# IOKIADDI (It's OK If A Democrat Does It)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 19, 2013, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622 "2013-08-19T08:47:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![PigArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/141 "2013-08-21T10:36:50Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > or the lack of support after the previous attacks: > > [Security Incidents Prior to the Benghazi Attack](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57544719/benghazi-timeline-how-the-attack-unfolded/) Any comment on these other [prior incidents](http://www.policymic.com/articles/40811/13-benghazis-happened-under-president-bush-and-fox-news-said-nothing)? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/142 "2013-08-21T10:55:18Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I already cited his testimony without evidence given before Congress. As if he should have brought some cut-off ears there with him? 😛 So the answer is no, you now realize he did \*not \*lie, but you won’t admit it, either. Thought so. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > You mean besides the group specifically trained to deal with such events (FAST) that was sent 8 hrs after the attack started? [I really wish I could say you know better.](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/10/us-usa-libya-pentagon-idUSBRE8A903U20121110) Does the list of events you cut’n’pasted from somewhere include [this](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/barbara-boxers-claim-that-gop-budgets-hampered-benghazi-security/2013/05/15/d1e295cc-bdb0-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_blog.html)? Why not? > [@](#): > > “The truth is — between fiscal years 2011 and 2012, the Republican-led House of Representatives sought to cut more than $450 million from President Obama’s budget request for embassy security funding.” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/143 "2013-08-21T11:54:50Z")
Actually, though, the more harping the Trog Party does about Benghazi, the more heavily it blows back on them, and the better off we all are as a result. So perhaps we should just smile and let it ride? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/144 "2013-08-21T13:35:22Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > the situation was readily apparent. they were under heavy fire. There was no indication of a protest. The CIA felt otherwise. That’s all there is to it. No matter how obvious the truth was to you at home based on whatever you based your opinion on, the CIA agents on the ground in Benghazi and conducting analysis at the time saw it differently. They were wrong, but that’s their error and it’s something that happens in intelligence gathering- particularly in the early stages of an investigation. Condoleeza Rice said the exact same thing. And since we’ve seen the emails we know that’s what the CIA thought at that point. It doesn’t indicate a lie or a coverup no matter how badly people just _feel_ there must’ve been one. ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/145 "2013-08-21T14:04:32Z")
Benghazi has been pretty well covered in other [threads](https://www.google.com/#fp=37eda289664304d1&q=benghazi+straight+dope+message+board). But in the context of this discussion, I’d say there’s more evidence of Republicans getting off the hook easily than anything else. As mentioned earlier, the 53 attacks on diplomatic targets under Bush weren’t politicized to anything like the degree Benghazi has been, if at all. Reagan’s actions before, during, and after the attack in Beirut were decidedly /not/ turned into a political football by the media. (I cannot even begin to imagine how the right-wing media would react if Obama said something as asinine as “anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done knows that it get never gets done as soon as you wish it would," and then proceeded on September 13 to invade Fiji.) > [@](#): > > Beirut—Between April 1983 and September 20, 1984, 260 Americans died in two attacks on America’s embassy in Lebanon and one explosion at the marine barracks near the Beirut airport, all committed by Hezbollah. Seventeen Americans, including the CIA’s chief Middle East analyst, died that April, with 241 marines dying in the October barracks assault, the worst loss of US troops in any single incident since Iwo Jima. A month and a half before the 1984 presidential election, an attack on a new embassy cost two more American lives. Suffering twenty-three other losses before and after the barracks attack, the marines had already left Lebanon months before the second embassy attack. > > Ronald Reagan overruled his Pentagon advisers and deployed the marines in Lebanon, then ignored 100 warnings of the sitting duck jeopardy they were in, yet won re-election in a landslide. Pre-election coverage of the catastrophe was far less intense than the media excavation of every timeline detail of the Libya attack is now, despite Mondale’s efforts to push the issue. Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism czar for Clinton and Bush II who was an assistant secretary in Reagan’s state department, recalled that Reagan told a prime-time audience that we went into Lebanon in part “because of the oil,” though “Lebanon had no oil.” > > Deployed as “neutral” observers of a civil war, the marines frequently carried weapons with no bullets in the chamber. Two weeks before the second embassy attack, the CIA obtained photographs of a Lebanon terrorist training facility that revealed oil drums arrayed to mimic the street layout and concrete barriers in front of the embassy, with fresh tire tracks visible that revealed the path the suicide bombers subsequently took. Reagan nonetheless blamed the success of the embassy attack on the “near destruction of our intelligence capability” during the Carter years, and his administration never disclosed the photographic evidence. Reagan authorized a missile strike and reneged on it. Pressed by Mondale about “inadequate embassy security,” Reagan acknowledged that American personnel had moved in before shatterproof glass and steel gates could be installed, adding that “anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done knows that it get never gets done as soon as you wish it would.” Asked about the withdrawal of the eighty marines guarding the embassy a couple of months earlier, Reagan explained that the marines would have blocked a residential street. “The people must have access to that street,” he said. Reagan said he wouldn’t comment further until a study he’d commissioned was finished. He also launched a military invasion of tiny and defenseless Grenada two days after the Beirut barracks debacle and, on the eve of the election, was still bragging about Grenada while sidestepping Beirut. > > Mondale crushed him in an October 21 debate, charging that the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked him five days before the marine attack to “please take them out of there,” and that a report “disclosed that we had not taken any of the steps that we should have taken” before that massacre, or when the embassy was blown up again. He said the president “told the terrorists he was going to retaliate” and didn’t, leaving the United States in “humiliation.” Reagan’s comeback was that he hadn’t ordered the marines into “that barracks,” calling it “a command decision made by the commanders on the spot.” Dr. Amy Zalman, information integration chair at the National War College, concluded in a 2008 article about many of these incidents that Mondale “tried to use Reagan’s lack of a military response, and lack of clarity on policy as a campaign issue,” painting his Beirut actions “as a form of wishy-washiness,” but “was unsuccessful.” [Full article here.](http://www.thenation.com/article/170742/romney-campaign-media-collude-unprecedented-politicization-benghazi-attack#axzz2cbND7KKt) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/146 "2013-08-21T14:06:10Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But this, from [SourceWatch](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Media_Research_Center), is most damning of all: Why should we believe accusations of bias from SourceWatch? They are at least as partisan as anyone else. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/147 "2013-08-21T14:16:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Because he makes his living complaining about anti-conservative bias in the news for the consumption of conservatives who already believe the media is biased against them. This is just hand-waving. Goldberg was an insider at CBS News for many years, worked with Rather and other reporters, and is well-qualified to judge the objectivity or lack thereof of the reporters he criticizes. You seem unable to do anything except dismiss all evidence of bias in the media out of hand. > [@](#): > > And he’s not very good at it: before going off into his fantasy about reporters going to school in Omaha, he neglects to mention that Dan Rather is from not-exactly-liberal Texas. This is a good example. Are you claiming that no one from Texas can possibly be a liberal? If you are making that claim, then let’s see cites that Rather’s birthplace determines his bias; if not, simply admit that you spoke without any basis in fact. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/148 "2013-08-21T14:16:22Z")
I’m sure glad I made a serious reply to this surprise Benghazi thread. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/149 "2013-08-21T14:27:14Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > This is just hand-waving. Goldberg was an insider at CBS News for many years, worked with Rather and other reporters, and is well-qualified to judge the objectivity or lack thereof of the reporters he criticizes. And what is your opinion of Rather’s take on how liberal the press is or isn’t? He is just as much an insider as Goldberg(if not more so). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/150 "2013-08-21T14:31:06Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I already cited his testimony without evidence given before Congress. :rolleyes: Testimony **is** evidence. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/151 "2013-08-21T14:32:28Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Why should we believe accusations of bias from SourceWatch? They are at least as partisan as anyone else. Because they’re like Wikipedia – wherever the content comes from, they’ve got cites and links for every single bit of it. Good ones, not like you’ll find on Conservapedia or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/152 "2013-08-21T14:40:31Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Goldberg was an insider at CBS News for many years, worked with Rather and other reporters, and is well-qualified to judge the objectivity or lack thereof of the reporters he criticizes. He’s more biased than any of them, though. And a dumbass for good measure. > [@](#): > > Are you claiming that no one from Texas can possibly be a liberal? Reread Goldberg’s comments about Omaha and perhaps you will figure this out. (Of course the Omaha area voted for Obama in 2008, but let’s not confuse poor Bernie with the facts.) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/153 "2013-08-21T14:41:00Z")
