By Tom Kando
The Republicans are desperately milking the Benghazi pseudo-issue for all its
worth. On October 19, ultra-reactionary Charles Krauthammer wrote another
column accusing President Obama of grave
malfeasance in this matter, predicting that he will lose grievously on this issue during his next presidential
debate with Mitt Romney (Sacramento Bee, Oct. 19, 2012). So the issue can be expected to come up in a
big way during the debate. Here is what it’s all about:
On or about 9/11/12, three things happened:
1.
A blasphemous anti-Muslim video came out.2. In response to that, widespread rioting erupted throughout the Muslim world.
3. There was a terrorist attack on our Benghazi consulate which killed four Americans, including our embassador.
Now here is what the
Republicans, Mitt Romney, Fox News, etc. are trying to exploit: They are
accusing the Obama administration of falsely attributing the attack to the
spontaneous rioting in response to the blasphemous video, instead of
acknowledging that it was a well-planned terrorist attack.
Of course, after the attack
occurred, the Obama administration had to respond. The “administration” means,
among other things, (1) the intelligence community (CIA, etc.), (2) the State
Department headed by Hilary Clinton, (3) UN envoy Susan Rice and (4) the
White House, including the President. In other words, dozens of thousands of people (the State Department
alone employs 60,000).
Here is how President Obama and
his administration should defend themselves against this scurrilous attack
during the upcoming debate and during the remainder of the campaign:
1. Confusion is inevitable. In
Hilary Clinton’s words, it’s the “Fog of War.”
2. It is absurd to expect the
President, alone at the top, to be omni-scient, to have all the answers
immediately, to know everything that is
being communicated by the thousands of people who work for him.
3. Even so, the President’s
instincts were right: within ONE DAY he correctly identified the event as a TERRORIST attack, and he did so again
during the next couple of days, for example in Las Vegas.
4. A few days later, some errors were made - by
others. Our UN embassador re-interpreted the attack as part of
the worldwide wave of spontaneous Muslim protest. Even so, different
members of the Obama administration took different takes - some subscribing to
the terrorism hypothesis, some to the spontaneous protest hypothesis. This is
called CONFUSION. It results from
conflicting information.
5. But this entirely
understandable period of confusion was very brief - ONE WEEK! Compare this to the year-and-a-half long
weapons-of-mass-destruction deception by the Bush administration.
6. And although the
administration is now clear that the event was a planned terrorist attack, the
fact that it happened during a wave of anti-American protests is not a
coincidence. Ultimately, whichever of the two
interpretations you use is not hugely important. The murder of our four diplomats is a crime and a tragedy either
way. Briefly mis-attributing it one way or the other was a minor and
understandable error.
7. So the “Benghazi controversy”
is a contrived pseudo-issue. It is the pot calling the kettle black.
8. To accuse President Obama of
a deliberate and politically motivated mis-interpretation is another nutty
conspiracy theory, like the one about his foreign birth. Why would he do
that? Why would he FIRST immediately say
that this was a terrorist attack, and
later change his tune? It would make a lot more sense to first claim that this
was an unfortunate accident during a riot, and later admit that it was a
planned terrorist attack.
When it comes up during the
final presidential debate, Obama should make the above points, and then conclude by saying: “So where is the beef? I have explained what
happened. Now I will only talk to you about real issues, not
pseudo-issues.”
