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Sunday, October 21, 2012

Romney's Libya Moment


I had to chuckle this morning when I read a supposed "news" article saying that Monday's debate will be Romney's last chance to recover from his "Libya Moment". According to the article, Romney has made two major gaffe's with regard to Libya which will dog his campaign until election day. First, on the day of the attacks, Romney released a statement opposing the actions of the Obamacrats with regard to the youtube video that president Obama said (at least for the first two weeks) caused the attacks. The press and the administration pounced on Romney for criticizing Obama's conduct before the attack was over. Second, at the town hall presidential debate, Romney made charges against Obama about Libya that did not stick. I want to be charitable, but only a total ignoramus or a total propagandist could still claim these as mistakes by Romney. Based upon the normal course of conduct at Yahoo News -- where the article was published -- I assume that the "reporter" was both. Let me explain.

On September 11th, both the embassy in Cairo and the one in Benghazi were attacked. The Cairo embassy knew that the attack was coming, so it sent home most personnel. It also issued a statement apologizing to the Islamic world for the youtube video about the prophet Mohammed. That official statement was criticized by Romney for apologizing for American free speech rather than defending that principle. About an hour or so after Romney's statement, there was a terrorist attack against the Benghazi embassy. Obama had many days of warnings that the attack was possible or even likely. It was, after all, September 11th, and the ambassador in Libya had requested additional security. Obama, however, did nothing to beef up security in Libya. Even when the attack occured, Obama was told about it immediately. His response was not to assemble his security team to discuss a response. His response was to get on Air Force One and to fly off to Las Vegas for some political fund raising. Remember that! Romney was criticized because he responded to the attacks before they were finished. Obama responded to the attacks by going to Las Vegas for a fund raiser. Romney supposedly interfered with the American response to the crisis. Obama, however, made sure that there was no American response to the crisis.

At the debate last week, Obama claimed that on September 12th, he denounced the attack in Libya as a terror attack. That was a blatant lie. Even Candy Crowley who jumped in to defend Obama at the debate now admits that she was wrong. Obama did not say this was a terror attack. Indeed, for two weeks, America was told by Obama, Hilary Clinton, Susan Rice, Jay Carney, and a whole host of other Obamacrats that Benghazi was just a sudden mob reaction to the youtube video. Obama even arranged to have the guy who made the video arrested for "parole violations". The Libyan government called the attack a premeditated attack by al Qaeda. The Obamacrats said it was the video. The military and security forces of the USA told the press this was a terror attack, but the Obamacrats said it was due to the video.

So why is this important? First and foremost, it means that Obama lied to the American people. Even worse, the reason for the lie was an attempt by Obama to cover up his own failure as president. We now have learned that there were requests for additional security in the weeks prior to the attack, but Obama did nothing about them. Obama had just told the country at his convention that al Qaeda was finished, destroyed! How could he up security to protect Americans against such a failed entity? So, for his own political reasons, Obama chose not to increase security in Benghazi. FOUR AMERICANS DIED AS A RESULT!! Were Obama to admit that this was a terror attack, he would have to explain just how it is that no additional security was provided to the embassy despite the ambassador's requests. That is why Obama and his minions kept telling us the lie that this was all due to the youtube video.

Let's be clear: the "Libya Moment" is not Romney's; it is Obama's. The president of the United States ignored his job to protect Americans overseas because doing so would conflict with his political positions. When the worst happened, Obama did nothing but lie to us all in a continuing attempt to cover up his own failures.

I hope this gets fully explored at the debate. If America understands this fully, Obama would be lucky to get 40% of the vote in the election.



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