…amidst the brouhaha about whether Obama called the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” in his Rose Garden speech, and whether Candy Crowley overstepped, and all that jazz?
We forgot that Obama never answered that guy’s question.
We forgot—but the makers of this ad didn’t:
[Hat tip: Ace.]
There was an earthquake yesterday at 7:12 PM in southern Maine (no, that’s not a typo). It measured 4.0 on the Richter scale and was felt over a wide area.
I didn’t feel it at all, though. I was in my car on a street in New York at that time, having my newly-dead battery charged by AAA, my 4 PM getaway having been stymied by unanticipated car trouble (is there any other kind?).
Let me just offer a big heap of gratitude to AAA and their funny and friendly service guys with their state-of-the-art diagnostic kits, and another pile of thanks to Pep Boys for being open so late and allowing me to resume my trip up north to the mellifluous stains of Obama, Romney, and immoderate moderator Candy Crowley.
[NOTE: Please read this post of mine first, if you’re unfamiliar with what happened last night when moderator Candy Crowley purported to fact-check Obama’s Rose Garden speech after Benghazi.]
It never pays to be naive about the left. And I don’t think that most readers on this blog are naive. So the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which pundits on the left lead their flock should come as no surprise.
Case in point: Talking Points Memo covers the Crowley intervention in a shortish piece entitled “Candy Crowley Factchecks: Obama ”˜Did In Fact’ Say Libya Attack Was Terrorism.” Here is the entire text of the TPM article on the subject:
Debate moderator Candy Crowley interjected during Mitt Romney’s remarks in Tuesday’s presidential debate, saying that President Obama “did in fact” call the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya an act of terror the day after the incident.
“I think it’s interesting, the president said something which is on the day after the attack he went in the Rose Garden — and said this was an act of terror,” Romney said, looking at Obama.
“That’s what I said,” Obama retorted.
“You said it was an act of terror, it was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying?” Romney responded.
To which Crowley responded: “He did, in fact, sir. He did call it an act of terror. It did, as well, take two weeks or so for the whole idea of their being a riot out there about this tape to come out.”
Then a video follows.
To lazy readers (and that may be quite a few of them), or the true believers (many), writer Igor Bobic has offered what they want: a quick take on the subject, and a chance to add their own voices to the rah-rah go-get-im chatter in the comments section afterward.
What’s wrong with this picture? Why, the transcript of the Rose Garden speech is missing, of course.
But we don’t need no steenking facts—even when fact-checking. It works better that way, doesn’t it? And finding the transcript of Obama’s Rose Garden speech is oh so difficult (/sarcasm).
Make no mistake: writers on the left know exactly what they’re doing, playing their audience like a fiddle. You can hear the lovely music in TPM’s comments section.
[NOTE: I couldn’t post last night during the debate because I was driving home from New York City and listening to it on the radio. So I’m a bit late to the non-party.]
First, the debate: seemingly a draw. But perhaps Romney further proved himself “presidential” rather than the cruelly rapacious top-hatted murderer he’s been made out to be by Obama, and perhaps Obama further proved himself a mean-spirited guy with no answer to the questions that plague his failed presidency.
Perhaps. The debate I see (or in this case, hear) is never the debate other people seem to see and hear, and it is especially not the one the MSM sees.
And the MSM is still a huge player in this, despite the fact that fewer and fewer people trust it every year. The press has labored long and hard to earn that distrust.
Last night was a case in point. It’s tiresome and infuriating to spend so much time railing against the moderator, and I usually don’t get into that angle (it would be more newsworthy to point out the rare times the moderator does not openly shill for Obama). But CNN’s Candy Crowley has distinguished herself (if “distinguished” is the proper word) by displaying the most egregious and intrusive favoritism I’ve ever seen or heard by a moderator in a debate, as well as the most mendacious.
Crowley should be made to issue a public apology to Mitt Romney and then summarily fired, and a correction to her Orwellian “fact-checking” in last night’s debate should be prominently featured in every major newspaper in America.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
And that, perhaps, is why Crowley did it—so that she could wreak the maximum damage on Romney, carry the largest bucket of water possible for Obama, and count on the fact that any corrections that emerged would reach only a small fraction of the number her lie did.
Well played, Ms. Crowley, well-played.
When the exchange first happened, it should have been obvious to anyone who has followed the Benghazi story that there was something wrong with Crowley’s correction. For one thing, a moderator should not be fact-checking a presidential debate as it transpires, even if he/she is correct; it violates the agreement under which he/she signs on to moderate. For another thing, the “fact” Crowley inserted into the debate was incorrect.
But that didn’t stop Crowley—or Obama. In case you don’t know what I’m referring to, here’s the text of the relevant portion of the debate:
OBAMA: The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people in the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. That this was an act of terror and I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime…
ROMNEY: I — I think interesting the president just said something which — which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.
OBAMA: That’s what I said.
ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror.
It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying?
OBAMA: Please proceed governor.
ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
OBAMA: Get the transcript.
CROWLEY: It — it — it — he did in fact, sir. So let me — let me call it an act of terror…
OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy?
