…or fog of lies?
Col. David Hunt has persuaded me that the attack was followed in real time not merely by the State Department but more than a hundred people in the White House situation room as well as in similar facilities within DoD and intelligence agencies. Logs [would have been] kept noting what officials entered these facilities, when they were notified, what decisions were requested/made, what was said by officials, etc., etc.
Col. Hunt paints this picture based not on direct knowledge but on his extensive knowledge of how these government agencies conduct crisis management operations. Obviously, in a six hour crisis there was plenty of time for all the various crisis management facilities to come on line, something that Col. Hunt depicts as happening pretty much instantly.
I am persuaded by this picture, and I think it leaves a dramatic — and much more damning — impression of the alleged confusion, passivity, and disengagement of the president.
Sounds about right.
Assuming, of course, that the administration is still competent enough in the middle of a brutal campaign tour to actually have effective crisis management operations still in place…
There’s that whole idea of attibuting things to malice vs. stupidity, without ruling out malice, of course.
Unbelievable that Hillary would claim fog of war when we have videos of the empty streets before a clearly organized attack. That the media is not jumping on this is to their shame.
The people in the situation rooms are getting reports over the phone, or maybe an IP video, from people in Benghazi. How exactly are the people in Benghazi supposed to know whether or not the mob of people who just showed up are “demonstrators” or “terrorists?” More importantly, why would the people in Benghazi really care why the mob is there? Seems to me that the diplomats would be busy trying to stay alive.
Meanwhile, back at the situation room(s), the folks there see riots in Cairo, relatively nearby and the hub of Arab-language media. Seems to me that it would be logical to connect the dots of Cairo and Benghazi.
Um, see Senator “honey, let’s go to a spontaneous demonstration and bring along our crew-served heavy weapons” McCain.
State Dept reveals new details:
A little more than an hour later, around 9:40 p.m., everything changed.
The compound’s agents were alerted by loud noises, gunfire and explosions near the front gate. A barracks near the entrance for the local militiamen was burned down. In the control center, agents watched on cameras as a large group of armed men flowed into the compound. They immediately sounded the alarm and made telephone calls to the embassy in Tripoli, officials in Washington, the Libyan authorities and the U.S. quick reaction force located at a second compound a little over a mile away
Perhaps the fact that the “mob” was armed was the tipoff.
So all those Tea Partiers carrying guns at a demonstration were proof that they were really terrorists? /snark, for those impaired/
This is Benghazi, Libya, where the sound of gunshots at 9:40 PM is “not unusual” per the above transcript. Presumably it’s “not unusual” because it’s not unusual for people to walk around the streets armed.
The question was “when did these guys decide to grab their guns and run to the consulate?” Did they decide to show up immediately after watching a video (or reports of same on Egyptian TV) or was this in the works for weeks?
Immediately after watching a video = spontaneous mob
Planned days or weeks prior = deliberate terrorist attack
How exactly you’re supposed to know the difference when bullets are flying at you is beyond me.
But then, I am not privy to all of this information, I get my news from the major media outlets, which are not offering much as of late.
But the bullets weren’t flying at the people in the crisis response center in D.C. I can just see the Vice President and Secretary of State fixated on the TV monitors with looks of grim resolve on their faces, with the President crouched down off to the side, “Don’t let this sink my second term . . .”
So when is the Benghazi attack “photo op” going to be made public?
How exactly you’re supposed to know the difference
Simple. You put honest adults in charge rather than lying weasels.
Perhaps even people that have raised kids and have life experience.
We do not put people in charge that even have to ask the question.
So all those Tea Partiers carrying guns at a demonstration were proof that they were really terrorists?
Tea Partiers opened fired and killed ambassadors? Well then, I’m sure you’ll provide a link to when this happened. We know you wouldn’t lie.
Not only was the administration in contact with those in Libya, they had a drone overhead watching. Maybe Obama went to bed before the drone got there but surely he wouod have seen the footage at his daily intel briefing… oh wait…
“How exactly are the people in Benghazi supposed to know whether or not the mob of people who just showed up are “demonstrators” or “terrorists?””
