have dreamed up and they're sticking to it. What they fail to realize is that the facts don't fit their ridiculous story and even if they did, most voters don't remember the Iranian hostage crisis in any detail and it's therefore pretty useless as a metaphor. Instead of taking wild shots at Obama's small misstep here, maybe they should try to devise a real foreign policy of their own? Nah... all those former Bush advisers probably have one. They're just not telling us about it. I wonder why.
The GOP are 'one dimensional' focused on foreign policy. They get fixated and see nothing outside that focus. They could not juggle the midEast as it is right now.
We witnessed it through GWB. He dropped Afghanistan to run to Iraq. GOP acting in two fronts at the same time -- they can't do it. GWB got fixated on Iraq as it still did have something to do with 'Daddy' Bush. We also witnessed GWB some time after 9/11, saying he wasn't going to bother going after BinLaden -- it wasn't a priority to him. He had Iraq going on -- he could not juggle both yet he had got the NATO troops into Afghanistan and abandoned them while they were doing GWB's job. NATO is still there -- they did not abandon the fight that GWB did.
You are just like Obama. "small mistep" is the same as Obama's "bump in the road". They fact that he didn't send more security to a region in turmoil is just a little bump in the road. I don't think so. More could have and should have been done with the prior knowledge and communications that they had had.
Jes, I think you have peed on enough fire hydrants here little boy. Back to Wingnut World before we have to call Animal Control to come put you in the pound.
jes, like good little GOP soldiers, does make use of 'out of context' with a smattering of 'one dimensional thinking' and a dose of 'Romnesia' thrown into the mix.
You just keep splitting hairs on words as instructed in the daily talking points briefings!!!!! Yea -- that will work for ya -- just like it did for Romney in the second debate. Remember -- when he was 'Crowley Checked'. Crowley checked is commonly known as 'Fact Checked' - Checkmate!
Their strategy is to cram America down everyone's gullet and bomb them if they don't like it. Atleast, as far as I've been able to decipher...
The best part of this whole Banghazi attack on the blogs is the teapubs saying the Obama administration was watching it happen in real time and could have done something. The other argument was that the embassy security cutbacks the teapubs voted for was for fiscal 2012 and hadn't taken effect yet. I was laughing until I realized these idjits believe it. My GAWD! No wonder these teapubs keep getting elected to office!
The Romney people and the GOP in general make a mistake in Outing operatives and exposing CIA assets to reprisals. Now it never in the best interest of a candidate to piss of the Spooks weeks before an election there is no telling what skeletons may conveniently come out in that time.
Like outing the Dr. who helped get Bin laden in Pakistan and identifying it was seal team six's memebers. Now their families are afraid. Obama wants to make sure everyone knows what a foreign policy guru he is, whether he exposes our own military ops or not. And he wants to make sure they know every minute detail of what we did to make the mission work so they will be ready next time. The military has been furious about those leaks.
One can only hope.
One event that is being overlooked in this whole debate is what the people of Benghazi did a few days after the attack on our consulate. They rose up and threw the bums out. They drove the armed militia out of town because THEY do not want to be seen as anti-American extremists.
It is tragic that four Americans lost their lives, but there are things going on in the Middle East that are positive and that cannot be helped by more boots on the ground. When moderate Muslims learn that al Oaeda and the Taliban are their real enemies and that American is there to help them drive out their extremists, then we will have won the war.
Romney will probably try to sound tough tonight in the debate, but we do not need a tough foreign policy. We need a sensitive and subtile policy that sees the needs and wants of the people of the region. We need more leadership from behind. We need the people of the Middle East to think that we are helping them, and not that we are demanding that they help us.
Yes, we will see their needs and wants to keep sending terrorists after us anywhere westerners go
To jcricket. Have you learned that GM is using other TARP money to repay the TARP money it received. Just juggling TARP money. TARP money is still government money. GM Still belongs to the taxpayers. http://www.ihatethemedia.com/gm-loan-payback-truthhttp://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/23/how-did-gm-pay-off-its-bailout-loans/ http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/23/general-motors-economy-bailout-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia_2.html Yep. Sure am glad that GM is doing better and will be able to repay the taxpayers shortly. And yep, they still owe the Government a lot of money. And who is it that owns Chrysler now? Fiat, an Italian company. Your facts on the big 3 were lacking. GM hasn't paid out, and maybe never will. There will have to be a huge turn around. Unions have made it so the company will not make profits. They don't want to make concessions and probably won't because the government continues to make sure their jobs are secure, even when they can't make the company work. Obama needs union votes and that is the entirety of it.
What the devil does "pre-planned" mean?