CROWLEY: He — he did call it an act of terror. It did as well take — it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.
I wonder whether this was a preplanned set-up, if the topic happened to come up (which of course it was likely to do). Obama demanding “get the transcript” is very, very odd. Are instant transcripts usually available on demand during debates? And why didn’t Crowley actually read the transcript aloud if the idea was to refer to it? Is she doing this from memory? How audacious of her! Because the transcript of Obama’s Rose Garden speech proves her wrong; Obama did not call the Benghazi violence an act of terror. He was carefully equivocal on the subject [emphasis mine]:
…Of course, yesterday was already a painful day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11 attacks. We mourned with the families who were lost on that day. I visited the graves of troops who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and had the opportunity to say thank you and visit some of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed. And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi.
As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it. Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.
No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.
The speech is longer than that. But if you read the whole thing, you will see that Obama is very careful not to label the violence in Benghazi at all, except as an “attack.” Having spoken about the original 9/11 attack as well as the sacrifice of members of the military who have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan, he then says “no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation”—a general statement of fortitude.
One could infer that he might be thinking the Benghazi attack was terrorism, but Obama certainly does not say so. And subsequent statements emanating from the administration and its spokespeople were quite united in putting forth a competing message: that it was a spontaneous demonstration against the video (a demonstration that in fact never happened in Benghazi).
But as I said, perhaps what Crowley did will backfire, or perhaps it just won’t matter much. Any Republican must anticipate this sort of thing and factor in the influence of an increasingly biased media. I sincerely hope the American people can factor it in as well, and pay attention to what matters: Obama is unworthy of re-election, as he demonstrated last night and nearly every day for the last four years.
[NOTE: And forget Crowley’s half-assed admmission later on CNN, during which she ignores the fact that she was wrong about what Obama actually said in the Rose Garden:
Meaningless blather.]
[ADDENDUM: Bryan Preston puts it quite well at PJ’s Tatler:
This is the moment that debate moderator Candy Crowley jumped up from behind her desk and tackled Mitt Romney just as he was striding toward a game-changing touchdown. The replacement refs of the NFL had nothing on Crowley. They merely got calls wrong. I don’t recall them ever slipping into a linebacker role and making a game-saving tackle for any team.
Indeed; exactly correct.
Preston also points out that one of the perpetrators of the supposedly-forbidden audience applause in response to Crowley’s act was none other than: Michelle Obama.]
I have an unusually busy day, so although I’ll be back to the blog later today, this post and the one below it will be short.
But here’s a thread to discuss tonight’s upcoming debate—or anything you want.
Hillary Clinton throws herself under the bus, taking full responsibility for the Benghazi security lapses—except that she blames some underling.
Strange. My guess is that this is an attempt to secure a win for Obama while making herself look like a noble party loyalist. I don’t think it reflects well on Obama, though, in eye of the public. It makes her look like more of a grownup and a leader than he. After all, the president is supposed to be in charge of the Secretary of State, and responsible for things that happen on his watch in general.
Plus, this has nothing to do with the coverup, which remains a significant issue for most people who are aware of what transpired in Benghazi (not sure if that’s “most people,” though).
When there’s a screwup, people like presidents to take responsibility. At least, they used to like it, and I don’t think that’s changed in a major way—yet. Obama has set a new standard in buck-passing already, and this is just another episode in a long line of his trying to evade blame for anything that happens during his administration. What a failure of leadership!
Here’s a great moment from Reagan (hat tip: Dr. Sanity). The speech was given in 1961, over fifty years ago. But his words seem all too prescient, considering what’s going on today:
I’ve already written about Buzz Bissinger’s “changer” experience here.
But there’s an addendum, and it’s just as all of us would imagine: he’s been excoriated and shunned by those liberals he used to think were so—well, so liberal.
I don’t want to mock Bissinger’s naivete, because I once shared it. Until it happens to you, it’s not something a person of the liberal persuasion would tend to notice. I certainly didn’t. Neither did Bissinger. And the experience is quite an eye-opener, as Bissinger says:
I would say between the Daily Beast comments, Twitter comments, Facebook comments”“ roughly”¦4,000 comments”“ I ran about 6-1 against. And it wasn’t just, you know, “I disagree with you.” It was the f-word, it was “you’re a baby killer.”
It was even friends, [but] among friends it wasn’t as vitriolic. There was this sense of, “How dare you, you’re traitor. You’re a writer. You’re a journalist. How can you possibly come out in favor of this man?”
”¦You could feel the anguish, you could feel the sense of perhaps traitorship. I am a lifelong Democrat”¦
I thought liberals were supposed to be “open-minded.” I thought they were supposed to accept divergent viewpoints to at least say, “hey, everyone in America has a right to an opinion.” But it’s really about”“ “I love free speech as long as it’s the free speech that I want” ”¦ Liberals have this sense of themselves, but 90% are as nasty, as vitriolic, as vicious as the conservatives they say are”¦
There’s a sameness to these changer stories that is both tedious and fascinating at the same time. There’s a reason I gave the title “Leaving the circle: political apostasy” to the blog category related to this aspect of political change. It’s another cliche, but liberalism is much more like a religion than conservatism is, and “apostasy” is pretty much how liberals view the change process, even though liberals often mock conservatives for their supposed religious fundamentalism (which only some conservatives exhibit, anyway—but liberals are not interesting in learning the truth about conservative thought, they are interested in setting up conservative straw men and knocking them down over and over).