The RPGs and mortars members of the mob carried might have given them at least a hint, don’t you think? Or don’t you?
The first group of attackers had neither RPGs nor mortars. Those were used in the second attack on the safe house, launched 4 hours into the assault.
If you read the transcript provided by Powerline, the initial attackers did not have RPGs. You can tell that because the attackers got hung up (from the transcript):
“third group of attackers tried to break into the TOC. They pound away at the door, they throw themselves at the door, they kick the door, they really treat it pretty rough; they are unable to get in, and they withdraw.
If they had RPGs, hand grenades or any heavy weapons they would have blown the door open. The first and only heavy weapon attack occurred at 4 AM. This was several hours after the initial attack and after the quick-reaction team from Tripoli had arrived.
If mortars and RPGs are the sign of a terrorist attack, then the first terrorist attack didn’t happen until 4 AM, well after the initial assault.
On the other hand, Libya just went through a civil war. Mortars and RPGs are a dime a dozen in Benghazi, and five hours is plenty of time for demonstrators to go home and get their stuff.
In short, whether or not this was a pre-planned assault or a spontaneous “let’s go get them” would not be obvious until the attackers were captured and interrogated.
The admin is trying to have it all ways, but at points has admitted, yes this was indeed a terrorist attack. Something everybody knew almost immediately but that the admin denied for about two weeks. Obama is claiming what he said immediately in the rose garden is consistent. It is. It’s consistent with him and his admin lying for two weeks.
Let me put it this way.
Above all issues, taxes, Social Security and Medicare, education, and even National Defense, my hot-button issue is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. And when that is under attack, I am not even listening to what the candidates have to say about everything else.
The First Amendment has two major strands, the Establishment Clause popularly understood to be “freedom of religion” along with “free speech.”
My Libertarian friends may not like what I have to say, but I regard what Mr. Romney is peddling on taxes to be “snake oil.” Were Mr. Obama to be reelected, we would probably continue with divided government and muddle through what we are going through rather than Mr. Romney “taking charge” with some reforms that could do some real damage.
But Mr. Obama’s Wilsonian approach to the First Amendment is cutting off consideration of supporting him.
The Conference of Catholic Bishops is chafing against the Obama-Sibelius rules on what has to be in the health insurance offered to their employees. Yeah, yeah, there is not much love lost between Libertarians and the ultra-liberal on economics stance of the Catholic Bishops. Yeah, yeah, many professed Catholics observe Church teachings on a lot of things in the violation of those teachings.
But for the Catholic Bishops, it is a matter of religious conscience to not supply funding for “health services” that they have reasoned are not only contraceptive but cross the line into abortion. For some reason, they are “permitted” to follow the dictates of their consciences for direct employees of their churches but not for the employees of their social services — non-profit hospitals, charitable agencies.
We live in a pluralistic society, and the Catholic Bishops have never had the final say on abortion, and this was never the case pre 1973 either. Catholic teaching is pretty strict and severe on this, and were we as a nation to overturn Roe-v-Wade and return the matter to the state legislatures, I am hard pressed to see Roman Catholic dogma being written into civil law.
But the accomodation we have reached on this, with deep divisions in our society, has been on funding. Yeah, yeah, “you didn’t build this” meaning our society is so interdependent, how are you going to cut out funding for something you don’t like, and are people going to deduct from their taxes the amount that funds war if they are against war? Those contradictions aside, through things like the Hyde Amendment prohibiting federal funding of abortions (there was a broader political coalition on that one than just the religious right wing, and I can spell it out if you are wondering), and also through the First Amendment, not requiring people to directly pay for something they strongly object to on moral grounds, we have accomodated the divisions in civil society.
Well that has gone out the window, and the Vice President (along with the Chief of Staff) who pleaded with the President not to put in place his health care rule, well, we know that Vice President doesn’t see Thomas Moore as a role model and is now singing from the same hymn book as the President.
