The Benghazi email: it’s lies all the way down
As time goes on and the mendacity piles up, it’s getting harder to sort out and remember the entire hierarchy of lies this administration has told about Benghazi. And this, no doubt, is part of the plan—to get the opposition to dizzy itself playing a long-running game of whac-a-mole.
So let’s just say the whole thing is pretty much a house of lies, and that the latest Jay Carney statement—that the Rhodes email, the one instructing Rice to spin the protests as being motivated by the video, was not actually about Benghazi—is only the latest and perhaps most ridiculous of them all.
Andrew McCarthy points out the additional fact, usually ignored, that even if you look only at the Cairo protests rather than the Benghazi ones, the ones in Cairo were not motivated by the video either. The video as motivation was always a spin and a lie, from the very outset, designed to protect the administration:
The State Department knew there was going to be trouble at the embassy on September 11, the eleventh anniversary of al-Qaeda’s mass-murder of nearly 3,000 Americans. It was well known that things could get very ugly. When they did, it would become very obvious to Americans that President Obama had not “decimated” al-Qaeda as he was claiming on the campaign trail. Even worse, it would be painfully evident that his pro”“Muslim Brotherhood policies had actually enhanced al-Qaeda’s capacity to attack the United States in Egypt.
The State Department also knew about the obscure anti-Muslim video. Few Egyptians, if any, had seen or heard about it, but it had been denounced by the Grand Mufti in Cairo on September 9. Still, the stir it caused was minor, at best. As Tom Joscelyn has elaborated, the Cairo rioting was driven by the jihadists who were agitating for the Blind Sheikh’s release and who had been threatening for weeks to raid and torch our embassy. And indeed, they did storm it, replace the American flag with the jihadist black flag, and set fires around the embassy complex.
Nevertheless, before the rioting began but when they knew there was going to be trouble, State Department officials at the embassy began tweeting out condemnations of the video while ignoring the real sources of the threat: the resurgence of jihadists in Muslim Brotherhood”“governed Egypt, the continuing demand for the Blind Sheikh’s release (which underscored the jihadists’ influence), and the very real danger that jihadists would attack the embassy (which demonstrated that al-Qaeda was anything but “decimated”).
The transparent purpose of the State Department’s shrieking over the video was to create the illusion that any security problems at the embassy (violent rioting minimized as mere “protests”) were attributable to the anti-Muslim video, not to President Obama’s policies and patent failure to quell al-Qaeda.
Because there was a kernel of truth to the video story, and because the American media have abdicated their responsibility to report the predominant causes of anti-Americanism in Egypt, journalists and the public have uncritically accepted the notion ”” a false notion ”” that the video caused the Cairo rioting. That acceptance is key to the administration’s “Blame the Video” farce in connection with the lethal attack in Benghazi.
McCarthy’s article is (as usual) so good that it’s well worth reading the whole thing to get an idea of the depth and breadth of the administration’s lies, and how early in the game they were being promulgated.
I would like to point out another episode connected with Benghazi that’s gotten lost over time in the pile of other lies: I’d love to know what really was happening with Candy Crowley in the second debate. I continue to believe that was pre-orchestrated between some person (or persons) connected with the White House and Crowley herself. If you’re interested in refreshing your memory on what happened and my analysis of it, take a look here, here, and especially here.
Neo – I can help you with your Headline writing from here on out.
_________________ [fill in the blank]: it’s lies all the way down.
The other thing that is going all the way down is this country.
I can’t say we don’t deserve. So-called “Americans” voted for this monster and his minions twice.
They will get what they deserve. Unfortunately we will get what they deserve too.
After the Deluge. At least we can hope the day will come when we have a chance to come up from the storm cellars and start rebuilding.
The people who voted for this guy? Is permanent deportation off the table? Could we possibly implement my Incredible Immigration Plan?
1. Any illegal alien willing to a) learn English (there will be a test in 5 years); b) Not be on welfare; c) Work as hard as they have been – gets immediate citizenship starting right away.