> [@L. G. Butts](#): > > Now we have President Obama who is just as bad and just as unaccountable with his continuation of the NSA programs, drone strikes, Fast and Furious, prosecution of whistle blowers, etc… That’s probably the best example I’ve seen for the OP question – some people who would be (and in some cases, _were_) properly outraged at GeeDubya’s abuses of government power are now delivering shrill Chris Crockeresque “Leave Obama Alone!” rants. ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/154 "2013-08-21T14:48:18Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > That’s probably the best example I’ve seen for the OP question – some people who would be (and in some cases, _were_) properly outraged at GeeDubya’s abuses of government power are now delivering shrill Chris Crockeresque “Leave Obama Alone!” rants. The question, though, is whether the double standard is being applied by what we might call the mainstream media. Obviously, both the partisan left-wing media (MSNBC, etc) and the partisan right-wing media (Fox) both demonstrate egregious double standards when it comes to this stuff. It’s also not clear in every case whether two “abuses” are equivalent. For example, Obama’s gathering of metadata on a mass scale vs Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of individual citizens. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/155 "2013-08-21T15:54:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :rolleyes: Testimony **is** evidence. hearsay is not acceptable evidence. It was a publicity stunt. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/156 "2013-08-21T16:02:35Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > hearsay is not acceptable evidence. It was a publicity stunt. Out of all that crap that was going on, you focus on his testimony as being the publicity stunt?? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/157 "2013-08-21T16:24:50Z")
> [@Donald\_Rump](#): > > It’s also not clear in every case whether two “abuses” are equivalent. For example, Obama’s gathering of metadata on a mass scale vs Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of individual citizens. It’s more than metadata and it was started under Bush. It’s a straight line continuation. Obama’s droning is worse. Obama worse on whistle blowers and leakers. Obama’s torture is supposedly better, if you believe he shut down the black sites. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/158 "2013-08-21T16:29:29Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > hearsay is not acceptable evidence. It was a publicity stunt. Are you now ready to tell us your claim he was \*lying \*was, shall we say, false? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/159 "2013-08-21T16:42:50Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Because he makes his living complaining about anti-conservative bias in the news for the consumption of conservatives who already believe the media is biased against them. And he’s not very good at it: before going off into his fantasy about reporters going to school in Omaha, he neglects to mention that Dan Rather is from not-exactly-liberal Texas. Are you serious? That observation about Rather was probably in the top twenty most outrageously poor arguments I’ve read in GD from a long-term board member. OK, to unweave this nonsense: 1. Goldberg’s comments are an expansion of the op-ed he wrote for the Wall Street Journal in February 1996. At the time, he was employed by CBS, and CBS came close to firing him for his remarks. That fact refutes your comment that his credibility is suspect because he makes a living complaining about anti-conservative bias. Even if he does now, he didn’t in 1996, or in 2001 when the book I quoted was published. To the contrary, he was simply a CBS insider who saw the practices he complains of first-hand. 2. His invocation of broadcast journalists living in Omaha cannot in any way be read to suggest that every single person from Omaha is conservative – but rather that the prevailing mood, the prevailing culture, tends strongly conservative. There is absolutely no reason for him to disclose that Dan Rather grew up in Texas. Rather had not lived in Texas since 1974. Even the most scrupulously fair-minded presenter would be hard-pressed to see an obligation to report on the home state of a person who hadn’t lived there for 25 years, when the discussion was about prevailing attitudes in _another state_. 3. This is the worst of the SDMB. In a thread ostensibly about exploring bias, you can post such utter fucking drivel as those arguments, and not be immediately chastised by a dozen other posters, is just monumentally illustrative of the very bias we discuss. Take a moment and look again at what you just argued, please: Goldberg’s credibility is lessened because he says this stuff for a living, and he failed to disclose Dan rather is from Texas. Seriously, you just argued that. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622/160 "2013-08-21T16:49:48Z")
> [@Randvek](#): > > A series of unsuccessful attacks happened in a war zone. Eventually, 3 people died in a slightly-more successful attack. People with benefit of hindsight say “there should have been more security.” If that’s a “scandal,” one wonders how Reagan ever survived the political fallout from Beirut! There isn’t much hindsight involved in the obvious. But putting that aside as well as the late arrival of the FAST team they had no trouble getting Susan Rice out in front of a camera with their sanitized version the following Sunday. It would be nice if they put in more time actually doing something and less time into covering it up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iokiaddi-its-ok-if-a-democrat-does-it/666622.md?page=9)