So what does this have to do with Libya? The Egyptian embassy protest/attack happened first, and it was couched in the outrage to religious sensibilities of some movie no one seems to have seen. Candidate Romney questions the seeming abandonment of the First Amendment to placate the enraged mob. (and no, I don’t take the First Amendment to be a shield from criticism of either your religion or mine)
This was in parallel with the attack in Libya. I am saddened by the loss of the Ambassador and his colleagues, and dead is dead, whether at the hands of card-carrying Al-Qaeda, an impromptu mob, or alien invaders.
But first there was outrage, outrage at Candidate Romney for defending the First Amendment against mealy mouthed utterances of either State Department or Administration people, Chris can set the record straight on this. And then there was the President last night getting all hot and bothered that he be questioned on this, with the President invoking Outrage Privilege.
Outrage against what someone is saying is on the slipperly slope to silencing a person. Outrage colors the religious conscious rules on Obamcare — how dare the Catholic Bishops to dictate necessary health services to women! How dare the Catholic Bishops have a voice in much of anything because of the you-know-what scandal! Silence, you renegade clerics for you stand against human decency!
You know Chris, if your goal is to win friends and influence people into voting for the President, let’s just say to trend line of how things are going at the state government level has had me doubting long political alignments. But this Libya thing along with the Catholic Bishops things hits all of my political hot buttons. Defend the President as you chose on this, but that is not swaying my opinion.
I didn’t watch that debate, but the accounts of the Vice President grimacing and laughing and whatever else he did bothers me greatly.
Free speech for me but not for thee! The man just couldn’t give Paul Ryan his 2-minute slice of time.
All for a good reason. Paul Ryan was speaking untruths, and we cannot afford First Amendment privilege to lies. So we disrupt the proceedings.
The President in the Rose Garden on 9/12 said “acts of terrorism” like the attack on the consulate were wrong and would be avenged. I don’t know what else you want him to say. The question then became was this a pre-planned or spontaneous act of terror.
Regarding the 1st Amendment – nothing in the Constitution requires Government or anybody else to agree with somebody else’s speech. You have the right to say it, and I have the right to say I don’t like it.
The guy who made the video that’s supposedly the root of the protests was on parole for bank fraud. He explicitly does not enjoy the same rights as you or I do. He was explicitly told not to be on the Internet and create fake identities. The judiciary rightly frowns on people ignoring the terms of their parole.
Here’s the thing about the Catholic bishops. First, they already gave their employees the ability to get contraception via paying a salary. Second, why do their religious rights trump their employees? Why would a Protestant cleaning lady working for a Catholic hospital have to follow Catholic teaching in her personal life?
I don’t know what else you want him to say.
The truth. Which at the time he was speaking was “the youtube video didn’t have anything to do with this, and yes, I’m aware of what day it was yesterday.”
In addition, I would want him to say, when his employees are claiming the attack was a response to a youtube video, that they are wrong, and that it’s wrong to politicize the death of a US Ambassador.
This is perhaps one of the most ignorant comments you’ve ever made.
why do their religious rights trump their employees?
They do not. Who said they did? The issue is forcing people to directly violate their conscience by forcing them to directly pay for something that violates it.
Paying employees that then use that pay in an objectionable way is not the same thing and you conflating the two is an example of the illogic you are known for.
The answer to your question is not just no, but no, it’s a stupid irrelevant question. You can do better.
As far as the video, it’s another example of irrelevant. The ONLY REASON the admin brought it up was to smoke screen the fact that killing Osama [spike that ball!] was not the end of Al Queda. It’s all about the narrative that Obama is good on foreign policy which is the saddest, biggest laugh of the century.
There was no confusion on the part of the admin other than the confusion they were producing to hide the facts and that koolaid drinkers like you would continue to promote. They knew within an hour that there was no protest until a committed group attacked the consulate. The Libyan govt. spoke the truth, but the Obama admin wanted to hide the truth and couldn’t. Now Obama wants to try the false indignation ploy.
It ain’t gonna work! Only the fools are fooled by it.
ON TOP OF THAT, they are throwing the Libyan people that would support America under the bus which may be the biggest tragedy of this whole affair. It is beyond contemptible.
