9-11

The Great American “Scandal” Scam, Part 3: The Benghazi Boogie

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They’re mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. Yes, the Obama Haters Inc. have made it clear that they won’t stand for the president’s audacity in getting himself elected (twice, no less), and they’re gonna do whatever it takes to put him in his place. Sooner or later, they’re going to reach the holy grail of impeachment, even if it takes 20 years.  And they’re not the least bit deterred by having no actual grounds for impeachment; they’ve been known to suggest that they can impeach now, and come up with a reason later, and they know how to generate “scandals” until the cows come home. Surely one of them will eventually stick.

They’ve previously brought you the NSA “scandal” and the IRS “scandal”, among many many others. (For the record, the NSA has indeed indulged in behavior that might be considered scandalous, but it was going on long before Obama came along; and it’s not a matter of the agency “spying” on the American public, though it’s almost always spun that way. And the real scandal with the IRS is not that it has targeted “conservative” groups, but quite the reverse; it has allowed them excessive leeway to flout rules and guidelines — and in the process viciously malign their Public Enemy Number One, The President of the United States.) Both of these “scandals” failed to topple the guy who has “stolen” THEIR country; so now they’re really pinning their hopes on Benghazi. STILL.

It doesn’t matter how many times their myths are debunked, how many documents are declassified to show that the “scandal”  is bogus; every new scrap of information is twisted and spun as “proof” that Obama lied, covered up and/or collaborated with terrorists.

The myths they love to perpetuate about the Benghazi attack include these:

1. That the Obama administration ignored terrorist threats.

(Nope. Perhaps they’re confusing him with George W. Bush. But intelligence found no evidence of any imminent threat in Benghazi.)

2. That the Obama administration issued a “stand down” order to forces in Libya.

(Nope. There’s no evidence such a thing ever happened, and nobody actually involved has ever made such a claim.)

3. That the Obama administration abandoned personnel to die.

(Nope. The president ordered all available assets dispatched to the scene post haste.)

The T-word

An especially silly (and therefore especially popular) tack is the obsession over when exactly the president called the assault terrorism.  You’d think that after Mitt Romney so thoroughly humiliated himself on this point in a presidential debate, having to be schooled by moderator Candy Crowley, that they’d give up this narrative. But they seem absolutely impervious to self-embarrassment, so they keep hammering away at it, even though it’s a matter of public record that the president used the T-word within 24 hours.

Romney also had made a fool of himself on the day of the attack by echoing another popular right-wing talking point, saying:

It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

Contrary to what the Haters frequently assert, the president has never “sympathized” with nor “apologized” to or for terrorists. Moreover, the statement Mr. Romney chose to label “sympathizing” was actually issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. And it was issued before the attack. Other than that, I suppose Mr. Romney was fairly accurate. While he was willing to take great liberties with the facts himself, he indulged in the pettiest of semantic hair-splitting with regard to the timing of the president’s denouncement of terrorism.

When confronted with the evidence, however, the critics insist that Obama wasn’t explicit enough that he was specifically referring to Benghazi (even though his first use of the word was in a Rose Garden speech especially presented to address that attack), or that he used the words “act(s) of terror” instead of “act(s) of terrorism”. They also spin and twist subsequent remarks by Crowley into some kind of admission that she’d been wrong at the debate. For example Breitbart,com (the man is gone, but his brilliant legacy lives on) ran a blog post with the title “CNN’s Crowley Admits Obama Didn’t Call Benghazi A Terror Attack”, but the ensuing text delivers no such blockbuster; it merely mentions that someone else at CNN asserted she was wrong. Even the Washington Post Fact Checker jumped on the bandwagon, awarding the president FOUR Pinocchios — a rating normally reserved for the most blatantly bald-faced falsehoods — for insisting that he used the T-word immediately.

The V-Word

Doubling down on the asininity, the Haters have really gotten their thong in a bunch over the administration’s suggestion that a video may have played a role in motivating the attack. What they’re systematically ignoring (or, to put it in their terms, lying about, downplaying or covering up) is that it appears the video indeed did play a role. Eyewitness accounts to that effect were reported in numerous media sources immediately. And not just the fabled librulmedia, either.  Even Rev. Moon’s beloved Washington Times, a revered Beacon Of Truth for faithful “conservatives” from Ronald Reagan to Glenn Beck, got it right:

But in telephone interviews with The Washington Times, several residents in Benghazi said there had been two distinctly different groups involved in the assault on the U.S. diplomatic post.

The residents described a scene that began as a relatively peaceful demonstration against a film produced in the United States that had been deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad.

