Leaks, Lies, and Libya: How Not to Inform a Nation

While the current administration has strayed far from Barack Obama's 2008 campaign promise that it would be the most transparent government in history, nothing so points to its failure to keep that promise as have events of the past two years.

Starting with the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the Obama administration has, in a very real sense, "informed" Americans of current events via selective and random leaks (many of them apparently unintentional). For example, on the day after the bin Laden mission, both the president and the vice president identified SEAL Team 6 as the unit executing the mission.

One might call this a "leak in plain sight," but a leak it was, carrying with it every negative connotation in the word. From the perspective of my military mind, the identification of a specific unit as responsible for the death of bin Laden should, if it ever happened at all, have been the result of intelligence-gathering of the highest order on the part of America's al-Qaeda enemy. That information surely should not have been provided "free of charge" by the nation's commander-in-chief.

What damage, one asks, did the release of that information cause to the national defense? One of the principal elements of information on the enemy, I was always taught, was the identification of the unit with which one was in closest contact (the technical term for this is "order of battle"). This is the most important element of the quintessential "know-your-enemy" adjuration. Armed with this gem of knowledge, one is enabled to exact revenge upon or counter future attacks by an enemy.

One can only hope that the American public will recognize "The Raid" for what it is -- electioneering at the expense of truth.

Last night, in the debate, the President claimed that questions as to his Administration's handling of security, and truthfulness about the deaths of our Ambassador and others in Benghazi were "offensive" to him.

Is that not the very same word he used when citizens complained about these "leaks" which leading Intelligence Committee members attributed to the White House--that was "offensive"?

Perhaps he does not realize how "offensive" his Administration's lack of credibility is to his employers--"the People"!

"Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions." - See "Letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785," in Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1984), pp. 814-815.

". . . he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him." - Jefferson

When a man stands before the world and makes claims which are as easily disproven as those made by the President last night, then, truly, "his infamy becomes more exposed."

The 5-minute Rose Garden statement was on FOX Radio this morning, and it reveals that both Crowley and the President might take Jefferson's warning to heart: "Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice."

Last night, American voters saw the "chicanery," the "dissimulation," the "trimming," the "untruth," and the "injustice" attempted by avoiding the real question from the audience, and on November 6, both may see that the President did not "extricate" himself from the "difficulty" of his attempted cover-up of a terrorist attack on his watch.

Thanks for your response to my post! As I read it, and your italicized quote of my statement, the thought occurs that this President does not seem to see himself as the Constitution places him--a temporary employee/servant of "the People," but as some supra-Constitutional figure whose judgments are not to be questioned or challenged.

I'm reminded of John Quincy Adams' remark in his "Jubilee" Address:

"Every change of a President of the United States, has exhibited some variety of policy from that of his predecessor. In more than one case, the change has extended to political and even to moral principle; but the policy of the country has been fashioned far more by the influences of public opinion, and the prevailing humors in the two Houses of Congress, than by the judgment, the will, or the principles of the President of the United States. The President himself is no more than a representative of public opinion at the time of his election; and as public opinion is subject to great and frequent fluctuations, he must accommodate his policy to them; or the people will speedily give him a successor; or either House of Congress will effectually control his power. It is thus, and in no other sense that the Constitution of the United States is democratic - for the government of our country, instead of a Democracy the most simple, is the most complicated government on the face of the globe. From the immense extent of our territory, the difference of manners, habits, opinions, and above all, the clashing interests of the North, South, East, and West, public opinion formed by the combination of numerous aggregates, becomes itself a problem of compound arithmetic, which nothing but the result of the popular elections can solve.

Just a thought!

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