I suggest that I am on the fence about who to vote for and that I am not buying Mr. Romney’s Tax Plan, but I say that the thing about the Catholic Bishops sticks in my craw — on religious conscience and First Amendment grounds.
So I am wrong, if the Catholic Bishops run churches and run hospitals, the churches don’t have to pay for certain things because of religious freedom but the hospitals do — not because women employees deserve those service as a matter of right, but because a church has some freedoms that a non-profit hospital does not?
So tell me I am wrong, beat me over the head with it. I am speaking seriously here, after “certain things” that have taken place at the level of state government, I am leaning toward voting for your guy, but to “close the sale”, you tell me, the “customer”, that I am wrong?
At least the guy in the Honda commercial selling Brand-X without the “Eco Button” will sell you a car with every other kind of button — he doesn’t scold the customer that they are wrong to want an Eco Button.
And one more thing. To the extent that I am wrong, I am told that Joe Biden pleaded with the President to give a conscience clause on the health care rules, he begged the President, so (at least the several months ago) Joe Biden is as wrong-headed on this as I am.
And yes, one last thing. As a strong supporter for the President, is your aim to persuade people to support the President or is your aim to assert that the President is right about every single issue and someone with a major concern should go elsewhere?
Well, Paul, if Catholic organizations were simply allowed to pay people cash ILO paying them in HMO plans without being the victims of economic sodomy by the Feds, there’d be no issue. They could have done that with Obamacare, but chose not to.
You can ask yourself if they picked this cultural fight to make Catholics accept abortion and birth control, but the answer is yes.
Ken,
You’re right, the Administration is trying to have it all ways, but as of last night the President set himself up to be accused of the same thing his campaign accused Romney of with Romney’s initial press release about the attack: Ready, Fire, Aim. If POTUS is now saying that the day after, in the Rose Garden, he clearly called the Benghazi attack an “act of terror,” then why did he and his minions many times over many days say that the causes and circumstances are still under investigation? POTUS has been trying to have it whatever way that will leave his linen spotless on any given day, but I think he set himself up for a good Romney follow-up in the Foreign Policy debate on Monday. The question is whether Romney can effectively capitalize on the opportunity, because the MSM will not.
PS: I think there’s at least a 50-50 chance there will be drone strikes, manned aircraft airstrikes, special forces raids, or all of the above, before midnight this Saturday, targeting people POTUS will say are the main culprits of the Benghazi attack. Just in time for the Sunday morning network news interview shows the day before the foreign policy debate!
The administration intercepted AQ communications stating it was a planned attack. This isn’t some mystery like who shot JFK.
It’s amazing how fast they can perp walk their lying excuse but do nothing on the ground in Libya.
The man who asked the question said, actually let’s skip what he said for a moment and look at how Obama reacted. He got visably angry and was scolding the questioner, how dare he ask that question can’t he see Obama cares?
Think about all the times you have ever been in a discussion with someone and instead of using their adult words, they get angry and try and bully you into silence with their demeanor. Being angry with the questioner doesn’t make Obama right. It does show how thin skinned he is. This was the first question, at nearly an hour into the debate, that didn’t feed directly into his campaign narrative. And you have to wonder at how scripted Obama’s tirade was and if there was any coordination with the CNN crew who seemed johnny on the spot with transcripts.
But Crowley was wrong. Obama was wrong. He never said it was a terror attack during that speach. He stood up their in front of the nation saying he and his administration would never lie. Yet, that is exactly what he did on 9/12 and the night of the debate. The balls on this guy… but it is easy to have swagger when you know the media wont call you out and the moderator is on your side.
How do we know Obama lied, was it the transcripts of his speech or the contradictory statements of his administration the following weeks? No, it was the interview with the man who asked the question. Obama spoke to him after the debate and gave him, “more information on why he delayed calling it a terror attack.”
That’s right after the debate Obama admits he is full of malarkey.
And when asked why Obama didn’t hold anyone accountable said, “releasing the individual names of anyone in the state department would really put them at risk.”