The situation did not turn violent until a group of heavily armed militants showed up and “hijacked” the protest, the residents said. The original group of protesters was joined by a separate group of men armed with rocket-propelled-grenade launchers. (Emphasis added, rather emphatically.)

But wait. Can it be… is The Times possibly suggesting that an incident like this could have more than one cause? While such an idea has been known to make small brains explode, it appears that yes, that could indeed have been the case.  But the Obama Haters are ignoring/ lying about/ covering up such a possibility. They’re also ignoring/ lying about/ covering up the obvious fact that in the first days after the violent outbreak, things were rather confusing, and what few facts were available might have seemed contradictory. You hardly can blame the president and his administration for being cautious about drawing conclusions before all the pieces were assembled.

If it had turned out that the assault had not involved terrorism, I unconditionally guarantee that the Haters would have insisted that he had unequivocally declared it had. And they would have raked him over the coals for that just as they have been doing for supposedly trying to avoid saying it. The moral of the story is that there is absolutely nothing this president can possibly say that these people will consider the right thing to say.

Wherefores and Whys

Chances are that if anyone else were president, nobody would give a big rat’s ass about his timing of the T-word. But the Obama Factor makes it somehow a matter of cosmic importance. And the official spin, you see, is that he had a good reason for trying to downplay/ lie about/ cover up the terrorist element: he was afraid it would impact his chances in the upcoming election. Which is patently absurd for at least three reasons.

First, the election was still a couple of months away; and the voting public, as it has demonstrated repeatedly, has the memory span of a gnat. Second, even the Haters acknowledge that the president ultimately did use the T-word — the standard spin is that it took him at least 2 weeks to do so. And according to the calendar I use — the same calendar commonly in use throughout North America — 2 weeks is even closer to the election date. Third, if Obama’s predecessor is any indication, a terrorist attack would not have damaged his electoral fortunes at all; on the contrary, it would have enhanced them greatly.

On the watch of George W. Bush — who, if anyone cares, seized The White House without being elected — there were 13 attacks on U.S. consulates and embassies, killing at least 98 people and injuring dozens; two of these sites were attacked TWICE during this time. But far from clamoring for investigation and impeachment, the punditocracy  rhapsodized endlessly about the commander-in-chief’s “leadership”, “courage” and “resolve”.

And then there was that attack on American soil in September of 2001 — the exact date eludes me — in which a mere 3000 or so Americans were murdered. And unlike the victims in Benghazi, who accepted a certain amount of risk as part of their government jobs, the victims in the U.S. were mostly civilians going about their daily business. At the time terrorists struck, Bush was attending at photo-op at a school in Florida. Keeping his priorities straight, he appears to have continued attending the photo-op for at least half an hour after getting the news (not merely 7 minutes, as Michael Moore suggested), and didn’t lift a finger while hundreds of Americans were roasting alive in Manhattan. (There is evidence that he even knew about the attack before he went into that classroom.)

His eventual “response” was to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attack, and that was ruled over by one of Osama bin Laden’s enemies. This little undertaking has cost thousands of additional American lives (the vast majority of them during the Bush years) as well as the lives of probably hundreds of thousands (nobody’s really keeping count) of Iraqi men, women and children. The end result was that, according to terrorism experts, the U.S. was left even more susceptible to terrorism.

Bush and members of his administration fabricated evidence to support their scheme and persecuted those who dared try to expose the fraud. They lied about the siege of Iraq dozens (if not hundreds)of times, and repeatedly changed their story about the reason for initiating it. The company that was awarded a no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq just happened to have a cozy relationship with Dick Cheney. And George W. Bush continued to maintain cozy relations with Saudi Arabia — one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships — which supplied 15 of the 19 hijackers.

And how did all of this impact Junior’s standing with the public? Well, for starters, it scored him (heavily aided by media manipulation) the highest presidential approval rating in polling history. Nice. So obviously, President Obama should embrace the T-word lustfully, eh?

But wait. How silly of me. We’re talking apples and oranges here. George W. was a whitebread Republican from the beefsteak-red Republic Of Texas (actually lilac-blue Maine but shhh! don’t tell his supporters) while Obama is an ethnically challenged Democrat from surf-blue Hawaii (which the Haters keep mistaking for Kenya). And those differences totally turn the world on its ear.

