There’s a difference between “couldn’t believe” and “didn’t want to believe.” That, I believe, negates the whole “good faith” part of that question.
As for the “what was he hoping for?” That once Iraq was a smoldering crater he’d have weekly parades down Pennsylvania Avenue in his honor.
I.e. - damn the rationalizations, once we beat the shit out of them, I’ll be the biggest hero since Red Grange.
No, but it’s far more conceivable that he simply didn’t care, as the decision to go to war was already made.
You have the awesome benefit of knowing how it turned out. ISTM, he was already sure his war would be a quick, comprehensive win. His people were telling him it would take weeks, not months, the war would pay for itself with oil, sunshine and flowers would break out all over the Middle East, and he’d wind up a globally-beloved hero. A misunderstanding about the cause of it wouldn’t matter after that - winning cures all of that.
It’s conceivable that he thought Blix might have missed something. Heck, it’s conceivable to me that even Bush’s team missed something after they wasted billions of dollars looking for WMDs after we invaded. There may be a stray shell or test tube somewhere.
But it’s not conceivable to me that he remained convinced of what he wrote and signed in his letter to Congress — that non-military options were not working, and that nothing short of invasion could protect America. The inspections clearly were working, and the worst-case threat scenarios were clearly shown to be false.
Besides, it was all of a piece. Bush didn’t just lie about WMDs; he deliberately conflated Iraq and al Qaeda in almost every speech. The White House deliberately fed stories to reporters, including those of the NYT, anonymously, and then quoted them in support of their assertions. To the best of my knowledge, they never once admitted that any of their claims had been false, even after they were proven false. I remember once case where some big shot, probably Rumsfeld, was pressed on a claim he had made for months that had been conclusively shown to be false, and he replied that he had stopped making it. To him, that was good enough. But I don’t think they ever came out and said, that stuff we told you before was wrong.
Actually from what I can recall, she was correct. Romney had incorrectly stated that Obama didn’t call the attack a terrorist one and Crowley correctly stated that Obama had, indeed, called it an act of terrorism the very next day.
Compare that to Romney’s behavior.
Before the bodies were even cold, Romney was trying to exploit their blood for political gain with nearly as much joy as he used to do in sprinting to a microphone the first Monday of every month to do a celebratory dance over bad unemployment data.
Benghazi is getting to be a litmus test for me- if you believe that there is anything to this “scandal”, then you can’t be considered to be living in reality.
I just read page 4, it was a fun read, but I see the conservatives on this board are still bitter about their losses and trying to avoid the question. So far, none of them have answered the OP’s question, they all just want to talk about lies.
For the record, whatever the attacks were, it does not contradict the presumed assumption that Al Qaeda is on the run, terrorism is down, and we have Obama to thank for it. I see the Republicans as spending so much time on this precisely because they are afraid their built-up political capital saying they’re the party that’s tough on terrorism is crumbling around them and they are scared people are seeing how much better Democrats can do to protect them. Also because of severe Obama Derangement Syndrome
Especially the latter! If they were still a rational political party, they could say, “Yes, Obama is doing a pretty good job…but he’s just continuing the policies of his predecessor.” They could emphasize the role of Bob Gates, a Bush nominee.
But they have sold their soul to the principle that Obama can do nothing right, ever, and so they are compelled to extremist interpretations of reality. When Obama actually does do something right, they are compelled to deny it. It’s a mass psychosis.
There is certainly a scandal here. It’s not a huge one, but it’s clear the administration crossed the line from standard spinning of an issue into a positive light into outright dishonesty.
The email that people linked to this thread clearly shows the focus of the talking points was on the demonstrations leading to the attack. This wasn’t true. They knew it wasn’t true. They sold that to people because of the election.
I expect the President and his administration to piss on us from time to time and claim it’s raining. Both parties do it. But this was over the line. You can spin, and focus on the positive. You can ignore the negative or refuse to answer it. But you shouldn’t lie about something this serious, especially when we can go back and learn that you knew the truth.
:rolleyes:
So you didn’t bother to read the thread then?
I still haven’t seen any proof that the administration was being dishonest here… Can you provide a simple timeline illustrating your point? I admit I’m not an expert at this, but did the administrator make up that the attacks were spontaneous or were they told that by the intelligence community?
No, he didn’t. Here is the only passage from the Rose Garden speech that mentions the word “terror” (bolding mine):
I included the previous two paragraphs to show that thePresident has shifted to the attacks of 9/11. When he did mention “terror” it was not directly related to the Benghazi incident.
