It seems like only yesterday when President Obama stood in front of an electrified audience at the 2012 Democratic National Convention just days before the deadly September 11, 2012 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, reminding supporters, “al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead.”
Days later, on September 14, a somber-faced Obama and his sullen-faced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood in front of four flag draped coffins at Andrews Air Force Base, assuring the small group of grieving family members that their loved ones did not die in vain. Their ill-informed message suggested these patriots weren’t killed by terrorists; they died because of protests about a YouTube video.
Since then, the administration has done its best to dodge questions and distance itself from the events of September 11 (and acquired a convenient case of amnesia along the way.) Nine months in, and Americans still have no clue why initial talking points from top officials claiming the attacks were most likely executed by al Qaeda-linked terrorists were reduced to “a YouTube video.” Did they fear acknowledging such a claim so close to the 2012 presidential election? Or did they actually believe the video story?
Hopefully, some of these questions were answered by way of three courageous State Department whistle-blowers scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee May 8. Pre-hearing interviews from one of the whistleblowers, Gregory Hicks (the second highest diplomat in Libya at the time of the attacks), were released to the press. Hicks claimed a Special Forces team, which could have saved lives and protected evidence, was ordered to “stand down” despite multiple pleas for help. Contrary to the administration’s claims, Hicks also said, “…everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack” from the beginning.
Hicks’ statements seem to fit in with the timeline obtained by the Weekly Standard from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Weekly Standard article “The Benghazi Talking Points” describes how “senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about what had happened” and made “substantive revisions” to the “CIA’s talking points” six weeks outside the 2012 presidential election.
So where’s your thirst for truth, America? Why aren’t we outraged? Maybe because, as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “Benghazi happened a long time ago.” Maybe Carney should ask grieving family members wanting answers and longing for closure how long it’s been since their loved ones lost their lives in Benghazi. Or maybe we are at a point in this country where a politician’s political aspirations trump everything else.
The last time something of this magnitude happened, a U.S. president stepped down. But that was during a time when good men who made bad choices still had the intestinal fortitude to accept personal responsibility for their actions. It was also a time when journalists were principled enough to set aside politics to do their job and make politicians accountable.
Some in the mainstream media are reluctantly pulling their heads out of the ground. On May 5, CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer acknowledged the possibility the administration might have been involved in a “cover-up.” Others are unenthusiastically following suit because they have no choice. Of course, the illegitimate diehards will remain with their heads in the sand until the storm passes.
As the pieces of this puzzle come together, one thing is certain: full and honest disclosure is always the best policy. Regardless of how Benghazi pans out, we will discover that either the Obama administration was involved in a cover-up and played us as fools, or our government is run by fools who actually believed the Benghazi attacks were in response to an uprising over an amateurish anti-Islam video by a man now serving jail time for a separate issue. Either way, we lose.
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It’s Harvest Time In Washington
Not even Barack Obama can defy the laws of physics.
Certain things are absolute. As Newton said, what goes up must come down. The wrinkles you see staring back at you in the mirror validate the second law of thermodynamics: eventually, things fall apart. And, as any farmer will tell you, if you plant cucumbers in the spring, no matter how hard you try, you will never reap watermelons in the summer.
It’s the same with deeds; good and bad, we reap what we sow. From the onset, the Obama administration has woven a web of fabrications so thick it is hard to see where reality ends and make-believe begins. Over time, Obama has woven that web tighter by installing a gang of Chicago allies, confidants, tongue-biters, and tale-tellers as a “shadow government” answerable only to him. There was safety in this tight-knit crew of like-minded associates, or so they thought, until recently when parts of Obama’s web began to unravel.
As the old time pastor R.G. Lee once said, “Nature keeps books pitilessly. Man’s credit with her is good. But Nature collects.” And now it seems Nature has come knocking on the front door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It all began with Benghazi. We now know that celebrating in the end zone about bin Laden’s death made for good re-election bumper stickers and water cooler conversation but had little impact on America’s security or the security of the grossly under-protected consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Far-fetched stories about a video spun by a circle of close confidants desperately desiring four more years of power fell apart during recent testimonies. We reap what we sow.
Now we hear the IRS was party to Soviet-style scare tactics in the inappropriate targeting of conservative groups prior to the 2012 election. The Washington Post reports that the tentacles of this scandal reach beyond the supposed few rogue agents in Cincinnati to Washington. Doing what they do best, Progressives deflected the blame to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — purporting had it not been for it, there would be no need for the IRS’s intrusion into the private lives of conservatives. Had the IRS targeted liberal groups, Democrats would have blamed it on a Republican plot to steal the election. And of course, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney remains steadfast: the administration is beyond reproach. Sure.
So, how about a sprinkle of invasion of privacy to go with that healthy dose of scare tactics? The Associated Press (AP) discovered that Attorney General Holder’s Department of Justice secretly seized two months of reporters’ phone records (including both work and personal numbers), something the AP called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering. While the jury’s still out regarding motives, it should be noted this was not the first time for this administration. As originally reported by Breitbart.com, former Holder spokesperson Tracy Schmaler colluded with the far-left group Media Matters for America to “smear media figures, whistleblowers, and members of Congress.” Transparency? Not.
Scandal by scandal, the president remains resolute and does his sanctimonious best to remain blameless. The dominoes are dropping; it is harvest time for this corrupt administration, which believes that justice is due for everyone but itself and will do everything in its power to avoid reaping the consequences for which it has sown.