Just look at what happened when the Obama administration brought down Osama bin Laden — who, lest we forget, was the suspected mastermind of the terrorist strike that gave Bush his biggest PR godsend. The punditocracy went absolutely bonkers (well, even more bonkers than usual) trying to discredit the president. They claimed he waited too long to kill bin Laden, they claimed he tried to claim he’d killed bin Laden singlehandedly, they claimed he didn’t kill bin Laden mercifully enough, they claimed bin Laden wasn’t really dead. But at the same time, they must have considered bin Laden’s killing a great accomplishment, because they did their best to credit it to George W. Bush — who had been out of office for more than two years, and had long ago said he was not concerned about bin Laden.

If Islamic radicals attack Americans when a Republican is in The White House, then Muslims — all Muslims — become The Enemy. If it happens when a Democrat is in The White House, then the president and his fellow Democrats become The Enemy. This “scandal” is not about Benghazi. It’s not about terrorism. It’s about Barack Obama. Or more accurately, it’s about Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Don’t Like History? Just Rewrite it!

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“We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” — Dana Perino, Fox “News”

“I don’t remember any terrorist attacks on American soil during that time (2000-2008)”.   — Eric Bolling, Fox “News”

(Bolling later explained that he meant post 9-11. He was still ignoring a number of attacks, including three that the Bush administration itself labeled as terrorist.)

“Obama often complains about the problems he inherited from George W. Bush, but he also inherited a record of zero successful attacks on America after 9/11.”  — Michael Goodwin, NY Post

“The Bush administration had seven years after 9-11, no successful attacks in the United States.”  –Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post (speaking on Fox “News”)

“We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.” — Rudy Giuliani (yes, THAT Rudy Giuliani)

(NOTE: The one “attack” under Obama was actually a FOILED plot – which under a Democratic president counts as a failure rather than a success. During the Bush administration, on the other hand, there was the foiled “shoe bomber” plot, which counts as a resounding triumph for him, and therefore is not included in the attack tally by Giuliani or the others.)

Obama/ Osama: The Spin is In

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There, it didn’t take long, did it? You might think that any leader who rid the world of a goat-fucking vermin like Osama bin Laden would garner at least a modicum of respect from just about anyone. But you’d be vastly underestimating the infinite capacity of right-wing extremists for hatred,  bitter partisanship, self-delusion. and (more to the point for our purposes) distortion and spin.

A Bit of Nostalgia

Ah, for the good old days of the decade past, when Obama’s illustrious predecessor was in office. Granted, he was far more divisive – not to mention that he permanently pissed off a lot of people by how he got into office in the first place. But after 9-11, that was all swept aside, and Americans of all convictions queued up behind him. He achieved an approval rating of 90%, the highest of any president ever – even though about 50% didn’t even consider him a legitimate president. And those in the media fell all over themselves to lick his boots . Dan Rather (soon to be branded as part of the vast librulmedia conspiracy out to destroy him), declared “wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where”.

Never mind that he’d ignored explicit warnings about terrorists plotting to attack high profile buildings with hijacked planes. Never mind that while the nation was under attack, he dallied at photo ops in Florida for at least 25 minutes (not merely 7) without lifting a finger. Never mind that his eventual response was to invade a nation ruled by one of bin Laden’s ENEMIES. Never mind that he expended several years, and trillions of dollars and thousands of military lives and well over 100,000 civilian lives looking for al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because, as Donald Rumsfeld explained, it had good targets. (Sort of like looking in the bathroom for keys you left in the garage because the light is better in the bathroom.) Never mind that he changed his story at least 30 times about his reasons for invading Iraq. Never mind that his administration lied over 230 times about the undertaking. Never mind that he continued to enjoy cozy relations with Saudi Arabia, a brutal dictatorship that supplied 15 of the 19 hijackers. He was Our Leader, by god, and it was un-Amurrcan to criticize him. The media frequently referred to those who supported his “war on terror” as “pro-troop”, suggesting that those who disapproved were “anti-troop” (as well as anti-American and pro-terrorist, of course).

And when Saddam Hussein was captured, The Leader was awarded a fresh round of accolades. Anyone who dared question Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policy on any particular at all was guilty of wishing that Saddam was still at large.

History Fails to Repeat

But that was then and this is now. And with the Rodney Dangerfield president in office, no good deed goes unslimed. This latest accomplishment by the president was viewed by those suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome as just another opportunity to engage in the most vicious, fruity, childish attacks imaginable.

In fairness, it wasn’t entirely unanimous. I was shocked to see that one of the most entertaining Obama attack websites, one that normally features only the most vile distortions of absolutely everything the man says or does, actually suffered a relapse and, for one day, sang his praises. Sure, the praise was tempered with the observation that he’d “finally” kept a campaign promise, and the obligatory reference to his supporters as “moonbats”. Even so, it was a miracle of miracles.

