An intelligence source on the ground in Libya told Fox News that no threat assessment was conducted before U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team began "taking up residence" at the Benghazi compound -- describing the security lapses as a "total failure." The source told Fox News that there was no real security equipment installed in the villas on the compound except for a few video cameras. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, the intelligence source said the security lapses were a 10 -- a "total failure" because Benghazi was known to be a major area for extremist activity.
Nineteen of 20 cabinet-level agencies disobeyed the law
requiring the disclosure of public information: The cost of travel by top
officials. In all, just eight of the 57 federal agencies met Bloomberg’s
request for those documents within the 20-day window required by the Act.
“When it comes to implementation of Obama’s wonderful transparency policy goals, especially FOIA policy in particular, there has been far more ‘talk the talk’ rather than ‘walk the walk,’” said Daniel Metcalfe, director of the Department of Justice’s office monitoring the government’s compliance with FOIA requests from 1981 to 2007.
The Bloomberg survey was designed in part to gauge the timeliness of responses, which Attorney General Eric Holder called “an essential component of transparency” in a March 2009 memo. About half of the 57 agencies eventually disclosed the out-of-town travel expenses generated by their top official by Sept. 14, most of them well past the legal deadline.
Politico acknowledged this, but not until the latter half of the story -- in which Ryan aide Michael Steel defended Ryan's change, saying they're trying to show a "consistent connection" between the GOP approach and Obama's approach.
The difference between the plans is
the president would ensure the spending restraint by empowering a board to make cuts as needed to Medicare providers.
Ryan proposes to get his savings through competition of private plans that must
offer the same benefits as Medicare.
On Wednesday, MSNBC aired a clip of Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney leading what looks like a failed “Romney-Ryan” chant at a
campaign stop in Ohio on Tuesday. If you listen closely, it’s obvious the audio
in the clip has been adjusted. However, that’s not uncommon — and that doesn‘t
necessarily mean it’s MSNBC who did it. Sound technicians usually cut out the
audience to ensure speakers aren’t drowned out (which you can do by simply
turning the mics up and down — or you can do after the fact).
However, where the controversy comes in is in the caption on
the screen quoting the audience as chanting “Ryan!” Why is that controversial?
Because people who attended the event say that’s not what happened, and that
the MSNBC video grossly misrepresents what actually occurred.
Indeed, the MSNBC closed captions claims the was crowd
chanting “Ryan!“ when attendees say they were actually chanting ”Romney!”
Obviously, this changes a lot about the situation. Instead of awkwardly
inserting his name into what sounds like a failed chant, Gov. Romney was
actually including his running mate in a crowd chant of his own name. In
fact, footage from C-SPAN’s archives would seem back up this claim. (list of
multiple other first hand and news organizations reports confirm – NBC, NYTimes,
etc.)
If you believe the first hand accounts, the question then
remains: did MSNBC intentionally mislead the audience into thinking the crowd
was chanting “Ryan” in order to make Romney look foolish, or did they
misinterpret it on accident?
Obama's Dereliction of Duty
I recently criticized Mitt Romney for making the ludicrous argument that a statement by an anxious American embassy official in Cairo constituted an Obama administration apology for American policies and values, and was thus part of a mea culpa mind-set that helped incite the mobs that besieged our embassy in Egypt and the terrorists who murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in Benghazi, Libya. I wrote then and still believe that it was not Governor Romney's finest moment.This week the president of the United States and purported leader of the free world breezed into New York City for a quick game of softball catch with the ladies of “The View,” and a drop-by at the United Nations General Assembly to give a speech. Then he was off to Ohio to resume his most pressing engagement, his re-election campaign, having refused to be detained by pesky world leaders whose requests to meet with him were rebuffed en mass.
Of the two transgressions, Romney’s specious charge and Obama’s dereliction of duty, the latter is by far the most egregious.
The world must be more tranquil than it appears to be on television to afford the commander-in-chief the luxury of exiting the world stage, which this week is located in New York, for the ruder rigors of the campaign trail.
To the untrained eye it seems quite the opposite, what with anti-American mobs raging for the better part of two weeks throughout the Muslim world, deadly terrorist attacks on American diplomats in Libya and American soldiers in Afghanistan, the bloody Syrian civil war, increasing sectarian strife in Iraq, the Eurozone crisis that occasioned riots in Spain this week, and various other worrying developments.
Meetings between the president and various heads of state would not instantly ameliorate any of these problems. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who’s been designated as a sort of acting chief executive this week, will, I’m sure, manage the responsibility competently.
But when a president who is battling perceptions that America’s world leadership has been timid and uncertain lately, and who’s been credibly criticized for failing to develop the close relationships with foreign leaders that are useful for anticipating and shaping world events, gives foreign leaders the impression that he prefers Whoopi Goldberg’s company to theirs, he hardly increases his influence with them.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney addressed any such concerns by giving reporters an emphatic civics lesson. “[W]hen you're president of the United States, your responsibility as commander-in-chief never ends, and you are constantly engaged in matters of foreign affairs and national security," he informed them.
Regarding Obama’s brief U.N. appearance and hasty exit, Carney insisted it had nothing to do with the re-election campaign. That explanation was belied by campaign aides who seemed to background every reporter and talking head in Washington that they refused the requests for meetings because they didn’t want to risk any hard-to-spin surprises that might arise during them and potentially trouble the president’s re-election. You never know when a hot mike will pick up the president making promises to a Russian autocrat that some voters might find worrying.
Also, “being constantly engaged in matters of foreign affairs and national security” can be downright inconvenient at times and rather tedious.
“Look, if he met with one leader,” an Obama aide lamented to the New York Times, “he’d have to meet with 10.”