2. All of this contingent on a one-for-one permanent deportation of Liberals and Obama Voters. We can throw in $10,000. per exit visa under the condition that if they ever return for any reason they will be shot on sight no questions asked.
There are 20m illegals? They get to replace 20m Lefties and Obama voters.
You know and I know that the Country would improve by 100% literally overnight, and justice all around will have been served.
Joking? Only because we can’t do it. If we could I’d be down at the docks reading the ships.
I just watched that Candy Crowley exchange you linked to, Neo. I think it’s absolutely clear that she was in collusion with Obama. Watching it this time, what jumped out at me was Obama’s “Please proceed, Governor.” To me that’s a clear set-up for Romney to elaborate on his charge that Obama had not called Benghazi an act of terror in his Rose Garden speech, and then for Candy to do the transcript thing.
Ann:
Agree. I don’t know why the right didn’t push this more. I was one of very few people (I’m not even sure I wasn’t the only person) looking at the actual video and analyzing it moment by moment. What I found was exceedingly suspicious. I was very very frustrated that I couldn’t get more traction on it.
Maybe the GOP felt they couldn’t convince people of something that seemed way too conspiracist. Romney was clearly taken aback by the entire incident and spooked by it, and wanted to leave the topic of Benghazi more or less alone after that. Which was a shame, although I can understand why he decided that was the best course of action.
Neo,
Every time you post about the Benghazi controversy, I’ll make the same comment:
Context colors everything.
The Benghazi controversy lacks the judgemental traction for the public that you want only in part due to the Obama administration’s mendacity and media complicity.
The main reason the Benghazi controversy is marginalized is because the public’s contextual frame on Middle East intervention has been defined by the false narrative against the Iraq mission. Obama’s Libya policy was explicitly based on the false narrative of the Iraq mission. Ie, Obama’s Libya actions are directly and mainly justified by the stigmatic taboo painted on the Clinton-Bush Iraq policy.
Viewed through a contextual lens, the Benghazi controversy is understood as merely an unfortunate hiccup of otherwise justified circumstances. It calls for some course correction and greater care, but it’s not viewed as a greater indictment of the Obama administration.
It’s the same thinking that normally happens when a police officer accidently kills an innocent civilian or another cop in the course of a volatile law/peace enforcement event. An investigation will be made, SOP corrections will be recommended and perhaps implemented, and individuals may be punished or reassigned, but the fall-out will be isolated and contained. The error is not normally viewed as a systemic problem that rises to the top leaders.
Why? Because the context and circumstances surrounding the police shooting accident are understood to be justified for the greater good.
In order for the Benghazi controversy to rise to the top as a systemic problem, the context and circumstances surrounding the killing of Ambassador Stevens et al, ie, Obama’s whole Libya policy, must be un-justified.
There’s two ways to do that:
One, the libertarian-leftist contention that US liberal interventions are inherently unjustified.
Or two, justify the Iraq mission in the popular narrative, explicitly draw the comparison to un-justify Obama’s Libya policy, and then frame the Benghazi controversy in the newly painted damning systemic context.
In law and other dialectical arenas, setting the contextual frame is called laying the foundation. Narrative is about telling a good story.
As the matter stands now, as long as the false narrative against the Iraq mission predominates, then you simply lack the foundation to make more of the Benghazi controversy to the public.
Eric:
I get it.
But I spent many years writing about the false Iraq narrative, too.
Propaganda on the left is strong, and simpler than refuting it is. Refutation tends to be complex, and people don’t want to hear it unless they’re already predisposed to believe it.
Lies are an implicit admission that what is sought cannot be achieved openly and at base an admission that what is sought cannot be rationally supported or defended.
Lies are proof of self-deception.
They lie because it is the only way they can ‘win’. And ‘winning’ is the only means they possess ‘to prove’ that their lives have meaning.
Eric said…”The Benghazi controversy lacks the judgemental traction for the public that you want only in part due to the Obama administration’s mendacity and media complicity.
The main reason the Benghazi controversy is marginalized is because the public’s contextual frame on Middle East intervention has been defined by the false narrative against the Iraq mission.”
