Is this leadership?
President Obama said he feels “fabulous” ahead of Tuesday night’s debate on Long Island.
Walking with David Plouffe and Anita Dunn at the Kingsmill resort here, Obama told reporters he feels good.
“I feel fabulous,” he told reporters who stood for 30 minutes in the sunshine awaiting the photo-op. “Look at this beautiful day.”
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Obama then ignored a question, like the first two, shouted from 50 feet away, about whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to blame for the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
In Peru for a regional drug summit, Secretary of State Clinton last night accepted responsibility for the lack of security at the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya which was sacked by terrorists on 9-11-12. Clinton’s move has only served to draw attention back to the Obama administation’s decision to blame the deadly attack on a YouTube movie, when it was clear within 24 hours that the attack was a pre-planned military-style terrorist strike.
Update: Wow.
Pool: “Reporter: ‘Is Hillary to blame for Benghazi?’ Obama: Silence. Kept walking.”
— HuffPost Politics (@HuffPostPol) October 16, 2012
The buck stops at the oval office. Everyone knows that. I wonder what they promised her to take the blame. It’s too late to put he on the ticket as VP, Michelle won’t let Hillary be Chief of Staff or NSA. She’s resigning as Sec State, so what’s left? SCOTUS. Life time appointment imposing Alinsky rules for radicals on the American People.
That’s all it could be IMO.
Maybe – or she’s eyeing 2016. She would probably like to see Obama defeated in 2012, so she can come back as the great Democratic Savior in 2016 to battle Romney. She’s betting that people (and more importantly the media) will forget her errors as Sec. or State after 4 years of having a “hated, evil” GOP president and would welcome her back.
She probably wants to be far away from the blast damage when the Obama presidency either folds or goes to a scandal plagued 2nd term.
Based upon what we now know, here is a *logical* hypothesis, though by no means a unique solution:
On Sept. 11 or 12 it became very apparent to the senior levels of the administration that Benghazi was a deliberate terrorist act, and one akin to 9/11–unprovoked, planned, and this time with no ability to spin it off via “why do they hate us?” rhetoric.
And it probably also became quickly apparent that a 9/11-style attack on Obama’s watch was very damaging, given the apologies in Cairo, lack of Dem support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (for whatever reason), and the fact that getting involved in Libya was all Obama. There was also the causus belli problem.
And so it became about a movie, and a man got arrested, to change the subject. Apologies got made in Pakistan, to change the subject. And because a 9/11-style attack was considered to be poison, as well as might lead to demands for military action, criticism of it by the right would be made to seem as improper as possible.
Thus, in this hypothesis, it was always known as a matter of planned terrorist activity (as soon as anything was known), and the need to not appear weak on foreign policy–as well as to not bring on a war situation–caused it to be deliberately changed to being about a movie. With some help from the MSM (perhaps unwittingly), and a lot of help from State Department personnel. As well as perhaps Petraeus, motivated by the desire to avoid the public being presented a causus belli.
Do I believe this? More than I don’t.
To reiterate the point, to hopefully make the thesis clearer–without that movie, it should be clear that the attack would be viewed as a 9/11-type attack; that dalls for action would be loud and deniable, and that Obama, potentially culpable for the attack and the last three years of foreign policy emphases, and probably resistant to calls for action, would have had a serious political problem.
So the problem went away by grabbing the heaven-sent cover story of the video–the jihadis cover story.
.
And if this is in fact what happened, they will still have got somewhat away with it, even if the facts later become clear. The immediate impact of the attack was channeled into talks about the video, and has since blown itself out.
MinTruth would be proud.
Calls for action, loud and *un*deniable. MinSpell at work but not quite proud.
– by walking away.
Might as well ask Obama how he feels about the shiv Hillary just stuck in him.
Anita Dunn?? Good grief. What was she prepping him for, questions about his favorite philosopher?