This kind of political self-interest and cynicism has been a regular feature of Obama’s tenure in office. To my mind, the most telling example is his Afghanistan policy.
As he promised to do as a candidate four years ago, Obama dispatched more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. But he insisted he would withdraw them by a specific date irrespective of whether they could complete their mission in that time. It might be overly suspicious of me, but I assume the purpose of substituting a date for an exit strategy was to allow the president to claim to American voters in 2012 that he was winding down our engagement in a war he had promised to win in 2008.
He is not the first occupant of the Oval Office to calculate his own interests before the nation’s, but such a failing can exacerbate the problems confronting the United States beyond our shores. Steadfastly refusing to play a leadership role -- or even recommending a coherent strategy -- to stop Bashar Assad from destroying his own country has worsened the very concerns the president cited as explanations for his inaction: a rebellion becoming an all-out civil war that destabilizes the region, and the participation of jihadists in the rebellion and its aftermath. In the process, Obama has managed to put the U.S. at odds with almost all countries concerned about Syria, friend and foe alike.
That’s quite an accomplishment.
Refusing bilateral meetings with foreign leaders is a small offense compared to his more damaging failures abroad. But it is further evidence that the White House incumbent believes his re-election is in the nation’s and the world’s paramount interest -- and that’s reason enough to vote for his challenger.
Mark Salter is the former chief of staff to Senator John McCain and was a senior adviser to the McCain for President campaign.
From The
Heritage Foundation:
President Obama spoke to the United
Nations General Assembly in New York
yesterday - and what a disappointing speech it was.
He actually scrapped his original speech outline to focus on the controversial YouTube video that many have suggested sparked recent anti-American attacks in the Middle East, including one in Libya that killed a U.S. Ambassador and other Americans. Making this video the focus of his speech was inappropriate. He should have used the international platform to make an unapologetic case for freedom. The President failed the American people—and America’s allies—in five major ways.
1. He failed to give a robust defense of free speech.
In tripping over the YouTube video that was offensive to Muslims, the President seemed to validate other countries’ disregard for freedom of speech:
He actually scrapped his original speech outline to focus on the controversial YouTube video that many have suggested sparked recent anti-American attacks in the Middle East, including one in Libya that killed a U.S. Ambassador and other Americans. Making this video the focus of his speech was inappropriate. He should have used the international platform to make an unapologetic case for freedom. The President failed the American people—and America’s allies—in five major ways.
1. He failed to give a robust defense of free speech.
In tripping over the YouTube video that was offensive to Muslims, the President seemed to validate other countries’ disregard for freedom of speech:
I know that not all countries in this
body share this particular understanding of the protection of free speech. We
recognize that. But in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can
spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that
we can control the flow of information is obsolete. The question, then, is how
we respond.
He also admonished people for offending others, saying, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.”
The President probably thought he was being clever, turning the argument around on those calling for restrictions on free speech. But it would not be surprising if there were a number of nodding heads in the audience agreeing that all such “incitement” should be banned. That comment could, and probably will, be interpreted as a backhand endorsement of efforts to restrict free speech like the “defamation of religions” resolutions offered by the Organization of the Islamic Conference in the U.N. and the Human Rights Council.
Heritage expert Brett Schaefer responded that:
President Obama spent less time defending
free speech than he did outlining a vague vision for a world with tolerance and
diversity as its key ideals. Perhaps this lopsided emphasis sought to reinforce
the administration’s dubious claim that only hateful speech is to blame for the
attacks on our embassies, but the overall effect was to lend credibility to the
notion that governments should be policing speech.
Instead of free speech, the Obama Administration has had a policy of apologetic speech. The Administration supported a U.N. “anti-blasphemy” resolution last year that threatens freedom of speech by condemning any expression that could be deemed “defamation of religion.” The President’s words yesterday continued this weak, apologetic stance.
2. He tiptoed around Iran.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak to the U.N. today, but he’s already made his positions quite clear. This week, Iran has escalated threats against Israel and the United States, and Ahmadinejad has said that Israel should be “eliminated” and that a “new order” should emerge, without the U.S. as a superpower.
In response, the President made a “milquetoast statement,” said Heritage’s Nile Gardiner, projecting “a dangerous leading-from-behind mentality at a time when the free world needs bold U.S. leadership.” The President continues to pay lip service to diplomacy with Iran, when the time has clearly passed for this approach.
3. He failed to give Israel strong backing.
Heritage’s Gardiner lamented that “Yet again, Obama drew moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a theme he has frequently expounded upon since taking office.” Palestine continues to edge its way into U.N. organizations, pursuing statehood without negotiating with Israel. The President should have taken a hard line against this. Instead, he made U.S. support for Israel—America’s steadfast ally in the Middle East—a mere footnote in his speech.
4. He did not promote economic freedom.
Heritage experts said ahead of the speech that President Obama should call for “a new era of economic liberalization to expand economic freedom around the globe and ensure that the opportunities of a globalized and interdependent world economy are available to all citizens.” This is the key to raising people out of poverty and giving them alternatives to joining radicalized groups. However, the Obama Administration has failed to increase economic freedom at home or to promote it vigorously abroad.
5. He failed to project American strength.
The United Nations General Assembly is an odd place where oppressive dictators are given the same platform as free nations. It is a unique opportunity to remind the world why people risk their lives to come to America, and to recommit to protecting the freedoms that make that risk worthwhile. As Heritage’s Kim Holmes has said:
We should never allow the U.N. or anyone
to abuse the mantra of human rights to undermine our sovereign constitutional
system which not only protects our God-given rights and the liberty to govern
ourselves but also offers the best model for others to do the same.
No American should speak apologetically about America. Especially not the President.
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