I’m not sure I agree with this, Eric. This particular incident, simply on its face — that is, lack of protection for embassy staff, lack of efforts to rescue them, etc. — would have been very easy for most folks to grasp on a human level, no need to put it into any context. A leader does not abandon his people, period. But the MSM did their best to make sure that wasn’t brought out loudly and clearly.
You have to have a media willing to call a lie a lie. By the end of the week, Carney’s lie will yesterday’s news, and the D.C. press corpse will again be bending over backwards to believe whatever the White House tells them.
“The main reason the Benghazi controversy is marginalized is because the public’s contextual frame on Middle East intervention has been defined by the false narrative against the Iraq mission. …as long as the false narrative against the Iraq mission predominates, then you simply lack the foundation to make more of the Benghazi controversy to the public.” Eric
That is partially true in that limiting the exposure of the full truth of Benghazi allows that meme and narrative to dominate the public’s “contextual frame on Middle East intervention”. Were the truth of what Amb. Stevens was really doing in Benghazi to emerge into the public’s consciousness, it would have been reminiscent of the Iran Contra scandal and Obama would not have gained reelection.
The lies were not to maintain the false narrative, they were to protect Obama from discovering that he was facilitating Libyan arms into the hands of Sunni jihadists at play in Syria.
Stevens and the others were sacrificed for Obama’s political gain and in doing so, he and his entire administration have either directly committed treason or colluded in its coverup.
Carney shrugs off this lie as if it was just some sort of political spin, just finessing a random issue. Sickening.
The lie was used to deny Obama & Hillary’s reckless disregard for Amb. Stevens’ safety in the months leading up to the attack – ignoring multiple pleas for increased security and warnings from other countries. Also, the lie was used to distract from Obama & Hillary’s choice to do nothing for 7+ hours during the attack on September 11th, while others were prevented from rescuing them.
They even harassed and imprisoned the video maker to back up the lie. It makes me ill that they could write off 36(?) Americans like that, which is much worse than some random political spin.
Neo,
I know you have. That’s why I read your blog in the 1st place, which I classified as a “pro-victory blog” in 2005 on my blog.
The difficulty of refuting leftist activist propaganda doesn’t change that the false narrative of the Iraq mission is the patient zero from which all the compounding harmful effects have directly flowed, not only to the US role in the Middle East but with the whole retreat of US foreign policy described by David Brooks in his recent NY Times column, Saving the System.
Correcting everything bad that’s followed requires first correcting the premises and principles programmed into our national schema by the false narrative of the Iraq mission. And the only way to do that effectively is going back to patient zero and curing the metastatic source.
It’s also patient zero for the left turn in domestic policy, too, given that the Dems sold their souls to the hard left, the GOP was stigmatized, and Obama rode to power based on the false narrative of the Iraq mission.
The task being hard doesn’t make it less necessary. Every degradation of US foreign policy and the geopolitical situation caused by our corrupted national schema only makes the corrective task more urgent.
The task is hard because leftists, and libertarians to a lesser extent, understand that the predominance of the false narrative of the Iraq mission is the source and cornerstone of their political promotion.
They continue to cite to the false narrative of the Iraq mission as their justification and defense. They need it. Taking it away from them is the 1st step to defeating them.
The fact is that until you correct the popular narrative of the Iraq mission, you will be unable to provide a sufficient answer to Secretary Clinton’s retort of ‘Why does it matter?’ on the Benghazi controversy. As the matter stands now, there isn’t a good enough answer to why it should engender more than SOP fixes or rise to a grand sweeping indictment of the heads of the Obama administration.
I watched the tape again, too. Crowley was very nervous. Her body language was huge…sorry…ahem, let’s get some Texas holdem experts to review the tape. “Get the transcript” was Obama giving Crowley her cue, and almost unwillingly, frightened at being a party so something so darkly sinister and dishonest, but believing the ends justified the means, Candy hesitantly parroted back the response she’d been prepped with.
