Posted on 11/21/2012 1:04:18 PM PST by Kaslin
While the soap opera “All the General’s Girls” currently occupies the top spot in the Washington, DC ratings wars, the “Benghazi Chronicles,” with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in a starring role, continues to enjoy strong ratings – as it should.
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney played it safe during the campaign -- refusing to press the many questions surrounding the September 11th fatal attacks on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
The campaign was the perfect forum from which to demand and obtain answers to questions about why the United States was so poorly prepared for the violent attacks in Benghazi. It also served as an appropriate stage on which to discover why the Administration continued to mislead the American public about the forces behind the attacks.
With those opportunities badly flubbed by Romney, attention is now focused on Republican leaders in the Congress to use their confirmation, legislative and oversight powers to do what Romney did not – play hardball and demand answers.
Republicans should quickly and firmly brush aside Obama’s symbolic bravado during last week’s news conference, when he dared the Republicans to “take [him] on” and leave Rice alone. This is a red herring. The GOP also should be firm in casting aside the nonsense being mouthed by Rice’s defenders, such as Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, who are playing the Race Card by claiming criticism of Rice is founded in racial prejudice.
What Republicans should not brush aside, but should continue to focus on, is that “Benghazi-Gate” represents a most serious series of errors committed by the Obama Administration – errors in judgment, intelligence, security, and policy that began long before the September 11th attacks; and which continued even after the tragic death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
This is serious business; and whatever smokescreens the Administration and its defenders throw out there – charges of “sexism,” “racism,” “partisanship,” or whatever – must not be permitted to pull the GOP off target. The GOP is the loyal opposition in this equation, and must not allow itself to be bullied into submission or start chasing animals down irrelevant rabbit holes. If the Republicans in either House flub this, then the incompetence displayed by the Obama Administration in meeting the challenges not only in Libya, but in Iran, Egypt and elsewhere, will continue and likely result in future debacles.
While the importance of Benghazi-Gate extends far beyond Susan Rice, the stakes for her are especially high. She is Obama’s personal choice to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For the President, if this truly is the proverbial “ditch” in which he has decided to fight to the death, its outcome will greatly impact how successful he will be in moving his second-term agenda forward on a number different issues.
On paper, Susan Rice clearly is qualified to serve as Clinton’s successor at Foggy Bottom – Stanford University, Rhodes Scholar, National Security Council, and youngest-ever Assistant Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton. She is accurately described as tough, smart and, according one biography, unafraid to offer “direct” and “plainspoken” assessments.
Why then is there such controversy swirling around her potential nomination to State, based on clearly erroneous assessments of what happened in the Benghazi attack offered publicly by her in the tragedy’s aftermath? The answer to this series of questions actually is rather straightforward and simple.
Rice inserted herself into the eye of the Benghazi hurricane, and became the face of the Obama Administration’s efforts to downplay and explain away the attacks in the final weeks leading to the November 6th election. No Republican Senator or Representative forced Rice into what turned out to be the unenviable position of describing the Benghazi attack as nothing more than a spontaneous response to an obscure film with anti-Islamic overtones. She either chose to enter the fray (perhaps hoping to burnish her credentials in anticipation of an Obama win), or she was too weak to resist efforts by others in the Administration to push her into the front lines so they could stand in the shadows and not be tarnished.
Either way, legitimate questions are raised about Rice’s judgment and about her ability to operate in the tough, complex political milieu in Washington.
The explanation by Obama and others, that Rice should not be criticized for her post-Benghazi statements because she was “just reading the talking points that had been given to her,” are equally devoid of merit. Do we want or need someone as Secretary of State who blithely reads talking point stuck in front of her, regardless of their merits or whether they make sense?
The answer to this and related questions clearly is “No”; and Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate must use their considerable powers to withhold funds, block nominations, and subpoena witnesses to get to the bottom of this fundamental foreign policy and national security debacle. If they don’t, who will?
First, you need to have BALLS to play hardball.
The GOP-e is a ball-less bunch of castratos.
Let’s be brutally honest here. The Republicans have lost all abililty to play Hard Ball. Until we get another Lee Atwater on the scene, there really is no hope of defeating the takers.
Who gave the order to the military to “stand down” and NOT execute the plan to rescue our Ambassador and our other three brave men?
When did they give the order?
Why
I am with you. The rest of this is importnat, but not as urgent
Who gave the order to our military to “stand down” and NOT execute the plan to rescue our Ambassador and our men in Benghazi on 9-11-12?
When did they give the order?
Why?
This is the wrong question. Only the President can give the go-ahead to cross an international border without permission from the entered country. If, and it seems likely, Obama never gave this order(once and maybe still called Cross Border Authority), then all the American troops lined up in Sicily, on ships in the Med or even in the air, could not go to the aid of our men.
Obama will continue saying that we did everything possible to help, meaning with what we had in Libya already. Why doesn't anyone in the media ask Obama where he was for the entire 7+ hours of the attacks. He was probably in his private quarters getting ready for his trip to Vegas.
Who gave the order to our military to “stand down” and NOT execute the plans to rescue our Ambassador and our men in Benghazi on 9-11-12?
<\b> We must know what the residents of the WH did, when, and why.
Someone is stonewalling and trying,desperately, to avoid answering those questions
Good one onyx, just too good!
Remember Freepers a dollar day helps JimRob keep the commies away.Now more that ever we need to come together.
How stupid can you get not to know the eventual wind-up of the Benghazi story.
I don't think they are that stupid. I think they planned it all and were ready for everything that happened except when the terror types turned on them and started taking out every infidel they could.
That ruined the regimes day and they didn't know how to react which was obvious.Enter Axelrod creating the video BS and a sweet young impossible to counter black woman who just oozed believe ablity and if you counter her you are a racist. It was super slick.And, all designed to simply to buy time to run out the election clock.
The more complicated this thing appears the simpler it really is.
In the second debate Obama reminded everyone he had called it an “act of terror” on the second day. Petraeus called it “terror.” Yet Obama’s teleprompter kept saying “It’s the video,” and Rice along with Hillary kept saying “It’s the video.” Someones lying!! And most important, who ordered the military to stand down?
You are right.
As many Freepers have noted, there are at least three scandals involved:
BEFORE: the failure to have adequate security before the attack;
DURING: the failure to immediately respond to the attack and rescue our people;
AFTER: the lies and cover-up.
I thought I knew a little bit about Benghazi until I read this.
Now I just shake my head in wonder.
The allegations in this link suggest that Benghazi happened because we basically pissed the Russians off by supplying too many arms to not only Libya but Syria through turkey and we overplayed our hand with Turkey.Benghazi was the arms depot and the center for distribution to many places evidently.
The Turks got pissed that they were put in the middle between us and the Ruskies and took the Russians side. The rest as they say is here:
From what I read and am now wondering about is that with Benghazi being used as a weapons depot and basically a distribution center for Syria and formerly for Libya help was not sent since everyone would find out what the regime was doing there and it would be over for zero.
this thing never ends,there is no end.
I thought I knew more answers that before I read some recent links.This thing is like a mirage. First its there then it isn’t.
I am sending an email to my R Congressman and asking him to tell us:
Who gave the order to our military to “stand down” and NOT execute plans to rescue our men in Benghazi on 9-11-12?
When did he give the order?
Why?
Outstadning,if enough people do that we will get their attention.
I am lucky I have Marco for a Senator and am sure he will do all he can and used to have Ileana ros who never neglects anything important.Both are great Americans.
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