During Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, VP Joe Biden adopted two tactics that are likely to come back to haunt both him and President Obama. When questioned about Libya, rather than take any responsibility for that deadly attack, Biden threw an agency and a community under the bus.
Regarding the lack of security at the consulate in Benghazi, Biden said that the administration just didn’t know that security officers on the ground had requested more security. The State Department says otherwise:
“We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there,” Biden said.
In fact, two security officials who worked for the State Department in Libya at the time testified Thursday that they repeatedly requested more security and two State Department officials admitted they had denied those requests.
“All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources,” the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, testified. “In those conversations, I was specifically told [by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb] ‘You cannot request an SST extension.’ I determined I was told that because there would be too much political cost. We went ahead and requested it anyway.”
Nordstrom was so critical of the State Department’s reluctance to respond to his calls for more security that he said, “For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building.”
Biden also called out the intelligence community, arguing that administration officials told the nation that the Benghazi assault resulted from a protest because that’s what the intelligence community told them. It’s possible that the presidentially-appointed head of the CIA, Gen David Petraeus, blamed the assault on a video. Petraeus was quoted on Sept 13 doing just that in a briefing to Congress. But by that point it was already evident that the assault was a pre-planned terrorist attack and the administration had begun its pushback against that view. The question is, did the larger intelligence community agree with Petraeus?
In a word, no.
Flashback to Sept 26: The US knew that Benghazi was a terrorist attack within the first 24 hours.
Flashback to Sept 28: The US listened in as Benghazi attackers bragged to al Qaeda.
Flashback to October 3: The Obama administration had been told Benghazi was a terrorist attack within hours.
Flashback to October 10: The State Department says that it never thought Benghazi resulted from a protest over a movie.
It’s possible that Petraeus called Benghazi wrong, and the administration’s public faces deferred to him. If that’s the case, it reinforces the view that Obama, Biden, Clinton et al are simply not experienced enough to have the wherewithall to override Petraeus even if they may not agree with him. But it’s more likely in my opinion that they adopted the protest view because that’s where their own worldview led them — to blame America rather than admit that al Qaeda is not the decimated force that Democrats have all claimed them to be. They have used “bin Laden is dead and GM is alive” so much in their campaign that they can’t publicly admit that bin Laden’s death has had little if any real world effect on what al Qaeda does or plans to do. Benghazi is glaring evidence that al Qaeda has, as Lt Col Andrew Wood testified, gained strength from the US-led intervention in Libya.
By calling out both State (on the security) and intelligence (on the video) during the debate, Biden did two things. He expanded the cover-up to now include himself, in front of the entire nation. He also declared war on two of the most dangerous segments of the US government, our diplomatic corps and our intelligence community. Both of them are skilled in the craft of moving damaging information without leaving too many tracers or fingerprints. Now, both have every reason to consider the vice president, and by extension the president, hostile actors.
More: On MSNBC, Mark Halperin agreed that Biden’s answers on Benghazi may cause big problems down the road.
So Joe Biden out Gored Al “sigh” Gore and doubled down on the Benghazi lie. You still feel comfortable with him a heart beat away from the presidency? I’m actually more worried about the country today than I was going into the VP debate. Biden diminished himself last night.
Well, they’ve got one month to publish Obama’s real Social Security number, Obama’s transcripts, Obama’s college funding…….
Heck, even his birth certificate. And how about a big expose about his mother? Twenty saintly years in the third world? Doing what?
Is there a possibility that Petraeus knew the truth, but lied to Congress on orders of the Commander-in-Chief? After all, a good soldier follows orders.
Being a great military leader does not necessarily protect from this: viz. Marshall Petain.
RE: #3 great unknown — Even though Petraeus is a retired 4 star general, he is still subject to following the orders of the President. So, if 0 told Petraeus that he, 0, needed political cover, then the video story makes sense.
I think we can be fairly confident that State, the CIA, NSA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency all knew by the afternoon of 9/12/2012 that the raid on the Consulate at Benghazi was an al Qaeda attack and well and carefully planned to boot.
Which begs the question: when Romney wins, becomes the CIC, and orders Petraeus to tell the truth, will he admit he perjured himself under orders, or will he resign his commission first?
1. Petraeus retired from the Army to take the CIA post, so there is no commission to resign.
2. Petraeus is 100% a political appointee to CIA, and just like all political appointees….they protect their appointer or resign….and Petraeus has not resigned.
