The transcript of last night’s 60 Minutes program about the attack on the U. S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya in 2012 makes for sobering reading. To my eye CBS’s account comports more closely with those of the administration’s opponents than with the one purveyed by the administration and enormously more than its dismissal by some as insignificant.
The broadcasting of this report comes at an uncomfortable time for the White House, following the furor of the bungled debut of Healthcare.gov, by just about any account an unforced error. As Abraham Lincoln pointed out 150 years ago, you can manage the politics of every issue perfectly but if you don’t handle the issues of governance it will eventually come back to haunt you.
This would be a very good time for the White House to put its head down and devote its energies to the business of governing. I’ll bet a shiny new dime that won’t be the strategy. “My center is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking.”
We need some kind of convenient graph to alert us to the moment when fretting over Benghazi exceeds the fretting over the Iraq War. Benghazi doesn’t even rise to the level of a tempest in a teapot. In a less partisan and less hysterical time it would earn a shrug.
The healthcare dot gov matter is bigger, more important, and a real problem.
Was there anything new in the CBS piece? I skimmed the transcript and it seemed like the same information that was presented at the Congressional hearings. I thought it was significant and troubling then (from the beginning, actually, mainly because the administraion was obviously covering up something) but I don’t really see anything new coming out now.
The coverage is likely to hurt Hillary Clinton even more than Obama at this point, I would think.
90% of Mr. Reynolds (and others) excuse making seems to revolve around “oh yeah!, well Bush was worse” against the backdrop of “Bush was an incompetent idiot.”
Hence, Mr. Obama is just barely this side of an incompetent idiot. I would say that side. But as you like it……..
To be honest, I think that the IRS matter is actually somewhat more troubling than either the Benghazi matter or the problems with healthcare.gov. Both of the latter two are stories of neglect and reluctance to face bad news. The IRS thing could be deploying a federal agency as an organ of party politics.
Did you see the program or read the transcript, Michael? It’s rather clear that the administration a) had advance warning of the seriousness of the situation; b) ignored it; and c) lied about it. That sounds pretty serious to me.
What difference, at this point, does it make? Obama will not be held accountable for this, just like he has not been held accountable for anything else. Everything he does, every last thing, is waived away by his worshipful followers as, “Yeah, but BOOOOOOSH was worse!” I even get Reynolds and Steve telling new that Obama’s deficits don’t matter but Bush’s were the worst thing in the history of [insert hyperbole HERE]. Seriously, have you ever heard a Reynolds or a Steve offer an unqualified negative assessment of anything Obama has ever done?
This just doesn’t matter, because nothing with negative news about Obama ever does. Carney will come out tomorrow and say “The President only found out about this when he saw it on 60 Minutes ” and that will be that.
“What difference, at this point, does it make? Obama will not be held accountable for this, just like he has not been held accountable for anything else”
Not held accountable by whom? You certainly hold him accountable. Dave holds him accountable. I’m sure a broad swath of the American people holds him accountable. But apparently there’s something lacking.
I guess my question is (and we might call it a “metapolitical” question, whose answer would be applicable to any president of any party), what would the tokens of “holding a president accountable” be? What does that phrase mean?
…..if you have a current health insurance policy and you like it, you can keep it…..oh wait….
“To be honest, I think that the IRS matter is actually somewhat more troubling than either the Benghazi matter or the problems with healthcare.gov.”
Has Jon Stewart gotten his audit notice yet?
Obama has precious little executive acumen, and absolutely zero leadership skill, as I’ve said so many times before. YouTube videos the cause of a slaughter. Lied about and let get bungled Obamacare. Sgt. “I Know Nothing” Schultz whenever things go bad………………..but a bad assed hero who planned every last detail when things go right. (He shot Osama, right??) Uniter? Nope. Economy? Nope. Egypt? Nope. Syria? Nope. Employment? Nope. But I guess its Fox News’ fault……or maybe a YouTube video of people writing ObamaCare code……
You sycophants ought to just admit the obvious. A totally empty suit not even close to ready for the job who’s highest and best is reading a script, a big smile while gazing correctly into the camera or crowd, going on The View for lightweight questioning – make that slobbering adulation – and voting present……….and let President Jarrett take it from there.
Totally off topic….
In channel flipping before the start of the Hawks game Amy Winehouse is on Palladia. Apparently in a more lucid moment. Quite a singer. A shame her demons took her down.
But, but, but Reynolds is gonna save tons of money (assuming he’s actually signed up; finding people who have managed to make it all the way through is like finding a fucking unicorn)…ya know, rich white older liberals….while younger, poorer Americans, with far higher debt (thank you government and liberals), poorer job prospects (thank you government and liberals) and less accumulated wealth, will see their health insurance skyrocket…so rich assholes like Reynolds can pay less! Makes perfect sense. Then Reynolds and his ilk can get on their self-righteous, smug, high horse and demagogue and eviscerate anybody and everybody that deigns to disagree with them about what a compassionate, caring and outstanding human being he is… while he’s fucking the next generation and the one after with one liberal Ponzi scheme after another…but he cares man!
Makes perfect fucking sense…
As for Obama, look, Neverland is ripe for invasion. Gather up all the goddamn fairies you can find, put them in a camp and squeeze out every ounce of fairy dust, then use it to power Obamacare…it’s worth a try at this point…
You really need to stop drinking.
The guy on 60 Minutes is selling a book. I would take what he said with a grain of salt. Otherwise, didnt see anything new. Still sounds as though the CIA (this was a CIA operation) thought they had things under control when they did not.