We all agree re lies and propaganda. We blame the Dems, the media, the stupid LIVs. But let us also frankly say that Romney was very easily intimidated, to the point of cowardice, dereliction of duty in the literal face of the enemy. We are never going to be able to fix things if we persistently put softies up on the point. We here knew it, we wouldn’t have caved to Candy and Hussein, but “our” candidate did? Yeah, right, the demure, mannerly conservative that can win. Some persist to this day in making excuses, finding reasons for his taking a dive in the 2nd round after scoring a damn-near TKO in the 1st.
Just like the Sterling and Bundy brouhahas, Romney’s failure to put down the black Hussein shows how far affirmative action has taken us.
Ann: “This particular incident, simply on its face – that is, lack of protection for embassy staff, lack of efforts to rescue them, etc. – would have been very easy for most folks to grasp on a human level, no need to put it into any context.”
As I said, context colors everything. Grasping an idea is different than evaluating the idea. The context within which the Benghazi controversy is evaluated by the public is the much bigger, bloodier, and dwarfing backdrop of Iraq.
If the Iraq mission was right, then the Benghazi incident is clearly wrong. If the Iraq mission was wrong, then the Benghazi incident if not right, is a comparatively much smaller wrong and preferable to the alternative.
In a different context – eg, if the incident had happened in the 1990s – then it could stand alone and large for the public.
For example, the Blackhawk Down incident captivated the public in its context, yet operations of that scale were/are near-daily in Iraq and Afghanistan, at times with more disastrous results, with hardly a notice by the public.
You always need to put issues in the proper context in order to generate the effect you want.
Don Carlos:
Just to clarify: I make no excuses for Romney’s caving. I merely said I understand it.
I was upset by his caving then, and I still am now. I don’t think it would have mattered in the end if he’d continued the attack though, because I don’t think America would have cared or understood what he was saying. The fix by the press was in. But I didn’t respect him for it, although at the time I thought he’d bring it up in the 3rd debate and nail Obama. But he didn’t, which was also very upsetting.
Eric:
I’ve also written a post (don’t have time to find it now) saying that most people I know who acknowledge Obama lied about Benghazi but don’t care that he did are working on their conviction that ALL presidents lie for political reasons. It’s a much deeper cynicism than anything about Bush and Iraq, and much harder to fix. There’s no sense of scale/principle in terms of which lies are big (important) and which are small (less important), either. Benghazi seems small because it only involves “four people” to them. That’s the kind of thinking I’ve encountered.
So Iraq is much bigger because so many more people died. It makes sense to reason that way if you believe both presidents lied for political reasons. Why people in Iraq died, whether Bush really lied, who and what Saddam was—none of this is relevant to them and they will never never never be convinced he didn’t lie to get us into Iraq, either. Never.
Regarding Crowley–She appeared to be acting like a mother stepping in to defend her kid who was getting beat in a fight. She even seemed to me to backtrack when Romney pushed on, and Crowley said we’ll have to look at the transcript. This is not necessarily inconsistent with there being collusion in advance. The look on Crowley’s face when Romney pushed back seemed to me to be one of fear of looming embarrassment.
Me: “the context and circumstances surrounding the killing of Ambassador Stevens et al, ie, Obama’s whole Libya policy, must be un-justified…justify the Iraq mission in the popular narrative, explicitly draw the comparison to un-justify Obama’s Libya policy…”.
I ought to have used ‘de-‘, not ‘un-‘: de-justify/ied is more accurate for the active sense of what I meant.
The emphasis on Crowley, Hussein and collusion is misplaced. Which is why I harp on Romney’s cowardice…no other word for it.
Just like McCain when Wall St blew up; a shirking of duty which gave the win to the foe.
Neo,
The question isn’t whether Presidents, or any leader in any high-stakes competitive arena for matter, lie in the course of business. The question is whether the leader is justified in context.
“Why people in Iraq died, whether Bush really lied, who and what Saddam was–none of this is relevant to them and they will never never never be convinced he didn’t lie to get us into Iraq, either. Never.”