3. So if we assume Petraeus is competent (and he is), then he must have known the truth about the Libya attacks when the rest of the IC knew.
4. So we can deduce that Petraeus lied to Congress to protect Obama, or he would have resigned.
Dead on.
If Petraeus lied to Congress on the order of the Prez does that not mean he sacrified his integrity and honor? And he has made himself subject to prison. I suspect he did just that.
Or the CIA is just as fallible as always, & Petraeus jumped the gun on an assessment while all the sources were still being sifted.
There is an initial period in any situation such as this (“all-source fusion”) when the conclusion is still coalescing, & that is what we were seeing at the beginning, which makes Susan Rice’s insistence on the video excuse all the more inexcusable. The story now is that the administration didn’t have sufficient intelligence to draw a conclusion, but that’s not what we saw — we saw them demanding that the video was responsible, because the idea that al Qaeda was involved (or even, more accurately, resurging) is political anathema.
Stansfield Turner, Part Deux?
Thinking about the “questioning” of the State Department personnel by Darrel Issa and his committee, note that every one of the witnesses was a career State officer. No political appointee seems to have been called to testify, or else somehow declined to do so. If I remember correctly, Lamb said that “for political reasons” they wanted Libya to appear as normal as possible. A Bureau of Diplomatic Security Deputy Assistant Secretary does not make “political” decisions. Those are made by political appointees in: [take your choice or any combination you like] office of the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs; office of the Undersecretary for Political Affairs; office of the Deputy Secretary; office of the Secretary; office of the National Security Adviser; and/or elsewhere in the White House. However, the career types are the ones most likely to be thrown under the bus.
Death by 10,000 leaks. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving set of people.
Frankly I am surprised an old Washington hand like Joe would make such a mistake. I can understand it in Obama and Jarrett. They are used to the Chicago bureaucracy which operates in perpetual servitude to Democrat political hacks. For all their liberal biases on policy matters the federal bureaucracy understands the whole power structure can change with the next election. They aren’t going to lie to a Congressional committee. Nor will they take the fall for the bad decisions of political hacks.
This coincides with our piece on PJ Media “Why Libya Is No Accident”. Al-Qaeda has been strengthened in Libya while the equally anti-American hard-left is being strengthened in Guatemala as the result of U.S. policy in those countries. It’s too bad Guatemala’s lack of importance in the U.S. keeps this very telling Obama trait from being more publicly confirmed and acknowledged. Of course the mainstream media is burying the Libya story as much as possible to keep the public from knowing the facts. Preventing the Guatemala story from surfacing is even easier.
BILL CLINTON COULD HAVE , AND SHOULD HAVE BLOWN OBL OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH BACK IN ’98 OR ’99 WHEN HE WAS TOLD THE EXACT LOCATION OF OBL ; I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY PRESIDENT PHILANDERER BILL CLINTON DID’NT WASTE OBL ; CLINTON IS A PURE WUSS .
As an interesting aside, allow me this tidbit of observation on the use of body language: At the beginning of the Romney/Obama debate, we saw the candidates stride onstage, with Obama from stage right. The two of them shake hands, & Obama puts his left hand on Romney’s upper right arm, a clear sign of oneupsmanship. Romney, of course, does the same but that is in the background where it is not apparent to the audience, because the camera lingers on the front side of the stage with Obama showing that he is in charge of the exchange.
Now look at the Biden/Ryan debate — the same exchange takes place, but this time Ryan comes out from stage right. The camera catches the first moment of Ryan placing his left hand on Biden’s upper arm, but switches immediately to a rear shot so that we see Biden doing the same thing, again appearing to the television audience to be in a dominant position. At the conclusion of the debate, the two shake hands again, but this time the view is entirely from the rear with advantage Biden.
It’s these little things that people can declare to be nit-picking about the media, but it happens so often that it has my healthy sense of paranoia rankled.
Another body language moment was when Ryan asked Biden if he knew about the unemployment stats for Biden’s hometown of Scranton, PA. Biden said “Yes, I do” but then immediately looked down, a deflecting tell. When Ryan asked again what is was now, Biden again replied but blinked heavily. Those indicators suggest that Biden had no idea what Ryan was talking about.
We The People must recall, Axelrod was asked to step in and take over Vice-President Biden’s coaching for Thursday nights debate.
This debate and Obama’s Tuesday’s debate, is patently an “Axelrod Ploy!” Need proof? Look at his history of “specilaties.”
