The Benghazi…
…timeline.
Do enough people care?
I’ve noticed that the Benghazi debacle has spawned a few articles critical of Obama in papers like the Times and the WaPo. I think their willingness to be a bit hard on Obama over this (although never as critical as they should be) is that they realize it’s safe—that most people just don’t care about this stuff.
I hope I’m wrong, but my guess is that if you were to poll 100 of your friends (other than politics-obsessed blog readers, that is) on this incident and its aftermath, you’d find a lot of “huh?” responses about anything but the very broadest notions—such that there were some riots somewhere, an ambassador of ours was killed, and it was about some anti-Muslim video.
I’m in a very cynical frame of mind today.
Private pals poll. Private palls schmoll!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place, neo,
And we’ll not fail. When Matthews is asleep–
Whereto Dan Ratheresque shall his day’s hard journey
Soundly invite him–his other bozo media buds
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
Their brains, the warder of the brains,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Obama? what not put upon
His spongy Jarret, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
This election is about Obama. He’s a fool and a base poltroon. Got to Go!
Teh NYT and WaPo and teh alphabets will keep telling us R&R CAN’T No=Way NO=HOW win so go home and shut up.
They. Lie. You know it. I know it. Millions of voters know it and more suspect it.
Take heart. Never give up. NEVER!
Very hard for me to take heart, Sam L.
If Romney had been given a quarter of a chance at puncturing the stranglehold the twin evils of mainstream media and low-information-edness have over the electorate, we’d have a fair shot.
But not the way the deck is stacked.
Readers here know the details so I won’t bore (or wear out my delicate fingertips).
It’s probably for the best. Can you imagine if everyone, or even a majority of people, were constantly distracted from their family, job, etc.? It would surely be a less productive and even dysfunctional world.
Not enough people care because the media isn’t going wall to wall with this. They’re downplaying it to protect Obama’s awesome foreign policy reputation. The first dead ambassador in 33yrs, inadequate protection in an Al Queda stronghold on 9-11, the administration lying about it for over a week is a big, big deal. And President Nine Iron refers to it as a few bumps in the road?
I’m guessing a lot of people just have Middle East fatigue. It’s a godforsaken place full of barbarians.
I have consistently considered Obama’s foreign policy toxic, and his SoS a sad joke.
The funny thing is that H. Clinton has been viewed as a good SoS due to the media, despite her failures.
What is even worse, the DoS did not see fit to secure the consulate area after the attack. Apparently anyone could go in and sift the remains for whatever intelligence they might find. A CNN crew found Ambassador Stevens’ journal, which seemed to indicate that he believed he was on an al Qaida hit list. If they are going to investigate the attack, it seems to me the first thing to do is to secure the scene.
Hillary’s DoS is not covering itself with glory here. Nor is her boss showing much in the way of resolve or crisp management of this crisis.
Read about CNN finding the journal here:
http://tinyurl.com/97v9qmt
I am finding it difficult to take heart as well. We are never going to get anywhere with our current MSM. Just consider: even if Romney wins (please, Lord), we will be faced with YEARS of vicious, hateful, rotten, lying, news “reports”. I hope Romney is up for it. I, for one, cannot stand the thought. Of course the thought of Obama winning is beyond enduring.
Just in case anyone takes those critical articles too seriously, headline at Yahoo News:
“U.S. responded to Benghazi attack as terrorism on ‘Day One’: Source”
Re Josh Gershtein’s defense of Obama based on the cited phrase “acts of terror”. Kessler is right: it’s diplo-speak, exactly the same way “acts of genocide” was used in 1994 to obfuscate on the Rwanda genocide to avoid US intervention.
In 1994, Susan Rice (then Clinton’s NSC director on interventions) was instrumental in defining away the problem in Rwanda and in 2012, she’s trying to define away the problem in Libya in the same way.
I think anyone who was old enough to “get” it on the original 9/11 has noticed (except for those scary “got my Obama phone!!” types). Watching the embassy attacks and riots on 9/11 brought a lot of the old horror and awareness of the murderers’/rioters’ uncontrolled hate I first experienced 11 years ago. And then watching Obama and Hillary – while standing in front of their caskets! – pretend it wasn’t terrorism was surreal.
It’s going to take an accumulation of these moments for some people, such as watching Obama demand Catholic institutions provide free abortion coverage, then learning about Fast & Furious, then having your child manhandled by TSA, then hearing Obama deride business owners with “You didn’t build that!”, and so on. I know reminding folks of the full list of Obama offenses isn’t part of Romney’s strategy, but it needs to be recounted, since people can easily ignore (or be distracted from) a single offense at a time.
Ah, you poor conservatives. You don’t get it, mired in the past as you all obviously are. Go look it up in Wikipedia – Modernity ended in 1989. We’re all post modern now, baby. Lesson one. The narrative is all. Lesson two. Reality is just another construct. And besides you didn’t build it – Obama did.