If you’re correct, then it’s game over – because the larger effect of the predominating narrative of the Iraq mission entails more than the controversy on its face.
The 1991-2003 Iraq enforcement and 2003-2011 peace-building mission were the defining US-led intervention of the post-Cold War and 9/11 era.
As such, the popular-political evaluation of the Iraq mission is a determinative judgement of the fundamental premises justifying American hegemonic leadership of the aspirational pluralistic liberal world order, aka the West, aka the free world.
That’s why the Russians retroactively pegged the US-led Balkans intervention to the (il)legitimacy of the Iraq intervention. It was less to defend Russia’s Oil-for-Food interests or other ties to Saddam than to competitively set up their own regional interests and aspirations. The Russians understood that the US-led enforcement and peace-building Iraq intervention, as a matter of law and policy precedent, contained and therefore tested the elements of modern US hegemonic leadership for everywhere in the world.
If the false narrative of the Iraq mission is accepted and you’ve accepted that it’s accepted, then you’ve also accepted the effective popular-political rejection of the fundamental premises of US liberal hegemonic leadership.
In that case, the US hegemonic leadership role is increasingly irrelevant, which makes the Benghazi controversy – including the terrorist-arming aspect highlighted by Geoffrey Britain – increasingly irrelevant.
Remember, on the premise level, activists work with norm and stigma. You and your commenters on this topic are assuming a set of social-political norms and values. But left activists have been stigmatizing and replacing them with their preferred social-political norms and values.
If you fail to correct the popular narrative of the Iraq mission, then your norms and values for US hegemonic leadership will be made obsolete. Your position on the Benghazi controversy can’t gain wider traction without the necessary premises underfoot.
A point I think Eric will appreciate, which I’ve stated before:
Obama needed to be re-elected. We aren’t in competition with Obama…we’re in competition with leftism/statism. Considering the piss-poor state of leadership on our side, the person that’s done the most damage to the leftist brand is Obama.
I suspect the next act in this drama concerns the establishment Republicans: after winning control of the Senate, they will prove to be feckless, if not duplicitous. We need to first predict this, then point out their manifest failings to the rest of the base.
When the base is onboard for flushing out the Republican establishment, only then will we start making [ahem] progress.
Jack notes: “Obama giving Crowley her cue…” Yes, that is *exactly* the way it struck me when I was watching the debate. I thought, approximately, “wtf?!?” I mean, it seemed about as spontaneous as “The envelope, please.”
About Romney’s “caving” in that debate. That’s been my memory of it, too, but watching the video again I see that he really didn’t. In fact, right after Candy did her transcript thing, he came back at her and Obama and said, hey, wait a minute, wasn’t Susan Rice sent on TV to tell everyone it wasn’t an act of terror? Then Obama got off his stool and was beginning to go into his tough-guy routine again when Candy said enough, time to go to another question.
Eric:
I’m describing people I know who are at least willing to discuss the issue with me. I don’t know how representative they are of the whole (majority? minority?), and a lot of other people are so set in their ways they won’t even discuss it with me.
But I’m not suggesting giving up in general. If someone were to be willing to discuss it again with me, I certainly would argue with them about it again. But there are very very few such people, at least in my acquaintance.
However, I no longer write about the history of the Iraq war on the blog because I’ve written just about everything I have to say already, in the 150+ posts on the subject here. But I agree with you as to its importance. When the war and its aftermath were unfolding in real time, I was dismayed by how the propaganda of the left undermined what I realized was an extremely important endeavor. I did what I could at the time.
You might be interested in reading this post of mine from June of 2005, early in my blogging career, describing what the left had planned from the start in Iraq—how it would work to undermine and defeat the effort. It is quite relevant to our discussion here, I think. Let me add that I don’t think it started with Iraq at all: it started (as I write in my post) with Vietnam, the American left’s first (I think first, anyway) great triumph against American military power and foreign policy. Vietnam is the template for all of it.
And try attempting to change people’s Vietnam “narrative” these days! Not that I haven’t tried (68 posts and counting).