Put them at risk or Obama’s chance at a second term?
Let’s follow up on that visible anger or what I call “invoking Outrage Privilege.”
People are saying that Mitt Romney “whiffed on the Libya question.”
Mr. Romney was doing something I had advocated after Mr. Bidens exhibit of performance art. Get the President and Vice President “on record” as to where they stand, only Mr. Romney was a little bit too obvious, directly challenging Mr. Obama with “I want to get you on record.” The President snapped back with some sullen snark.
This caught Mitt Romney off guard as you could see him stumble a bit because the President’s response was unexpected to him. Then the President got all huffy and pouty and then (in the words of the SCTV Comedy sketch “Celebrity Blow-up”) he “blowed up, real good!”
With the President on a tear like that, the impression I got from the video tape is the Mitt decided to back off. First of all, with the President all visibly upset and everything, it was probably good not to let this escalate the Mr. Romney being tackled by the Secret Service and dragged off the stage. I am thinking that the moderator was thinking the same thing, butting in to say “Let’s just say that it was terrorism” and move on as a reflex reaction to breaking up a pending altercation.
I also got the sense that Mr. Romney’s reaction was, OK, the President is digging a hole, how about that I don’t take away his shovel.
The other aspect to this is “da guys around here ” (Ya, guys. Hey, what ever happened to Andrea, by the way?) have been saying for some time that the President can be “prickly” and that one debate tactic would be to “get inside his head” to get him to get all upset and everything like he did the other night.
Maybe Mr. Romney did just that unexpectedly rather than as a debating tactic. We have seen first hand how to get Mr. Obama all rattled, but maybe Mr. Romney and his advisors don’t think that is a good tactic to debate that way.
Or how about simple outrage at watching somebody lie to his face? Obama on 9/12 in the Rose Garden said No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.
This is in a speech held specifically to announce the death of Stevens. What more do you want him to say?
You omitted the section immediately prior to that which condemned those who offend Muslim sensibilities by insulting Muhammed, along with other bits, which is why nobody in the administration claimed that Obama had called Benghazi a terrorist attack for weeks, including Jay Carney, Obama’s spokesman, who’d specifically rejected your reading of Obama’s statement.
Read the whole thing Chris. How many paragraphs separate the paragraph you cite and the mention of Libya? How many times did the subject change?
Outrage should be directed at Obama for his lies and cover up of a terrorist attack that he and his administration for weeks said was a prorest over a video.
In this last paragraph I will say that oranges taste good. Does this mean everything written before this paragraph was about oranges?
Sometimes losing one’s cool is an act of leadership, to call someone out. Other times losing one’s cool is showing the world that the person with access to the nuclear launch codes, well, can lose their cool.
Lie to ones face? The reason we have these debates as that many points and issues of public interest are arguable, and yes, it is suppressive of free speech to call every challenge to one’s authority and every disputable point a “lie.”
What do I want the President to say? Simply this. “Yes, Governor Romney, my Administration was initially bringing up the question of the First Amendment by suggesting that this violence was provoked by a film made by someone in the U.S. Increasingly the weight of the evidence is that this was an Al Qaeda attack on the anniversary of 9-11 that had nothing to do with that film, however offensive people found that film to be. I think we can move forward at this point, and my Administration will do everything in its powers to fight the terrorists.”
“No acts of terror” Not “this act of terror” — “No acts of terror” is another ambigious statement to give the maximum maneuvering room. So you opponent candidate brings this up and this is a lie-to-the-face that demands Mr. Obama’s outburst?
If arguing an opposing viewpoint on an arguable point is a lie, let’s just call off the debates and just run negative TV commercials.
Besides what George and Wodun noted, there is also a concern for consistency. And where there is good reason to change the story because of new and better intelligence; then comes the issue of why was the video ever brought up. Because to date, there is no evidence the attack in Benghazi had anything to do with the video, so why ever make such a claim?
Exactly. They claim to being deliberate in calling it terror. But acted immediately and repetitively on the spurious video claim.