The senior partner of AKP Message & Media, David Axelrod is a leading political consultant based in Chicago, Illinois.While he is best known as a top adviser to Barack Obama, first in Obama’s 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Illinois and currently as strategist for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, he has been the power behind the throne in multiple campaigns, including Dennis Archer in Detroit, Michael R. White in Cleveland, Anthony A. Williams in Washington, D.C., Lee P. Brown in Houston, and John F. Street in Philadelphia.While Axelrod will advise white candidates, he primarily specializes in developing campaign strategies for black candidates.His favorite, indeed primary campaign tactic, is to polarize the campaign with smear attacks, in other words, the race card.Indeed when all else fails, Axelrod resorts to the race card as his ace in the hole.
Isn’t this what is now all over all MSM outlets??? “polarize the campaign with smear tactics!!” Sure is! And David teaches this as required course material to students of Communication Studies at Northwestern University.
Biden’s derision at Thursday’s Vice-Presidential debate was typical Axelrod. Has David’s fingerprints all over it. Couple this “polarization of the campaign with smear tactics” with all ads running in “key battleground states” one has the sum total of Obama/Axelrod’s campaign. Just good ‘ol Chicago-style street thuggery politics.
Vote massively for Goodness, Civility and Love of Our Fellow Man. God Bless America. Amen.
Please share this note with other friends: As I read more about the Benghazi attack, I am blown away by the unbelievable partisanship of the major networks in protecting Obama from the biggest scandal of his administration. It is 100% clear that the administration knew within 24 hours that it was a terrorist attack and not an out of control mob protesting a video. The possibility that terrorists with links to al-Qaeda were responsible would look bad for Obama since we have been told that al-Qaeda was on the path to defeat. In fact Obama had received reports in August that al-Qaeda was gaining strength in Libya. We have learned that the survivors of the assault were debriefed within 24 hours, and they confirmed that there was no protest beforehand. It was a straightforward military style raid on the compound. On Sept. 12th the McClatchy website posted an article on the attack. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/12/168270/attack-on-us-consulate-in-libya.html The key sentence states,”In Washington, two administration officials, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity, corroborated much of Bishari’s description of what happened.” The administration officials already knew what had occurred at the consulate because the survivors had been debriefed. They confirmed to the McClatchy reporter that the Libyan was correct, there were no protesters, it was a full scale assault, well planned in advance and timed for September 11th. The Libyan government never accepted the story that this was anything other than a well planned terrorist assault. In fact the day after the attack the one Libyan guard who survived said there were no protesters and it was an sudden assault on the compound. But our President already knew this information. What purpose was served in not telling the country what the President had learned from the survivors? Why spread a lie about a spontaneous protest turning violent?
The President, Hilary Clinton, and Susan Rice perpetrated a lie, long after the facts were clear. The country deserves an explanation for our President’s actions in intentionally misleading the public and the world. At the United Nations the President had the opportunity to discuss the dangers of a strengthening al-Qaeda. Instead, he blamed the attack on a video. If the Congress had not been controlled by the GOP, this deception may have never come to light. The details of the assault would have been kept a secret. Suddenly just before the Congressional hearings, a State Department official tells reporters that the State Department never accepted the premise that this was a spontaneous event caused by anger over a video. Apparently the State Department listed the event as a terrorist attack within 24 hours, but Clinton was playing the role of a politician and not head of the State Department when she lied to the public.
President Obama is proud that he gave the order to kill Osama bin Laden, but if al-Qaeda is strengthening and attacking our diplomats, this diminishes the value of his death and it could be argued that we have made him a martyr. We have killed many al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan but the President of Pakistan says that we are simply creating more radicals with our drone attacks. I cannot know President Obama’s reasons for blaming the consulate attack on a mob and not Islamic terrorists, but it appears to have been a decision based on politics. The President still refuses to admit that he knew the truth within the first day. I think that the country deserves to know why he made the decision to mislead everyone.
It is obvious that this issue could end Obama’s chances of being re-elected, and the mainstream press may never confront the President. It would only take one question, “Mr. President, when did you learn from the survivors that there were no protesters and that the attack seemed planned and well organized.”
I have sent a copy of this to ABC, NBC, and CBS but I doubt they will do anything. Please spread the word and send your own copy to the major networks. Don Woods -thanks
Any President who skips his Intelligence Briefing as regularly as Obama might not have know about the requests for continued security.
Clueless from his first day. Clueless today.