Cutter: Benghazi Is Only an Issue ‘Because of Romney and Ryan’
Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said Thursday
that the “entire reason” the terrorist attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed four
Americans has “become the political topic it is” is because Mitt Romney and
Paul Ryan talk about the attack.
BROOKE BALDWIN: But, Stephanie, this is national security. As we witnessed this revolution last year, we covered it–
CUTTER: It is absolutely national security–
BALDWIN: –it is absolutely pertinent. People in the American public absolutely have a right to get answers.
Cutter’s remarks drew immediate criticism from across the political
spectrum. In fact, the Obama administration has face serious criticism for
its response to the events in Libya
that resulted in the murder of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens
“President Obama’s campaign today said that Libya is only an issue because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. They’re wrong. The reason it is an issue is because, for the first time since 1979, an American ambassador was assassinated and President Obama’s foreign policy strategy of ‘leading from behind’ is failing. This administration has continually misled the American public about what happened in Benghazi and, rather than be truthful about the sequence of events, has instead skirted responsibility and dodged questions. The American people deserve straight answers about this tragic event and a president who can provide leadership, not excuses.”
Libya security cut while Vienna embassy gained Chevy Volts
In a May 3, 2012, email, the State Department denied a request by a group of Special Forces assigned to protect the U.S. embassy in Libya to continue their use of a DC- 3 airplane for security operations throughout the country. The subject line of the email, on which slain Ambassador Chris Stevens was copied, read: “Termination of Tripoli DC-3 Support.”
Four days later, on May 7, the State Department authorized the U.S. embassy in Vienna to purchase a $108,000 electric vehicle charging station for the embassy motor pool’s new Chevrolet Volts. The purchase was a part of the State Department’s “Energy Efficiency Sweep of Europe” initiative, which included hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on green program expenditures at various U.S. Embassies.
In fact, at a May 10 gala held at the U.S. embassy in Vienna, the ambassador showcased his new Volts and other green investments as part of the U.S. government’s commitment to “climate change solutions.” The event posting on the embassy website read: “Celebrating the Greening of the Embassy.” While the embassy in Vienna was going green, the consulate in Benghazi was getting bombed, and little was done to stop it.
Before the terrorist attack that took the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, there were more than 230 security incidents in Libya between June 2011 and July 2012. Of those attacks, 48 took place in Benghazi, two at the U.S. diplomatic compound and scene of the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks.
Benghazi: White House Cover Up or Just Incompetence?
In other words, State knew all along that this hadn’t been a protest that spun out of control. Why, then, did Obama administration officials insist on the false narrative of a protest over a YouTube video? Barack Obama has spent the last 16 months arguing that he has al-Qaeda on the run after the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, and similarly has the Taliban nearly broken in Afghanistan.Admitting that al-Qaeda had reestablished itself well enough to pull off a successful military-style assault on an American diplomatic mission – on the anniversary of 9/11, no less – would be a humbling admission that he had been wrong all along. In fact, Lt. Col. Wood told Rep. Dennis Kucinich in the hearing that al-Qaeda has a better grip in eastern Libya than the US, which helped liberate it from Moammar Qaddafi:
Kucinich: “Is Al Qaeda more or less established in Libya since our involvement?”
Wood: “Yes, sir their presence grows every day, they are certainly more established than we are.”
Beck Walks Through Libya Timeline and Describes ‘Massive Cover-Up…Bigger Than Watergate’
Beck went on to ask why the embassy was denied their repeated requests for additional security and why Stevens was even still present in Benghazi when the British embassy and Red Cross were “smart enough to leave.“ He also wondered why the FBI were not deployed to the scene until last week and spent a mere ”three hours” on the ground there.“Whose idea was it to make up the video excuse?” Beck asked. He added his theory that Stevens “was our broker tasked with arming the Libyan rebels” and that eventually, when he “needed to get the weapons back,“ the deal ”went bad.”
“This is a massive institutional cover-up bigger than Watergate,” he slammed. It may be just “massive incompetence but you have been lied to in a massive and coordinated fashion.”
An Incriminating Timeline: Obama Administration and Libya
By The
Heritage Foundation
To help our readers follow the path to tragedy on September 11 and its aftermath, below is a chronology of key events:
April 6: IED thrown over the fence of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
April 11: Gun battle erupts between armed groups two-and-a-half miles from the U.S. Consulate, including rocket-propelled grenades.
April 27: Two South African contractors are kidnapped by armed men, released unharmed.
May 1: Deputy Commander of U.S. Embassy Tripoli’s Local Guard Force is carjacked, beaten, and detained by armed youth.
May 1: British Embassy in Tripoli is attacked by a violent mob and set on fire. Other NATO embassies attacked as well.
May 3: The State Department declines a request from personnel concerned about security at the U.S. Embassy in Libya for a DC-3 plane to take them around the country.