In one of my earliest posts on the subject I quoted from Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. I think the following quote from Kundera bears repeating:
Circle dancing is magic. It speaks to us through the millennia from the depths of human memory. Madame Raphael had cut the picture out of the magazine and would stare at it and dream. She too longed to dance in a ring. All her life she had looked for a group of people she could hold hands with and dance with in a ring. First she looked for them in the Methodist Church (her father was a religious fanatic), then in the Communist Party, then among the Trotskyites, then in the anti-abortion movement (A child has a right to life!), then in the pro-abortion movement (A woman has a right to her body!); she looked for them among the Marxists, the psychoanalysts, and the structuralists; she looked for them in Lenin, Zen Buddhism, Mao Tse-tung, yogis, the nouveau roman, Brechtian theater, the theater of panic; and finally she hoped she could at least become one with her students, which meant she always forced them to think and say exactly what she thought and said, and together they formed a single body and a single soul, a single ring and a single dance.
And I’ll add to that my observation from that same post:
We all want to dance in a ring, to a certain extent. It’s wonderful to be part of a coherent movement, a whole that makes sense, joined with others working for the same goal and sharing the same beliefs. But there’s a price to pay when something challenges the tenets of that movement. When that happens, there are two kinds of people: those who change their ideas to fit the new facts, even if it means leaving the fold, and those who distort and twist the facts and logic to maintain the circle dance.
Bissinger is finding out the price of stepping out of the circle, a price that’s probably been steeper than he expected.
Obama’s post-first-debate assessment was that he was just too darn nice. So in their pep talks for the second debate, his spokespeople offer us a different prospect: the Obama team promises more aggressive president in second debate.”
I wonder what form this will take. Will he jab his finger at Romney? Give him a cold hard stare? Bare his teeth and guffaw like a stoned lunatic, a la VP Biden?
Perhaps he’ll give him the finger, or brush the Romney dirt off his shoulder; the creative possibilities are almost endless.
Or he could finally attempt to muster some arguments to justify and explain the abysmal failure of his 4-year presidency. His 2012 candidacy has so far been based almost entirely on attacking Romney and Ryan, and the attack has been mainly ad hominem. The fact that so many people still consider Obama a nice guy remains a deep puzzlement to me.
The other night I dreamt that I saw a poll reporting that only 8% of Americans care about the Benghazi coverup.
So now I’m having political nightmares. A first.
And it’s no surprise that the nightmare was about Benghazi, which seems to crystallize all that’s been going wrong lately. The incompetence. The callous disregard for what happened. The coverup. The blatant lies about the coverup. The collusion of much of the MSM. The indifference or ignorance of so many Americans. And the feeling of impotence on the part of those who are outraged by it all.
Commenter Promethea recently wrote of women’s fashion:
Thank goodness for blue jeans. If the right size, they look good on almost everybody.
Almost everybody? I agree that some women look absolutely fantastic in blue jeans, especially if young and fit. And models who look good in anything look really, really, really good in blue jeans.
But I think most women look bad in them, or at best mediocre.
Yes, I know I’ll get flak for saying that. It’s almost un-American, isn’t it? But I’ll stand my ground.
And blue jeans are bor-ing. Everybody wears them almost all the time, like Mao jackets in China during the Cultural Revolution. I am heartily sick of them. What’s more, they’re not especially comfortable, either, especially tight ones. Everybody says they are, but I don’t see it.
Take a look at the photos here on how to choose the correct pair of jeans. The complexity of the decisions involved re pocket placement, pants leg width and shape, darkness of wash, stitching, feathering vs. fading, and more, sound so daunting that it’s no surprise that so many people just wear their favorite old jeans till they disintegrate.
Although I studied all the photos at that site and read which jeans are supposed to be undeniably superior to the other jeans on the same women in the side-by-side pictures, most of the time the difference was not all that apparent to me.
Here’s a single example. Which pair of jeans do you think is supposed to be best? Well, I know you know, because the caption above the photos tell you—but seriously, do you think the pair on the right is so very much more flattering than the pair on the left? I think vice versa:
And that’s a person who looks relatively good in both jeans, although she’s certainly no fashion model. Here is a more typical sight; and believe me, I’m not trying to make fun of these women. They’re more or less normal-looking, and would look a lot better in the right pants:
In case you wonder—yes, I’ve got some jeans. They’re dark, and wide-legged, and they look pretty much like this, only without the contrasting stitching:
In other words, they look pretty much like slacks. And that’s why I like them.
…to see who can throw who under the bus first, according to Ed Klein.
According to me as well, even though I have no insider info. It’s been rather obvious that Obama has been planning to blame Hillary, as SoS, for the disaster in Benghazi. It’s just as obvious that she and her husband would try to protect themselves.
I say you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. I also assume the truth is even more Byzantine than described in the article.