Phony Scandal? I Think Not, Mr. President...

The Benghazi scandal (one cited by Obama as “phony”) keeps getting worse and worse.  Jake Tapper – one of the few mainstream media reporters actually working this story – has uncovered compelling evidence of a massive CIA coverup.  One of the facts revealed: there were dozens of CIA operatives on the ground in Benghazi when our ambassador and three others were killed.

Dozens.

For whatever reason, the CIA seems to be in a flat-out panic about keeping a lid on whatever those CIA operatives were doing.  There's lots of speculation about that, but (as yet) no hard facts.

Phony scandal?  Sounds to me much more like a phony president...

Benghazi...

Several readers have emailed to ask me why I'm not commenting on this story.  Mainly it's because there's nothing for me to add.  The entire disgusting, sickening story is now emerging.  I still have no intuition whether the main culprits (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, in my view) will be held to account.  I certainly hope so, but I can't say I'm optimistic about that.  But even that emotion is completely dwarfed by something else I'm feeling: an overwhelming sense of despair and resignation about politics sublimating everything good about my country.  It's getting to the point where it's difficult to imagine anything short of a revolution effecting a cure.  Another Thatcher or Reagan, perhaps...though I don't see anyone like that emerging.

Peggy Noonan has a good piece in today's Wall Street Journal discussing Benghazi.  Here's her summary of the affair:

The Obama White House sees every event as a political event. Really, every event, even an attack on a consulate and the killing of an ambassador.

Because of that, it could not tolerate the idea that the armed assault on the Benghazi consulate was a premeditated act of Islamist terrorism. That would carry a whole world of unhappy political implications, and demand certain actions. And the American presidential election was only eight weeks away. They wanted this problem to go away, or at least to bleed the meaning from it.

Because the White House could not tolerate the idea of Benghazi as a planned and deliberate terrorist assault, it had to be made into something else. So they said it was a spontaneous street demonstration over an anti-Muhammad YouTube video made by a nutty California con man. After all, that had happened earlier in the day, in Cairo. It sounded plausible. And maybe they believed it at first. Maybe they wanted to believe it. But the message was out: Provocative video plus primitive street Arabs equals sparky explosion. Not our fault. Blame the producer! Who was promptly jailed.

If what happened in Benghazi was not a planned and prolonged terrorist assault, if it was merely a street demonstration gone bad, the administration could not take military action to protect Americans there. You take military action in response to a planned and coordinated attack by armed combatants. You don't if it's an essentially meaningless street demonstration that came and went.

The rest of her piece is interesting as well.

The current Crowder (with a guest appearance by Andrew Klavan) is also an effective summary.


You know this all means we need:

   Rope (lots of it).
   Trees (an entire forest full of them).
   Bureaucrats and their leaders (an administration full of them).
   Some assembly required.

Benghazi Survivors...

Six months ago, our embassy in Benghazi was attacked, and four Americans were killed (including our ambassador to Libya).  There were survivors of this attack, but we haven't heard from them, at all.  Why?

Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of warning these survivors to stay silent, presumably because the story they would tell would be (highly) unfavorable to the Obama administration.  So now the Republicans are proposing “whistleblower” protections be granted to these survivors, so they can tell their stories without fear of retribution.

Doesn't this just make you feel all warm and fuzzy about your government?

Gah!

Is This What Obama Is Hiding?

The terrorists who killed our ambassador to Libya and three others were using weapons provided by the U.S.

I don't have the words...

Benghazi...

Bumped for Update the Second:

Commenter Anonymous forwarded this video, thinking it might be the one I couldn't find.  It's not, but it's certainly of the same ilk:


Bumped for Update:


Mark Steyn weighs in on this topic, and you really don't want to miss it...

Original post:

It just keeps on getting worse.  Yesterday we found out that:

• as the Benghazi attacks were underway, our Ambassador and his staff repeatedly asked for military assistance – which was denied
• we had the right kind of military assistance within range of Benghazi
• we apparently had a Special Forces Spectre (AC-130 gunship) overhead (this is inferred from the fact that one of the guys on the ground was “painting” a target with a target designator, something one would do only in the expectation of support from a gunship)

Now this morning I read these three things:

• Petraeus (CIA director) says flatly that the CIA never denied any request for military assistance
• Panetta (Secretary of Defense) says the Pentagon didn't have enough information to respond militarily – while other reports say we had military support available on scene
• Obama says he was “not personally aware” of any requests for military assistance at the time

This leaves me very suspicious of the very worst: that we lost four good men because someone up the chain of command decided not to support them.  Who could that someone be?