If it is your contention that Obama claimed that Benghazi was a terrorist attack on day one, why wasn’t he, in his stupid words about Romney, “shooting first and aiming later”? And why then did he and the rest of the administration spend days and weeks claiming it wasn’t?
The issue is was this a planned act of terror or did a bunch of pissed-off Muslims show up and commit a spontaneous act of terror?
George Turner – why shouldn’t we condemn people who deliberately try to piss other people off?
On second thought, a question – why the hell does it matter WHAT we call this attack?
Yes, it matters because Obama and his administration deliberately lied about it for weeks because it would look bad for Obama’s campaign on foreign policy and the death of AQ.
But that is only why it mattered to Obama, it matters to the rest of us because our ambassador to Libya was killed by AQ on 9/11.
The issue isn’t whether it was a planned or spontaneous attack, although it was clearly planned. The issue is how Obama handled the attack and how he represented it and the events at other embassies to the American public. The flag of AQ was raised over four embassies on 9/11.
Only one consulate was overrun, so your count is off.
So by calling it “terrorism” that makes it all better? It doesn’t count if we call it terrorism?
No, the issue is why can’t the president keep his story straight, and sent surrogates out to lie for him for days and weeks?
Chris, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and iirc there was one or two more that had our flag ripped down and the black flag of AQ hoisted.
Also keep in mind Chris, Obama confessed to Kerry after the debate that he did not immediately label the attack as an act of terror.
Look at what Obama said in his Rose Garden speech, what he said on Letterman, what he said in the debate, and what he said to Kerry.
Chris, the problem is that there was never any indication that it was a spontaneous protest, and they knew it was not a spontaneous protest from the minute of the first phone calls from Benghazi. Sean Smith was there to maintain the high-bandwidth satellite networks (and quite possibly the equipment that was forwarding Al Qaeda phone conversations to Virginia for processing and analysis).
They of course knew it was a succesful attack on a US consolate that left Al Qaeda in physical control of the building, and that there was security footage on site which the FBI collected weeks later. Don’t you think the only reason our intelligence teams, FBI, and other special units weren’t dispatched there immediately to secure that footage, footage which would show the actual faces of many of the attackers, is that every frame of that footage was already sitting on servers in Virginia and Washington?
The White House is pointing to CIA analysis that was based on phone intercepts of militant and Al Qaeda conversations. If we had the bandwidth and electronics to suck up enough of Benghazi’s phone traffic to identify and track Al Qaeda phone calls, don’t you think we had enough bandwidth to watch the embassy attack via all those security cameras, whose ultra-important footage was allegedly left lying around for weeks in a burned out building? The administration watched the attack.
Read between the lines, and think about the glaring gaps in what they’re telling you. For example, the day after the attack, Hillary said it was “obviously complex.” How could she know the attack was complex if she hadn’t watched it, even becoming frustrated by its complexity as they tried to form a workable plan to thwart it with limited assets in real time? If she hadn’t watched it, why would she think it was anything more complicated than four guys in an ice-cream truck or a mindless mob?
Sifting through the administration’s statements for an accidental grain of truth is like reading between the lines of Tass or Pravda to figure out what Brezshnev is really doing.
“War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.”
Just wait for Candidate Romney to let loose with that “zinger” on Monday, followed by the instant analysis teams going “Huh? What is that supposed to mean? Is Governor Romney now talking about slavery? Is this some kind of ‘dog whistle’ to his far-right constituents?”
The last debate would be the right time for zingers from both camps. Get your popcorn ready.
So what should we expect from Bob Schieffer?
The Benghazi airport was closed for 10 hours because of the volume of anti-aircraft fire aimed at our drones. Must’ve been more of that spontaneous protesting. I wonder if stories like that have a prayer of getting into a US paper?
Does it fit the narrative? Question answered.
Drones? What would they be doing there? Quiet airspace so they can enjoy the thermals? Wait, don’t those have cameras? But I guess they are CC cameras, so unless you were actually onboard the drone, you couldn’t see the video from them.