Steve
Any lefty here would do well to read this and actually take the time to ponder it:
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/10/government-is-magic.html
It is reality. What I do is BORING. Basic blocking and tackling in the manufacturing sector. Nondescript widgets. Optimize organizational talent and processes. Appropriate capital allocation. Optimize the manufacturing footprint. Nurture modest product innovation and nudge into new channels.
Yawn. We don’t give juvenile and grandiose speeches about “we are the ones we have been waiting for.” (WTF??!! Go jack off in the bathroom, dude.) We are just simple widget makers. Increasing sales, profit, employment. Returns to investors. BORING.
Boring, but necessary. That’s how the world really works.
Steve, the guy on 60 Minutes, “Morgan Jones,” talked to other reporters prior to his book, describing the same chilling scenario. And, for what it’s worth, Michael, lying and incompetence does not become a lesser evil just because it involves a smaller scale event.
Everything about Benghazi stinks!!! The key player in this tragedy was the state dept who deliberately ignored calls for more security, as they wanted to keep up Obama’s campaign meme that “Al Qaeda was on the run”, when the CIA was actually telling them it was on the rise and adding cells in Libya. This led them to turn a blind eye to everything and everyone’s risk assessment, on the ground and in the know. Consequently, because of the administration’s political obsession, to make Libya look good and not screw up the works for the upcoming election, there was no collaboration with tactical support teams, no back-up plans in place should they be needed — now they’re even saying there was a gasoline problem!. They completely and openly dropped the ball, and then afterwards hid their self-serving botched responses, with the MSM and democratic acolytes all falling in line and supporting whatever tale, excuses, or talking points the WH/State Dept. laboriously fabricated.
People, though, who have been curious, exemplary and forthright in their early-on Benghazi investigations are Eli Lake of the Daily Beast, CBS’s Sharyl Attkisson, foreign correspondents Catherine Herridge/Jennifer Griffin, and news anchor Bret Baier for a detailed Special Report done on Benghazi months ago. Now there is Lara Logan, who,while bringing the event back to life in this overdue 60 Minutes presentation, was careful not to mention names like Obama and Clinton in the piece. Then we have Greg Hicks, a long-term civil servant, who helplessly tried to bring attention to the plight of those in Benghazi, before and during the attack, and was stonewalled. His unjust rewards included being demeaned and demoted.
It’s interesting, though, to compare/contrast the fate and fortunes of troubled presidents. Nixon, for instance, had his Watergate, was, nonetheless, reelected to a second term, only later to be exposed, brought to justice and then fortunately he resigned. Obama had his Benghazi — but you can take your pick — IRS, NSA, F & F, DOJ, and PPACA misinformation. Like his predecessor, he was, nonetheless, reelected. However, unlike Nixon he was shielded by the media, blame deflected onto others, no one has been fired or brought to justice, and he just keeps getting passes, seemingly getting away with scandal after scandal by simply saying, “I didn’t know about it.”
To be honest, I think that the IRS matter is actually somewhat more troubling than either the Benghazi matter or the problems with healthcare.gov. Both of the latter two are stories of neglect and reluctance to face bad news. The IRS thing could be deploying a federal agency as an organ of party politics.
But all three situations potentially (probably, in my view) involve deployment of agencies of the government in service of party politics.
The whole implementation of PPACA was timed to give out some benefits prior to the election, and delay the costs and problems until after. And Benghazi sure looks to me like the principals were tasked with CYA as their top priority. Not to mention that the obfuscation delayed any accountability for the screw up until well after 2012. The event itself was bad enough but the coverup takes it to that whole other level.
Even focusing on the event itself….what the hell could they have been thonking? I still think there’s a lot more we don’t know (likely concerning the CIA mission) because it makes no sense for the ambassador to have been put in that position, on that day, in that environment. And then there’s the implications of assessing the overall Libya policy, which had clearly unravelled far more than the public had been led to believe up until then.
And @sam: my answer to your accountability question is that the media would need to stop delaying accountability until after people get reelected. They deprived the voters of a fair review of situations that may have had an effect on rehiring.
The event itself was bad enough but the coverup takes it to that whole other level.
That’s why, IMO, Benghazi is so Nixonian, and consequently historically relevant in getting to the truth of Benghazi, creating some substance to that often repeated phrase from the government — “…so this will never happen again.” There is a stronger likelihood of that being the case when lies are cleared away, redacted documents are exposed, security, CIA and military people, connected to that night in Benghazi, have government pressure/threats lifted, allowing them to freely/honestly give their testimony without fears of negative administration repercussions following them, as what happened to Hicks.
And @sam: my answer to your accountability question is that the media would need to stop delaying accountability until after people get reelected. They deprived the voters of a fair review of situations that may have had an effect on rehiring.
What a great idea — to ‘stop delaying accountability. First, though, you have to extract the press from the president’s back pocket, and then clean up all the adulation drool from their faces.
Jan- still, better late than never, some seem to be experiencing the scales falling from their eyes. Chris Matthews is the latest. In Oct 2012 he sniped at a young Romney supporter that Benghazi was all about the YouTube video. In Jan ’13 he was effusive in his praise of Hillary “What difference does it make” Clinton. In May, the best I can ascertain is that MSNBC ignored the hearings except to call it a GOP witch hunt. Now, suddenly Matthews is demanding answers. It’s hard not to sneer but better to encourage his newfound curiosity.
Cstanley,,
One thing the social progressives can take credit for are some of the best political ‘quips’ of the century — a few quoted by you above. I hope that “What difference does it make”, from Hillary Clinton, becomes a concrete block around her thick ankles, in denying her any access to the presidency in 2016. As for Matthews, I’ve heard that he is feeling the thrill less frequently, regarding Obama’s greatness. However, it remains to be seen how long these glimmers of curiosity remain a topic for him to discuss.