Ann:
My sense of the “cave” was that until that moment he was on a roll and confident, and what happened (what the moderator did more than what Obama had done) took away some of his confidence. He saw that the deck was stacked against him. Also, because he didn’t have the transcript with him, he began to wonder whether he’d made a goof.
The more important cave was that he abandoned the issue after that, not just in the 2nd debate but in general. I think he should have checked the transcript and come back swinging. But he didn’t, maybe a combination of bad advice and his own loss of some confidence.
Let us not forget that the GOP continues to agree to participate in these debates moderated by leftist tools such as Crowley. They may as well post “Kick Me” signs on the posterior of the candidates.
But he didn’t, maybe a combination of bad advice and his own loss of some confidence.
People at that level usually have their information filtered so much that it’s lost all coherence. If Romney checked the internet and read blogs, he would have gotten more quality information on debate strategies and feedback information, than listening to people in DC talk about their career politics.
The fact is that until you correct the popular narrative of the Iraq mission, you will be unable to provide a sufficient answer to Secretary Clinton’s retort of ‘Why does it matter?’ on the Benghazi controversy.
That’s more of a self fulfilling prophecy. In order to counter the propaganda, power is needed. Once enough power is gathered, people can be made to believe whatever is desired about Iraq and so forth.
However, the power that has always defeated propaganda is Death. It’s not politics and it’s not convincing or coercing people via activism either.
It was sad, perhaps a reflex of being Mormon, who responds like a krab, sideways. Maybe, Romney’s defensiveness due to his Mormon heritage, weakened him. What would Winston have done? Woooo! But the bigger question is why is the media dominated by the progressives? Why were they able to fix the debates? No explanation is satisfying. If there were a rational explanation, there would be a presentable solution. I believe the answer is spiritual. The answer is not purely in reason, but in morals and purpose whose setting are not the task of man but of God and whose statutes and Words are our duty.
“June 24, 1944: It looked like Winston wanted to fight the President.” http://www.hulu.com/watch/433562#i0,p0,d0 Free episodes on Hulu:”Warlords. At min 45.
All the way down: eternal, forever. But not our silly little problems. We’re not turtles.
I put Mitt down as being over coached.
This is the kind of moment that Ronnie would shine.
In college debates, the moderator is NOT permitted to jump off the fence and join a team.
Mitt had no canned (prepped) response for such a breach in debate etiquette.
He didn’t quite know what to say that wouldn’t come off as being defensive — almost beta — in an area traditionally dominated by sitting presidents: foreign affairs.
Presidents are ALWAYS in the position of information superiority in such matters. They even have legions to jump to their defense — paid for by the general public.
Mitt wanted to land a precision strike — NOT get into a general slinging match on foreign events — which are zeros for the LIV anyway.
We now have a plurality in our polity so stupid that they don’t recognize even profound incompetence and failure in foreign affairs. This certainly characterizes the Black American voter. Such souls regard ALL foreign policy matters as unimportant. Hence, you had Clinton punting on Rwanda: genocide without a murmur.
What I think I’m seeing is a Balkanization of our polity on a grand scale. We now have serious minor fractions of the nation that don’t regard foreign affairs as worthy of interest.
This also, largely explains Barry, himself.
He’s in for the sights and the fanfare — the thinking — not so much.
He’s the ‘Stanley Baldwin’ of our time.
I fully expect that what must follow will be epic, but not good.
“Kiki me, Kiki you, Kaba! I like that, but good point, and maybe not kiki me, but like a me, please, please.
Neo is correct when she says Romney’s “caving” occurred over days, not in the debate as a momentary dive. He could’ve come out with guns blazing afterwards; the worst he could do was lose the election, unless he also feared a never-ending IRS audit. Actually, that might have been a very realistic fear, kind of like Lopez (remember him?) speaking against Maduro in Venezuela. Not been heard about since his arrest.
I make amends; I am guilty; for my sins; shown within; know is no. now I show; bowing low; no is no; there’s the rub; you fail to make; your heart is hard; a stony slate.