May 22: Two rocket-propelled grenades are fired at the Benghazi office of the International Committee of the Red Cross, less than 1 mile from the U.S. Consulate.
June 6: A large IED destroys part of the security perimeter of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Creates hole “big enough for 40 men to go through.”
June 10: A car carrying the British ambassador is attacked in Tripoli. Two bodyguards injured.
Late June: The building of the International Red Cross attacked again and closed down, leaving the U.S. flag as the only international one still flying in Benghazi, an obvious target.
August 6: Armed assailants carjack a vehicle with diplomatic plates operated by U.S. personnel.
September 8: A local security officer in Benghazi warns American officials about deteriorating security.
September 11: Protesters attack the U.S. Cairo embassy. U.S. Embassy releases statement and tweets sympathizing with Muslim protesters/attackers.
September 11: U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya is attacked, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans are killed.
September 12: Secretary Clinton and President Obama issue statements condemning both the video and the attacks.
September 12: U.S. intelligence agencies have enough evidence to conclude a terrorist attack was involved.
September 13: Press Secretary Jay Carney condemns video and violence at a news conference.
September 14: Carney denies Administration had “actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent.”
September 14: The bodies of slain Americans return to Andrews Air Force Base. President Obama again blames the YouTube video.
September 16: U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appears on Sunday talk shows and says the attacks were provoked by the video, exclusively.
September 16: Libyan President Mohamed Magarief says, “no doubt that this [attack] was preplanned, predetermined.”
September 17: State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland refuses to call attacks an act of terror.
September 19: CNN reports having found Ambassador Stevens’s diary, which indicates concern about security threats in Benghazi.
September 19: Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matthew Olsen tells Congress the attack in Libya was “terrorism.”
September 20: Carney tries to back up Olsen, says it was “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
September 20: Obama refuses to call attack terrorism, citing insufficient information.
September 21: Secretary of State Clinton, at meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister, says, “What happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
September 25: On ABC’s “The View,” Obama says, “we don’t have all of the information yet so we are still gathering.”
September 25: To the U.N. assembly, Obama blames “A crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.”
September 26: Libya’s Magarief on the “Today” show says, “It was a preplanned act of terrorism directed against American citizens.”
September 26: Published reports show U.S. Intel agencies and the Obama Administration knew within 24 hours that al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist were involved.
September 27: Innocence of Muslims filmmaker Mark Basseley Youseff (aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) is arrested and denied bail on the charges of “probation violation.”
September 28: Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr., issues a statement backing the Obama Administration’s changing story about the Libyan attack. Says facts are evolving.
October 2: Carney declines to comment on reported requests from diplomats in Libya for additional security, citing the State Department’s internal investigation.
The liberal media loved Obama to death
By Noemie Emery
It was in Denver one week ago that the long-running romance between Barack Obama and the national press -- aka the "Slobbering Love Affair," as Bernard Goldberg put it -- hit the wall. The motel bill, unpaid these many long months and ages, at long last came due.It had been the real thing, not a commonplace fling with your generic Democrat, but the love of a lifetime, the genuine article, the sum of all dreams: He was not just a Democrat, he was also a liberal. He was not just a liberal, he also biracial, also multinational; also hip, cool, and clever. He was themselves as they wanted to be. Like them, he was gifted at writing and talking (and, as it turned out, not much beyond that), like them, he stood up for Metro America; like them, he viewed the people outside it with a not-very-measured disdain. "I divide people into people who talk like us and people who don't talk like us," said David Brooks, speaking for all of them. "You could see him as a New Republic writer ... he's more talented than anyone in my lifetime ... he IS pretty dazzling when he walks into a room."
Dazzled indeed, they turned on their old flames, Bill and Hillary Clinton. They dumped John McCain, with whom they had flirted; and when Romney appeared -- rich, square, and looking like Dad in a mid-50s sitcom -- it was clear the long knives would be out.
And so they attacked him, on all of the critical issues. He was rich; he cut the hair of a schoolmate in prep school; he was rich; he transported his dog in a sinister manner; he was rich; he managed somehow to give some people cancer; he was rich; and he failed to make friends with his garbage collector (as Obama undoubtedly had). Oh, and he was rich.
On Sept. 12, the day after mobs ransacked American embassies, burned the flag and Obama in effigy, and killed one Marine, two Navy SEALs, and one ambassador, NBC's Chuck Todd took to the air almost in shock and seemingly tearful, because Romney critiqued an official in Cairo who apologized for provoking the riots, citing a barely-seen YouTube video as the pretext for the violence. Voice shaking, he channeled the shock on the part of the White House (which later itself condemned the apology).
