Moving On

Helping the Seals Catch Osama

It is not without a large measure of disgust that we leave behind, at least for the moment, the quest for more information regarding the events of 9/11/2012 in Benghazi Libya. But it is now clear that we have received just about all the explanation and information we are ever going to get from the current administration.

It has been said, in so many words, that, in America, political partisanship should stop at the waters edge. We thought of this notion as we watched the testimony of the Secretary of State testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at which the Democratic members of the committee heaped praise on the Secretary for her service over the past four years. Given that she was relinquishing her post, perhaps such testimonial was due,  but this was not the time nor the place. The meeting had been called to try and discern the causes of the Benghazi events, and who in the government should bear the responsibility. The media picked up where the Dems left off. The Boston Globe referred to those few senators asking the tough questions as "Benghazi blowhards".

As the Chief Executive of the United States, one would automatically look to the president to explain how one of our embassies came to be over run by an armed mob and our Ambassador murdered. We thought back quickly to the ubiquitous pictures of the Situation Room where the president and Secretary of State, among others, stared in rapt attention as the raid on Osama Bin Laden's lair was carried out. Success has many fathers (and mothers), failure is a lonely orphan.With regard to the events of 9/11/2012, we still have no idea where or when the president became aware of the unfolding events. But, he was quick to shift the responsibility down the chain of command. As is usually the case with this particular president, there was no cry raised by the media for further explanation.

We couldn't disagree more with the Secretary of State that "it doesn't matter"  how the raid on our embassy unfolded. But is was clear that anyone reviewing the information streaming in from Benghazi would have quickly realized that a full-blown terrorist attack was underway. Putting out a story attributing the attack to a spontaneous demonstration against an obscure video seemed laughable at the time, and even more laughable as the truth slowly leaked out. But the government stuck with this charade for days. And now, no one is quite sure just how that story was allowed to stand, up to and to including Susan Rice's marathon Sunday Morning appearances. The video was a fish story, but as bad as that fish story was, it was better, at least in the minds of some government officials, better than admitting the inept security precautions for our diplomatic corp and the totally inadequate response to the events as they unfolded, especially in the middle of an election.

So the official answer is that no one is really to blame, but we will make sure we do better next time. Algeria? Algeria is for the little people. The idea that the president's primary duty is to administer those vast areas of government for which he is directly responsible and the Secretary of State perhaps needed to pay attention to the management of her department rather than trying to amass a record number of frequent flier miles. In this day and age of the sound bite and the big idea, the management needs of the government are easily forgotten.

 And so we must, to some extent, move on less we become one of the lone voices crying into the wind. Gun control, immigration and the continuing saga of the federal deficit provide handy issues to redirect the attention of the electorate. But the questions of Benghazi will return, just in time for the 2016 presidential election, when we will hear that "those questions" have all been answered and the page has been turned. And the woman who couldn't find the time to read every cable, will be seeking the chief executive's job.

At Least She Showed Up

It all seemed to start with an extended love-fest orchestrated by the Democratic Committee Members, who fell all over themselves thanking Madam Secretary for her tireless service and olympian accrual of frequent flyer miles.

The take-away boiled down to just a few salient points:

The Secretary was, and presumable still is, fully responsible.

Nothing was her fault. It's a cruel world and stuff happens.

There were organizational lapses, and heads have rolled, sort of.

She can't read everything.

"What difference does it make?"

And isn't Congress partially to blame for its parsimonius funding?

Did we really expect a mea culpa?

For those searching for a more balanced analysis than what you might get from, say, the Boston Globe, check out the article on National Review On-Line.



http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/338619/benghazi-rhapsody-editors

Stay Tuned Today

At 9:00 this morning, The Secretary of State will appear before a public meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the September 11th attack in Benghazi.
at 2:00 pm, she will meet with the House Foreign Affairs  Committee to discuss the same topic. Lawmakers continue to have many questions regarding the government's reaction, or lack thereof, on the terrorist attacks on the U.S. Consulate in which the American  Ambassador, and three other Americans, were killed. More troubling, perhaps, was the government-issued explanation which pointed to a spontaneous civil demonstration on the attack, rather than an organized terrorist attack. This explanatory disconnect, which was allowed to stand long after the truth was generally known, raised many questions, most still unanswered.

In our most recent post, we suggested that Madam Secretary might well leave office without appearing before congressional committees. We are pleased that she has finally heeded the call to appear and answer questions. Apparently she will do the former. We hope that she will also provide the widely sought information that is sorely needed to begin to heal this wound to the national psyche

Still Waiting

Last month, we commented on the fact that the Secretary of State had still not appeared before a congressional committee to explain her department's handling of the Benghazi fiasco which resulted in the death of the American Ambassador and three other  Americans on September 11, 2012. To cut to the chase, it hasn't happened yet.

Yes, she was hospitalized at one point and it would be crass to suggest that her illness was just a touch too convenient. Of course it might also be considered out of line to release a misleading explanation of the Benghazi affair, even as it became clear that the truth lay elsewhere.

But if any questions linger as to the Secretary's physical fitness, we all might well have been re-asssured to read in this morning's Wall Street Journal, the following quote regarding this weeks' hostage taking at an Algerian gas field:

"It is absolutely essential that we broaden and deepen our counterterrorism cooperation going forward with Algeria and all countries in the region," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday.

I am sure that it was not lost on the Secretary that Libya is Algeria's next door neighbor.

So, in spite of her statement that she had the responsibility, it does not appear that an official explanation of the lack of response and misleading explanation of the Benghazi attack is forthcoming, even though, it would appear that the secretary is, indeed, back at the helm at State. Moreover, with John Kerry's confirmation hearing scheduled for this week, it is now apparent that the Mrs. Clinton intends to retire to Chappaqua without shedding any light on the governments bungling of the Benghazi affair.

As was predicted in our last post, the clock is now running on the timing of the emergence of the "we turned that page" riff.