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The Mystery of Benghazi
New York Times ^ | October 13, 2012 | By ROSS DOUTHAT

Posted on 10/14/2012 4:37:21 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee

TWENTY-FOUR hours after the American compound in Benghazi was attacked and our ambassador murdered, the tragedy seemed more likely to help President Obama’s re-election campaign than to damage it.

The White House already enjoyed more public credibility on foreign policy than on almost any other issue. When Mitt Romney reacted to the attack with a partisan broadside, portraying a news release sent out by the Cairo embassy before any violence began as a White House apology to the attackers, the president’s path forward seemed clear. He would be disciplined and careful, show anger and steel but also coolness under pressure, and let the rally-round-the-flag effect do its natural work.

What happened instead was very strange.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: benghazi; benghazicoverup; benghazigate; clinton4alqaeda; dnc4alqaeda; libya; obama4alqaeda; octobersurprise
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1 posted on 10/14/2012 4:37:24 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
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To: Brad from Tennessee

This article is the NYT telling us they are speechless


2 posted on 10/14/2012 4:41:36 PM PDT by JIM O
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Ross, don’t Douthat. It makes you sound absolutely and desperately senseless.

Which, I suppose, is the actual case.


3 posted on 10/14/2012 4:41:52 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Mystery?...the only mystery dealing with this POS is whether or not he can wipe his own.....chin


4 posted on 10/14/2012 4:41:55 PM PDT by Doogle ((USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: Brad from Tennessee

To the author: That’s because Romney was right, you twit! It was an ill-timed and misplaced apology, whether anyone was killed, or not.


5 posted on 10/14/2012 4:42:18 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic (Joe Biden is reported to be seeking asylum in a foreign country so he does not have to debate Ryan.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

FWIW, I have some very liberal inlaws, and my wife gets her news almost entirely from TV. They all are horrified at what is going on in this Benghazi business, although they may prefer not to admit WHY it is happening.

If I said what I thought, they would accuse me of more conspiracy theory. But they all realize that something very strange is going on. And it’s not Obama, Superhero, either.


6 posted on 10/14/2012 4:44:36 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
and the story wouldn’t be about just the specifics of Benghazi, but also the possibility that Obama’s entire policy in the region has put American interests and lives at risk.

Closings lines of article.

7 posted on 10/14/2012 4:47:33 PM PDT by Dan(9698)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
What happened instead was very strange.

Ross Douthat and the New York Times are very confused. They just can't understand how the Obama Administration let this blow up in their faces. In large measure, this is because Mr. Douthat and his newspaper believe what Obama says and also believe that what he does is a force for good in this world. To see all of that collapsing around them in tatters has to be unnerving. How could this be? It's so hard to be a liberal.

8 posted on 10/14/2012 4:49:07 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: Brad from Tennessee
Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide





Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide ******** Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide ******** Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide ******** Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide ******** Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide ******** Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide ******** Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide ******** Barack Obama : The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide ********
9 posted on 10/14/2012 4:50:06 PM PDT by American Constitutionalist
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To: Brad from Tennessee

I actually think the author makes a valid argument about why Obama lied about the video. But he doesn’t seem extremely bothered by the lies nor does he seem to think Obama should really be held accountable for them.

He doesn’t address why Hillary would go along with the lie, though, and discredit her whole operation.


10 posted on 10/14/2012 4:51:24 PM PDT by randita
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Yes. Benghazi is a mystery; for lots of reasons - not to mention the mystery of the coverup that lasted for days and even now we are getting no answers.

Watergate was a mystery; but nobody died in Watergate. IF Benghazi was originally a staged event to enhance Obama’s election, why the need to hide the truth? - I’ve read that Stevens’ father has condemned the “politicizing” of his son’s death. Well, other people besides his son died; and we want real answers, not some concocted video story. We’ve had enough of Hillary’s and Obama’s dramas.

Fast & Furious was obviously a manufactured drama designed to move the American people to rise up against firearms. What was the video concoction in Benghazi? - Blaming “Bush” is wearing thin.


11 posted on 10/14/2012 4:53:22 PM PDT by Twinkie
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To: Brad from Tennessee

US Ambassador Raped Before His Murder

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/09/horror-lebanese-reports-us-ambassador-raped-before-his-murder/


12 posted on 10/14/2012 4:56:26 PM PDT by jimbo123
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To: Brad from Tennessee

>>He would be disciplined and careful, show anger and steel but also coolness under <<

Deference is not discipline. Whining is not anger. Baffled surprise is not steel. Stammering uncertainty is not coolness.