CIA?  Petraeus makes it abundantly clear that it wasn't the CIA, and I believe he's an honorable man (though someone could, presumably, be lying to him).

Pentagon?  Panetta's “no information” claim seems laughable, based on what we've been told by other sources.  It's the kind of thing you'd say to cover up the real reason.  If some person under his command made the decision not to supply military aid, that person would have been fingered by Panetta and Obama weeks ago, to cover their own butt.  If Panetta made that decision himself, Obama would have thrown him under the bus.  That leaves one alternative: Panetta is covering for Obama – and damn it, that's plausible.

White House?  Imagine being in the White House on 9/11, as the Benghazi attack was unfolding.  Obama was in Washington that day, and so presumably able to easily communicate with his staff.  The calls and emails from Benghazi, asking for military assistance, come in.  What does the staff do?  Does nobody notice?  Does a staff member decide not to inform the President?  Does a staff member respond directly, denying the request?  Or does a staff member forward the requests to Obama, who either doesn't respond or who denies the request?  Those are all the possibilities I can think of, and every one of them is completely unacceptable for a Commander-in-Chief and his staff.  Their reaction (or lack thereof) killed four Americans.  They must be brought to account.

You'll note that several of those links go to Fox News, which is the only mainstream media outlet working this story.  Of course, if something like this had occurred during President Bush's administration (or that of any other non-Progressive President), the mainstream media would be all over it.  There would be giant headlines and “Breaking News Alerts!” every time another piece of the story emerged.  Dozens of reporters would be working just as hard as they possibly could, diligently tracking down every lead.  But this is a Progressive administration, and the mainstream media studiously ignores every sour note – even on a story like this, involving downright criminal (perhaps even treasonous) behavior on the part of senior administration officials.  Most of the media are co-conspirators in the Progressive efforts to tear up our Constitution and “evolve” into a Progressive, socialist state modeled after Europe.

Of course, even worse is that most Americans don't care enough about this to even inform themselves.  Even the carefully edited sound bytes from the mainstream media are heard by relatively few Americans.  The other day I saw a video of an on-the-street survey of a couple dozen randomly-selected people, each asked just one question: “What can you tell me about Benghazi?”  I can't find it now, dang it.  From memory, just one person answered in a way that made it clear they knew Benghazi was in Libya, that Americans had been killed there, and that there was controversy over the events there.  Several people thought “Benghazi” was a musician; one even rhapsodized about the glories of his lyrics.  Two or three others knew it was a place (one thought it was a country; another a city in Turkey).  Most had never heard of it.  Just one person in a couple dozen had a clue –  roughly 4%.  Ay yi yi...

Lies from Our President...

I haven't written much about the Benghazi affair, as I've had very little to add to the story, and because most of the issue was just hearsay and speculation.  The latest revelations, however, persuade me of the almost-unthinkable: that our President and his administration have been lying to us about Benghazi right from the very first statements they've made. 

John Bolton, in the video below, has the only explanation so far that rings true to me: that the idealogy of the administration prevented them from seeing the reality before their eyes: that al Qaeda is alive and well, and still bent on killing Americans.

This is a firing offense, folks.  Please, please remember this appalling behavior when you vote in two weeks...

Summary: Obama Administration on the Benghazi Attack...

No Demonstration at Benghazi Before the Attack?!?

The U.S. State Department is now denying that it ever thought there had been a demonstration about the anti-Islamic movie prior to the attack on our Benghazi consulate that killed four Americans.

What kind of game is being played here?

The first thing that came to my mind is that Hillary Clinton is yanking the rug out from under Obama – first he blames the Benghazi attacks on that stupid movie for weeks, then she says her department knew better all along.  Is this actually true?  If so, then some State Department folks never got the word, because they initially backed Obama's take.  Or is Hillary seeing the political problem, and distancing herself from it in order to better position herself for a 2016 run?  Or is she just being spiteful? 

I don't know any of these things, of course – just all random thoughts that came to mind after reading this extraordinary statement. 

Of course, another perfectly reasonable interpretation is that our government is run by a bunch of incompetent clowns.  But we know better than that, don't we?  Don't we???