For days after, Romney's "mistake" was the story. On Sunday, after a week in which Obama was burned in effigy on several continents and his Middle Eastern policy exposed as a failure, he lost his best (perhaps his sole) campaign issue, and questions were raised about criminal negligence. But Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post said that Mitt Romney had had "the worst week in Washington." Obama's failures had turned out to hurt Romney, most of the press corps agreed.
Obama had seen that his friends would protect him, and so he believed he could mail it in Wednesday, but this was the venue that could not be spun. No filter. No edits. No choosing what to put in or leave out. No shaping of the story. Just the story itself, rolled out in real time, sans narration, before 70 million American voters, undoing six years of hype and hysterics. It revealed one small, not all that keen academic, having been inflated by the narrators beyond all recognition, dissolving before everyone's eyes.
Using Big Bird to avoid issues backfires on Obama
By Timothy P. Carney
One day, he's leaning on Big Bird, and the next day it's Joe Biden. Can President Obama's campaign ever get serious? Can it afford to?Distraction has been Obama's re-election strategy all along. Highlighting Romney gaffes, peddling empty symbols, running on picayune policies -- in this way, Obama hoped he could run out the clock until November 6.
To the president's chagrin, though, this campaign may be taking a serious turn. The major mainstream media, which has gone along with Obama so far and chased after whichever shiny object the President holds up, is not amused by the president's Big Bird ploy. But Obama has been running a Big Bird campaign all along.
After losing miserably in his first debate against a competent Republican candidate, Obama decided that Romney's mention of Big Bird and federal funding of public television was his latest "gaffe."
At first Obama probably thought that the media once again had his back. Networks pointed out that Romney had chosen badly by singling out PBS when discussing federal overspending. After all, Washington gives the Corporation for Public Broadcasting only about $450 million a year, with about $15 million ultimately going to PBS.
Meanwhile, Obama was (as usual) getting away with the same crime for which the networks indicted Romney.
Obama's plan for closing the deficit rested on ending "tax breaks" for corporate jets and companies offshoring jobs. "Fixing" the alleged corporate-jet tax break -- that is, hiking taxes on buyers of corporate jets -- would raise less than $300 million a year. That wouldn't even cover federal subsidies of the CPB. The Democratic bill to end "tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas" would raise $14 million a year. That's not even two weeks of the CPB.
Obama gets a free ride on this sort of unseriousness. He based his nominating convention largely on the false claims that Republicans were trying to outlaw contraception and "end Medicare as we know it." Meanwhile, the major media pick apart every bit of spin, every slip of the tongue, every factual error no matter how small, and every injudicious comment by Romney or Paul Ryan.
So Obama could have scored some post-debate points by knocking Romney's unserious suggestion that we reduce the deficit by cutting PBS funding. But Obama instead got even less serious. He accused Romney of killing Big Bird.
Cutting federal funding wouldn't even faze Big Bird. Sesame Workshop sits on nearly $300 million in assets and gets much more in licensing its intellectual property to toy-makers than it gets from the CPB, as Washington Examiner senior editorial writer Sean Higgins reported Wednesday.
The "kill Big Bird" line is standard Obama fare. Because Romney thinks employers should be allowed to pay employees in cash instead of contraception, Obama and allies accuse him of trying to take away women's contraception. Because Romney wants to cut Planned Parenthood's federal subsidies, Obama says Romney is waging war against the abortion provider.
So it's not new that Obama is being unserious. He's been running a Big Bird campaign all along. It's just new that everyone is noticing.
Everyone noticed that in the most serious forum of the election so far -- the first debate -- Romney schooled Obama. Team Obama objected that moderator Jim Lehrer let the candidates respond to one another too much and drill too deep on topics. The telling moment was Obama's plea: "Jim, you may want to move on to another topic." Obama suffered because the debate got too freewheeling and substantive.
Now that substantive debate is threatening to spread.
When terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Libya last month and killed the American ambassador and three others, Obama coasted on the media's eagerness to play gotcha with Romney. "Instead of scrutinizing Obama's handling of a foreign policy crisis," my Examiner colleague Phil Klein wrote, "the media has decided that the real story in Egypt and Libya is a Mitt Romney gaffe."
But in the last few days, the Obama White House has gotten some tough questions. The White House's original explanation -- that protests directed at an anti-Islam film turned deadly -- was completely false. There were no protests. This was a planned terrorist attack. Also, we now know that the ambassador had explicitly requested security before the attack, and Obama's State Department declined the request.
Suddenly, we're talking about something more serious than Romney's media strategy.
Compounding the Democrats' gravitas gap, Joe Biden has to debate Paul Ryan on Thursday. Democrats are sending to the mound a man whose chief virtue is his goofy charm, while Republicans have their budget-policy ace throwing for them.
Things are getting serious. Obama and Biden may want to move on to another topic.
No comments:
Post a Comment