But that was, to say the least, the exception rather than the rule among the ideologues. There was no grace period out of respect for the troops or other Americans, much less the president. It was just hate, hate, hate and smear, smear, smear from the word go. You would have thought that Obama was responsible for bin Laden’s birth rather than his death.

What They Said

They said that he didn’t look jubilant enough when he made the announcement – evidently he should have turned cartwheels or something. One prominent leader of the Tea Party even insisted that he looked angry because he really didn’t want bin Laden caught.

They said that he was arrogant for pointing out that he was the one who gave the order to launch the raid. Maybe he should have said “an anonymous darkie who deserves no recognition whatsoever”.

They said that he really had nothing to do with the mission at all, and the military went behind his back to act on its own. (Never mind that the military itself tells a very different story, and that such a thing would in fact be very much against military guidelines.)

They said that it was really George W. Bush who nabbed the bad guy. Which perhaps is only fair, since they’ve been blaming Obama for all the damages Bush wrought. (TWO DAYS after Obama was elected, and two months before he even took office, Rush Limbaugh proclaimed that the nation was in the midst of the “Obama recession”. Several months after he was in office, when the economy began to perk up, Limbaugh called it the “Bush recovery”. You just can’t make up this kind of stuff.) Never mind that Bush said several times that he wasn’t even concerned about bin Laden, and back up his words by never talking about him, and by closing down the operation in charge of tracking him down.

They said that it was Bush’s torture of terror suspects that led to bin Laden. (Follow the bounding ball, kiddies: Bush didn’t torture. But he’d do it again. Waterboarding is no big deal. But it extracts priceless information out of hardened terrorists. Take notes if you can’t keep up.) Whereupon Sen. John McCain, who during the previous administration would have needed a crowbar to pry his nose out of Bush’s anus (and so, naturally, packaged himself as a “maverick”), nonetheless spoke up and said that it was nonsense to think that torture could lead to that kind of intelligence. But hey, what would a former P.O.W. know about torture or interrogation? Not a thing, according to fellow Republicans who were outraged by the possibility that such an otherwise loyal comrade might not be totally consumed with contempt for the current president.

They said that Obama (though he didn’t really do anything) did it just to get re-elected. Never mind that the election was still 18 months away and the American public has shown repeatedly that it has the memory span of a gnat.

They said that bin Laden isn’t really dead. (Where’s the long form death certificate?)

They said that bin Ladn’s really been dead for years, and has been kept on ice all this time. (Wasn’t it nice of the Bush administration and al Qaeda to go along with the scheme in order to give Obama a boost in the polls?)

They said that it was inexcusable to delay for 18 hours before giving the go-ahead for the mission. (18 whole hours! A real man would have first spent years looking for the villain in the wrong country.) And they declared it a “double standard” by the media for not tearing into him over that (which in fact they did) after criticizing Bush for dallying “seven” minutes (which in fact they totally ignored until Michael Moore threw it in their faces – double standard indeed). Never mind that there was only about a 50-50 chance that bin Laden was actually inside the compound. We all know that biting your nails over a precarious surgical strike to nab a terrorist mastermind while trying to avoid civilian casualties is exactly the same as kicking back in a classroom while people plunge to their deaths from burning skyscrapers.

They said that it was hypocritical/ ironic that this raid was ordered by a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, here’s a man who claims to be working toward world peace, and yet he eliminates a cold-blooded mass murderer who’s a major threat to world peace. Go figure.

They said he killed an unarmed man, poor thing. (Even Michael Moore called it an “execution”.)

They said it was kowtowing to Islamic fundamentalist radicals and/or being too secretive to bury the body at sea. It should have been dragged around in the streets by horses first – that’d show ’em that we’re more civilized than they are!

And so on. And on and on and on and on.

Inevitably, as details of this mission surface, there will be questions. And some of the questions might not have the best of all possible answers. It’s war, pal. But these people didn’t wait for the details, the questions or the answers. They just immediately followed their usual tack of believing the worst about Barack H. Obama until proven wrong – and then continuing to believe the worst.

You can’t help but suspect that this is a manifestation of the so-called “black tax” – the social stigma whereby a black man must do twice as much as a white man in order to receive half the credit, or some such. By that reckoning, the president only needs to kill Osama three more times. No, wait – he’s only half black. So maybe once more will do.

Hey, if he faked it once, he can do it again. And were he anyone else but Barack H. Obama, he just might get away with it, given the demonstrated level of public suggestibility.