Posted on 11/06/2012 4:17:28 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The Benghazi bleed is draining Obama and Democrats, with the consequence yet to be seen. If he loses, it will be one reason why; if he wins, he will run into a headwind of investigations and inquiries that will get his second term off to an ugly beginning.
Either way, it has put an end for the time being at least to the Democrats' latest effort to dig themselves out of the foreign policy hole they dug themselves into in the late l960s, and from which they have yet to emerge. They tried with Jimmy Carter, ex-career naval officer (and protegee of the famously hard-boiled Admiral Rickover). They tried with Michael Dukakis, who posed in a tank. They tried with John Kerry, who reported for duty until he was sandbagged by his former naval associates, who resented both his grandstanding in the Pacific and the anti-war screeds he emitted once he came home.
Mindful of this, the one-time community organizer took care to balance "lead-from-behind" and apology tours with discreet hits on terrorists, culminating with the biggest bag of them all, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, which Obama conflated with the end of the terrorist menace. Thus, Michael Gerson would write on Aug. 9 that "the mommy party ... has become daddy with a drone and a hit list." Thus E.J. Dionne would gloat that Obama had "played the ultimate trump card" the previous May "when he visited our troops in Afghanistan ... on the anniversary of the bin Laden raid, and, with military vehicles serving as a rough-hewn backdrop, addressed the nation from the scene of our longest war."
Hence the panic in the White House and the Obama campaign (the two are identical) on Sept. 11, 2012. "Before that day, much of the country's ... establishment had been studiously ignoring signs of trouble in the Middle East," said Walter Russell Mead. "The U.S. remains widely disliked and distrusted ... the struggle against radical terror looks longer lasting ... the strategic underpinnings of the administration's Middle East policy seem to be falling apart."
The death of Osama had been welcome, but had not been determinative, which was a threat to the president. "The administration has a lot invested in the public impression that al Qaeda was vanquished when Osama bin Laden was killed," wrote David Ignatius. "Obama could lose some of that luster if the public examined whether al Qaeda is adopting a new ... strategy of interweaving its operations with the unrest sweeping the Arab world."
Thus, the unforced error of the administration in trying to blame the riots (and the deaths of four people) not on al Qaeda but on a 12-minute video seen largely on YouTube. Thus, the apologies made for the video, and thus, the embarrassment when the story unraveled, leading to questions concerning negligence and mismanagement on the ground leading up to the riots -- that policymakers in the administration had ignored the warnings of the murdered ambassador, and, when the attack actually happened, left two Americans who tried to protect the embassy staffers (and who did succeed in killing large numbers of attackers) to die alone.
And thus, too, the return of the foreign policy card to the table; and a shift in the polls that made Dionne so happy in spring. By 49 to 42 percent, independents think that the president tried to mislead them; by 47-39 voters think he is failing in Libya; by 55-26 they call his approaches to terror too "soft." It's back to square one once again for the Democrats.
Welcome back, Carter, indeed.
Remember Benghazi!
Let’s pretend for a minute that Obama and his administration will not cooperate with the investigation, prior to leaving office Jan. 20th.
The new Republican Senate Majority had better have a plan in place for investigation and prosecution.
Senate 50/50 and Ryan will be very busy.
Win or lose, there will be investigations, hearings, etc.
The drive-bys can’t avoid reporting the story anymore.
Within 2 weeks after Benghazi 0 should have been impeached, then tried for treason.
A little bit late now. If 0 wins, Benghazi will be forgotten, and the parents, families and friends of the murdered Americans will weep in silence.
If Romney wins, it’s up to the Republicans to bring 0 to justice, but I doubt that it will happen.
I hope you’re right.
But the MSM / American Pravda will be even more empowered to ignore real news if Obama is reelected.
Once this imposter is thrown out, I wish there would be criminal charges filed against all involved.
They deserve it, starting with Holder and Clinton.
Impeaching a President is a long, time consuming process. IF 0 is reelected he will have that to look forward to.
The preponderance of Benghazi evidence conclusively shows that Obama is a Coward. As a Coward, Obama is unfit to be the Commander in Chief of the US Military.
Obama’s strategic retreat to Las Vegas, Nevada the day after he authorized that 4 Americans were to be left behind to be murdered, has brought indelible shame to his office, and the Democrat Party.
As parents, who among us wants to send our sons and daughters to a US Military that has a Commander In Chief who is a Coward?
May the heros of Benghazi be proud of how we vote today.
They gave their lives for us, now we need to give our votes for them.
Vote as if the lives of our Military Men and Women depended on it.
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