Well, we’re apparently not just relying on drones. In the latest NY Times interview in a luxury hotel lobby with the militia leader suspected of organizing the attack, he laughed at Obama and claimed his “demonstration” was fired on first, but more importantly, he was sipping on a strawberry frappe instead of the mango juice he had ordered. I can only conclude that Obama might have put a CIA operative in the hotel’s kitchen and tasked him with cleverly altering Al Qaeda orders.
why the hell does it matter WHAT we call this attack?
Because of this:
(2) the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents
If the President claimed on day 1 that it was an “act of terror”, then it was by law, a premeditated attack. If the next two weeks, he and his administration calls it a “spontaneous attack”, then by definition of federal law, it is not an act of terror.
Obama claims he wants to brings the attackers to justice, under what charge? 2nd degree murder or Terrorism? Was it an act of passion caused by fighting words, or premeditated attempt to kill the ambassador for a political reason. If it is terrorism, then it wasn’t a mob of Libyans upset by a video, but a subnational group or clandestine agents.
It matters.
Why shouldn’t we condemn people who deliberately try to piss other people off?
Chris, you’re smart enough to answer that question yourself. As long as you’re condemning words with more words, everythings fine. But when words are not protected we’ve got a problem.
Gerrib writes:
“why the hell does it matter WHAT we call this attack?”
Translation: I lost the argument.
Oh, Gerrib knew he lost it when he wrote “So all those Tea Partiers carrying guns at a demonstration were proof that they were really terrorists? “
As time goes on I’m beginning to lean on the following interpretation of the actions of that feckless, fargin’, Ice-a-hole Obama:
For days the Bastige was campaigning that AQ was on their heels, Bin Laden in the Deep Six, Arab Spring abounds.
Then you have the Egyptian and Tunisian demonstrations, death tolls in Iraq mounting, and then, much to the Bastige’s dismay the debacle at the Libyan Consulate.
Not only will it look like the Oval Office and State ignored repeated requests for keeping/adding security – right up to and including the day of the attack – but the entire Mideast policy (not that it deserves that name) has become totally unraveled.
The only way to distract and deflect the voting public’s attention from the debacle was to blame it all on the video.
yeah that’s it!
“We’ll tell them that my Glorious Plans were working until they were all messed up by this video which no one knows about and no one has seen. I’ll go on the View and say so and that will give it the imprimatur of seriousness. And as we all know the MSM will back us to the hilt. “
Obama: “Go to the transcript, Candy.” Which of all the speeches I’ve given you happen to have a copy right in front of you as we all planned, right?
Paul, Romney’s Tax Plan is genius.
You’ve got all these lobbyists that are fighting to keep their deductions. Mitt slips past them all by saying, fine let’s keep everybodies deductions but we are going to do two things. First, we eliminate deductions for those above a certain income (the so called rich which Thomas Sowell can explain is a misnomer and why.) Second (and this is the real genius) we cap total deductions, so most people will be unaffected and continue to take whatever deductions they normally would, while others would hit the cap and be limited (let’s inappropriately call these the semi-rich.)
Lowering tax rates would only be giving the rich a break if you assume they only take few deductions which is the ridiculous position Obama is taking. When you are rich, it’s all about deductions.
OTOH, lowering tax rates for the semi-rich/middle class means that what Obama is claiming “from the middle out” is what Mitt’s plan actually does.
How Obama can get away with claiming “from the middle out” is an absolute discrediting of the media lapdogs.
Another failing of the lapdog media which they should be all over is “Mitt pays less taxes than you do.” His income was already taxed at the higher rate when he earned it. Capital gains is a second taxing and if you poked Obama even he would admit that.
A lot of people think they shouldn’t tax investment income at all (that would include me.)
Did you miss the open thread “Heading back to LA”? Good stuff otherwise.
Thanks Leland. No I didn’t but it wouldn’t be a surprise if I misunderstood.
No posting until later this afternoon.
I assume this meant that Rand would be away. Rand is very precise in what he says however, this could have an alternate meaning such as, “Do not post until later…”
Now you’ve really confused me!