13 posted on 10/14/2012 5:04:41 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (We canÂ’t just leave it (food choice) up to the parents. -- moochele obozo 2/12/2012 (cnsnews))
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To: Brad from Tennessee
Undaunted, the left is spinning it that the Republicans cut funding on security, and one of those was Paul Ryan. They also say there were sensitivities about security in Libya; i.e., Americans with guns (loaded or unloaded not sure) would not be accepted outside an embassy which was not an embassy but a consulate. IOW security details, if present, would have to stay inside.

Larry Kudlow last night said it could sink Obama because Bill Clinton has met with lawyers for Hillary because he doesn't want her to take all the blame. I don't know if it's true but it was said.

Lies, lies and more lies (paraphrasing). Backing off. Untruths. Lie is a pretty strong word in a campaign.

Obviously a rumble between the Clintons and Obama & Company this close before the election would not be a good thing.

It's really crazy how after a story breaks and has time to percolate for awhile, how the right and left will comment or report about it. You can think it's a slam dunk point for the right. Wrong. The left is very ingenuous at spin and deflecting blame. So if you don't like the left, better read what they are saying sometimes anyway.

14 posted on 10/14/2012 5:06:00 PM PDT by Aliska
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To: Brad from Tennessee

With all due respect, Mr. Douthat, there is a “mystery” about to jump up and bite you and your loony readers in the a$$.


15 posted on 10/14/2012 5:13:19 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew (ABO to the core.)
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To: Aliska
Undaunted, the left is spinning it that the Republicans cut funding on security, and one of those was Paul Ryan.

Rep. Rohrbacher laid that suggestion to rest in the first hearing. He asked Mrs. Lamb, the person responsible for staffing decisions at the mission, whether they were prevented from proper staffing due to budget/finance constraints. Her answer was, "No." But the green weenies (who also agreed to budget cuts in the first place) were celebrating new Chevy Volts while sipping champagne at the new "green" embassy in Vienna at the same time.

16 posted on 10/14/2012 5:21:00 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew (ABO to the core.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
A column shocking in its level of mendacity even by the now thoroughly disgusting standards of the New York Times. [The Soviet Union is dead. Pravda is alive.]

The administration did not gradually allow its story about the motivation for the murders of four Americans slip away: the story was hammered repeatedly by talk radio and by the few journalistic outfits with any integrity left. The thoroughly irrelevant NY Times, to its eternal shame, repeatedly buried the story and treated it as a non-event. So also, for the most part, has the Washington Post and the alphabet Networks. To their credit, ONE reporter for CBS News did not, and both FNC and CNN have treated the story as the major scandal it is.

The administration did not gradually unravel the story over the course of four days. The administration lied and continued to lie for NINE DAYS, and even after that, the pResident obsequiously appeared before the UN to repeat the lie and to trash freedom of speech one more time in front of the thugocracies, kleptocracies, tyrants and Islamist nutcases who form the overwhelming membership of that international debating club. Indeed, he and his minions flunkies, and stooges would still be lying today if the NY Times had remained the "news organization" that set the American Agenda. Thank Almighty God they no longer are.

How fallen are the great; now Times columnists get to lick the crumbs left by Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh from the newsroom floor.

Eat up.

17 posted on 10/14/2012 5:23:19 PM PDT by FredZarguna (Congratulations on the Nobel, Dad! You won peace in Europe and helped keep it for 70 years.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
The White House already enjoyed more public credibility on foreign policy than on almost any other issue.

With the Saudis, yeah.

18 posted on 10/14/2012 5:31:54 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

“The White House already enjoyed more public credibility on foreign policy than on almost any other issue..”

Only to the slimelicking filth at The New York Times..


19 posted on 10/14/2012 5:32:47 PM PDT by wolficatZ ("We are no longer accepting comments on this article")
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To: Fester Chugabrew
That's probably a more accurate version.

It's hard to keep up with every truthteller after-the-fact. Seems like once a falsehood or skewed version gets out there, it stays out there, even if it's been rubutted accurately.

Much of the campaign is about junk like that. Lies that have been corrected. Doesn't matter. It's a good commercial so they will keep it. The left, Romney, the 47% and the low color saturation. Romney did say what he said but rather humbly announced he had been wrong. It's too bad. I thought from the git go he was partly wrong because of the economy, outsourced jobs; lots taking govt help would rather have a good job. But there is a subset of the 47%l, what the actual number is I can't say, considerable, where Romney was dead on. And it was also true before the economy got so wretched due to multiple causes.

20 posted on 10/14/2012 5:34:46 PM PDT by Aliska
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