Mitt just needed to pivot a little and say, “Americans don’t leave Americans behind. Ever. What did you do to save our ambassador, Mr. President?” KISS
It was so sad to watch. It was so obviously a setup.
Walt Erickson, the Belmont Club’s poet, wrote this about the Nigerian girls abducted and raped by the Boko Haram moslem gang.
The darkest black hole of Calcutta
Is brighter by far than the tomb
That’s lived in by western reporters
Where black holes are called the press room
The black holes are there for the purpose
Of keeping the news to their taste
All news has an event horizon
With never a cycle to waste
Beyond that the news is a service
To causes reporters embrace
The narrative must be observed and
The bad guys exposed in each case
That young girls are kidnapped in Niger
And sold as sex chattel enslaved
Is nothing to those in the newsrooms
Who think the deprived are depraved
Besides which no white men are present
No Christians to hammer with tongs
They sit before PCs and cameras
At ease with their scotch and their bongs
Another thing that’s lost in all this uproar — that video was in protest of the mass slaughter of Coptic Christians in Egypt.
But it’s Ever so much Worse to be Rude to mohammed by mockingly depicting the episodes of his life –as they are written in the koran.
And the Poor Soul who made that video in protest of the mass slaughter is still a political prisoner in the Untied States; and the Coptic Christians are still being butchered by the moslems; and still hardly anyone knows or gives a damn.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/cat_egypt.php
The Spin Machine(D) is STILL sticking to their tall tale.
See Hannity this evening. (5-1-14)
Like most of us here, I remember the “Crowley moment” at that second debate. After a lackluster performance throughout much of the debate, Romney clearly had Obama up against the wall. You could see it on both their faces. I remember the camera zooming in on Romney as he looked back at the President and pointedly asked him to clarify what he said. I remember Obama’s reaction, a dismissiveness betraying fear: “finish your thought, governor” (or some such). And I remember, in those few seconds, thinking this might be it, this might put Romney in the White House.
And then he blew it. To be fair, I don’t think Crowley was in chohots with the Obama camp any more than any liberal journalist tacitly favors the Democrat. I think she was genuinely surprised Romney turned to her. Why he did remains a great mystery.
I sensed at that moment he had lost. We were so close — then he flinched. All he needed to say was, “Yes, let’s look at the transcript,” and he would have been President today.
“I don’t think Crowley was in chohots with the Obama camp”
I’ve got this bridge to sell you …
neo neocon, I saved this.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/09/10/jihadis-threaten-to-burn-u-s-embassy-in-cairo/
I knew they were lying to me as soon as they started flapping their gums. I knew a day ahead of time.
You do good work.
If it needs to be said, these things are organized. They don’t just happen.
Ackler:
Here is my post explaining the reasons I strongly suspected Crowley’s behavior and Obama’s were orchestrated.
You write that, in the second debate:
The moment you describe starts at 1:13:50 in the video that follows. That’s when Obama said “Please proceed, governor” (and why would he even say that, rather than replying to the question Romney had just asked him?) to Romney. Romney then does turn to Crowley briefly, but only to say, “I want to make sure we get that for the record” (“that” being what Obama had said previously about having called the attacks the work of terrorists). Romney is so certain Obama has just lied about what he said in the Rose Garden that he thinks he has him nailed. Romney is NOT asking Crowley to look at a transcript and check, or to reply at all; he’s just turning to her for a moment to emphasize what Obama had said, in his shock that Obama has lied through his teeth.
It’s then that Obama says, “Get the transcript!” He is sitting on the stool and facing both Crowley and Romney when he says it, so it’s not entirely clear who he’s addressing. But it’s an exceedingly odd statement. Why would he think anyone had a transcript to get? Certainly Romney didn’t have one, so if Obama’s addressing anyone it would have to be Crowley. And she obliges, not by getting a transcript, but by waving the paper around that’s in her right hand and saying that Obama did call it an act of terror (which is untrue). Why did she stick her neck out and answer? And what was in her hand?
Take a look:
In addition, Romney himself made it clear in a later interview that he was certainly not asking Crowley to speak or to intervene, and was annoyed when she did.