Now, one could argue that Obama thought he was including Benghazi in that statement. But, 1) the look on his face when Romney confronted him in the debate, 2) Susan Rice’s talking points that Sunday, and 3) the narrative about the video that the administration was pushing for the following two weeks or so argues strongly that is not what he meant.
Also, even Candy Crowley acknowledged that while she thought Obama called Benghazi a terrorist attack (which doesn’t show up in the transcript), she pointed out that the administration was pushing the video as the explanation. From here:
A question for the thread: is this going to come back to bite Republicans in the ass in a big way in 2016?
Before they ultimately hold their nose and nominate whichever remotely moderate candidate is left standing on the debate stage, will primary voters force him to pledge his adherence to right-wing orthodoxy on Benghazi? That could wind up being a much bigger liability among independents than Republicans are willing to admit. Seems Jeb Bush, for one, may know this already.
Wow, well that’s a stretch if I ever saw one. How about we bold both the part that serves your point and the part that doesn’t?
Are you seriously arguing that “this terrible act” is not meant to be encompassed by “acts of terror?”
And by the way, can you clarify the distinction between “heavily armed extremists” and “terrorist” as these words are used in common plain English? Can you provide an example of a “heavily armed extremist” attacking a U.S. diplomatic facility that could not legitimately be called a “terrorist?”
The problem with this being a “pre-planned” attack is that there was almost no one at the facility on the day in question and it implies that someone inside the ambassador’s private circle leaked information about his travel plans to the individuals or the group which planned and executed it.
Had the group attacked an empty building, this would be in the “ho-hum file” of any credible news organization’s archives. They however caught an US ambassador visiting a lightly guarded consulate which he chose to go to rather oddly on the anniversary of the US’ single largest terrorist event. This has always smacked of luck (on the terrorists part) poor judgment (on the ambassador’s and his security detail’s part than any type of coverup.
If there was a “coverup” it seems likely that State wanted to not seem inept in its handling of a questionable trip made at a poor time period to do so. Face saving usually can appear to be a “coverup” to the conspiracy-minded.
:rolleyes:
The point—the fact—is that he did not call it an act of terror. One might infer that he consider it so, but he did NOT say it. And if a Debate Moderator is going to open her yap and correct one candidate, she should be 1,000% percent sure that she is 10,000 percent correct. In fact, no, not even then. But hey, it helped your guy, so “applause”. Nice principled stance there.
One doesn’t make Obama sneeze. To the degree that he avoids it, he must be allergic to it.
I don’t think a timeline of exactly what happened when is very important.
The thread I will always remember was one we had one the Presidential debate, that turned into a discussion on Benghazi.
It was over a month after the attack. It had been widely reported that it was in fact an attack. Not a protest. Not a protest that turned into an attack.
We were in the middle of debating whether there was a cover up or not and people still at that point didn’t know that it wasn’t a protest turned wrong.
That’s how powerfully and consistently the Obama administration was pumping out that message. That was exactly what they wanted.
Here’s some highlights from that thread, in late October. (The attack happened on Sept 11th.)
These are posters who I disagree with from time to time, but that are generally well informed. The administration was broadcasting the lies about an attack so consistently and loudly that they didn’t even know there wasn’t any protest. They still didn’t know it was a straight up attack long after the facts had come out.
Note that back then I wasn’t ready to call the administration liars about this yet. There was a chance that it was fog of war, or something. But nothing has come out yet backing up their story.
It seems very clear that the talking points that Rice went out with were designed to confuse people and mislead, at the very least.
The claim that some people are making here that she was telling the truth because she did mention heavily armed militants showed up is just silly. That doesn’t get her off the hook. Clearly she was downplaying that and mentioning the protests as much as possible, and that part wasn’t true.
I think it’s pretty damn clear what he said. However, I’ll be the first to agree with you that what Candy Crowley did was unbelievably unprofessional, inappropriate, and damaging to the integrity of the debate process. She shouldn’t be allowed within a quarter mile of a presidential debate, as far as I’m concerned. Even if they’re 1,000% sure that they’re 10,000% correct moderators shouldn’t be fact checking debate participants. Way to confirm everything the right ever said about a liberal media bias, Candy.
Seriously dude, what’s the difference? I’ve been trying to get a straight answer on this for half the thread.
I agree with this. Unless more comes out it’s probably best to not focus on this too much during the upcoming elections, and certainly not in 2016.
It’s not a big enough lie to sway independent voters I don’t think.
Agreed, 100%. I was shocked at how badly moderated that debate was. She wasn’t even trying to hide it.