Ackler also thinks racism should be condemned, by anyone that is told to condemn it. That’s not a slave state, though, in Ackler’s mind. That’s just a good and wise thing to do.
Trying to win in an environment in which almost the entire media is indistinguishable from Pravda and Izvestia is very hard.
But as we’ve seen, even in the Soviet Union and Communist China the truth eventually permeates the culture, just not openly.
Once the people come to realize that everything the media puts out is a lie and everything the government puts out is a lie the side of truth gets a bump. The polls indicate the country is in this stage.
As for Romney, he had too much respect for the office of the presidency and not enough assurance that his facts and perspective were correct. He also suffered from a large major flaw, an unwillingness to lie. Obama does not have that fault.
The Communists didn’t believe Pravda, since it was mere authority coercing people to obey. But they also came to America and thought that while there wasn’t the same bread lines, there wouldn’t be this abundance.
So the truth they still did not know, even if they disbelieve the propaganda.
Disbelieving the propaganda is not enough to find truth. And it is not enough to defeat a Regime.
Beverly, remember Leftists and Democrats in ACORN being caught on tape advising a pimp on how to best traffick in shojo and yojo girls, below the age limit, for various purposes?
Remember Goldberg and other Vision corruptocrats talking about defending Polanski because it’s not rape rape for one of them.
What I found was exceedingly suspicious. I was very very frustrated that I couldn’t get more traction on it.
Most people, Americans included, have no idea what interrogation protocols are about, what body language is and how to read it, nor how to manipulate via hypnotic suggestion, verbal word triggers, or conversation sinks.
Public school didn’t teach that kind of stuff, for a good reason.
Only people who had been studying the effects of propaganda for a few years before then, could have come close to the right conclusion.
Like the Crowley incident, I’ve always been troubled by the YouTube video. It has always just seemed too convenient. That, and if I were a journalist (heaven forbid!) I would want more information about who made it, who financed it and why it was such a piece of crap if whoever made it was trying to put forth a convincing story. Why would you go to that level of effort just to put your thumb in the collective Muslim eye?
In a recent post by Richard Fernandez (http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/04/30/offscreen/#comments), commenter Buddy Larson submitted the following link: http://www.bing.com/search?q=benghazi+video+passport+breach&form=IE8SRC&src=IE-SearchBox.
I’m not a big conspiracy believer, but the information about Brennan (whose background, again, was never interesting to the media) and a possible origin of the video certainly seems worth at least a cursory look by someone.
“But Dudes and Dudettes, this is like so 2 years ago! ” to paraphrase an administration official.
Boehner just announced he’s going to form a select committee on Benghazi. The chairman: Trey Gowdy.
http://www.speaker.gov/press-release/boehner-establish-select-committee-benghazi
I agree with NEO’s earlier assessment that Obama and Crowley were prepared for Romney. This is a WH that pre-screens questions from WH reporters, unleashes hell on reporters who dare give Obama coverage, wants to shutdown Fox News, and has even subpoenaed reporters’ call records (and likely illegally searched Sharyl Atkison’s work & home PCs). Does anyone think that this kind of thing would be considered out of bounds by Obama or his re-election team? I mean, they’d already left 36 people to die in Benghazi.
* * * * *
Regarding Veitor, I see this as Obama giving Fox the finger. His response was prepared (see his tweets before the show), and right in line with Hillary’s melodramatic “What difference does it make!?!” moment. Red meat for their supporters, and a big F.U. to the questioner for expecting a civil response.
I’ve never heard or seen it mentioned, but didn’t the Progs put a target on the back of the video-maker by the accusation? They identified him as being responsible for the murders of an American ambassador and special ops people.
More, they could have used it–and still can in the future–as part of their fight to criminalize speech and videos for their “incitement” capabilities, actual or potential. It’s a Long March, not a Short one.
The Leftist alliance is very much like the mythical hydra that Hercules defeated. It has many more things in action than can be seen and knocking off one or two heads isn’t enough to do anything given the regeneration rate.