You know, that phrase rings a bell...
It remains an open question whether the administration was intentionally misleading the public so as to avoid the appearance of an administration failure, or was simply making things up without pinning down the facts (what the Democrats accused Romney of doing). Lake quotes a retired CIA official as saying: “I think this is a case of an administration saying what they wished to be true before waiting for all the facts to come in.” That’s the most generous take on what happened.
Of course, on the first 9/11, there was a Republican in the White House.
There is, as always, a media scandal here, a deliberate effort, conservatives believe, to construct narratives that favor the president. But that is small potatoes compared with the mounting evidence of a scandal in the Obama administration. If the administration was negligent in planning, convinced of its own spin (the war on terror is over!) and politicized national security to aid the president's reelection campaign, that is all a big deal. In any event, it should make for an interesting foreign policy presidential debate.
Related from James Taranto;
What message does the ad actually send the Mohammed Tariq Khans? On the one hand, a message of weakness: Assemble a big enough mob, kill enough people, burn enough flags and churches, and you too can grab the attention of the most powerful man and woman in the world. On the other hand, a taunt. If Obama and Mrs. Clinton really mean it, the Khans must think, why haven't they presented the video makers for public mincing? The State Department's ad contains no answer to that crucial question.
“I think this is a case of an administration saying what they wished to be true before waiting for all the facts to come in.”
Well, that really helps their position: what was it that Obama said about Romney the other day --"shoots first and asks questions later" or "aims later," or something? The least worst thing that can be said about the Administration and the media is that Romney has been proven completely right and Obama has been proven completely wrong.
By way of something harsher, the Lake article quote is a total non-sequitor: leaving aside AGW eco-statist and socialist co-religionists (who don't operate in real crisis environments anyway, only make-believe ones), what kind of person or persons responsible for the protection of others says stuff that they wish were true while they're waiting for the facts to come in? Sort of has the same logic as: "I was for the legislation before I was against it", don't you think?
Obama and his ilk weren't waiting for the facts to come in -- they were trying to suppress them. The mind-numbing part of this is that could have just owned up to the situation and gotten some political credit for a forthright response -- now they just look dumb and dishonest. And people still think this guy's going to win?
Obama along with Hillary really think all but them are really stupid enough to buy into their obvious lie3s. They trust the MSM to cover tier butts, or any gaffs that slip threw the holes of misinformation they call mouths. They are the street cleaners that clean up the trash with its horse apples, this administration leaves behind it.
It why Obama feels so comfortable lying at every point.Hillary reminds me of a chicken about to meet the cleaver.She too is comforted in the knowledge anything she says will be diverted or covered up by a corrupt Media.
David Southam. Exactly right; that phrase of Obama's, accusing Romney of 'shooting first and aiming later' was exactly what I thought on reading the statement.
Obama's insistence that the Libyan attack was a 'sponteneous reaction to an American video', a necessary statement since Obama denies that Islamic terrorism exists, was just such an example of shooting then aiming.
And yes, Obama could still win. He's a Teflon man and nothing sticks to him. He takes no responsibility for anything, always blames others, and remains, the Genial Cousin with the mega-smile who comes to visit for a few hours and then dashes off. Don't underestimage the magic of Teflon.
Obama will win because the messge to the left is more money for you. They will not get it but they will vote for him.
Romney is up aginst the Chicago Machine, the msm the DNC , Hollywood, public education, and a bitchy Republican party fighting amongst themselves.
ET if Romney pulls this off you may have to reconsider Devine Intervention.
ET, 6:34p.m. -- I understand your position, but I think the bubble of invincibility has finally been pierced and we've reached tipping point. He's got alot of unmitigated-disaster forest fires raging at the moment -- the economy, national finances, the ME (and all the embassy embarrassment), the media, their polls (the latter two of which people have figured out are crap), and Joe Biden (and his serial provocations, etc.), among others. An essential advantage is his chronic slowness to react to danger -- I personally think it's too late for him, regardless. But we shall see -- might be time for Kate or EBD to repost the link to the Glenn Reynolds piece on the consciousness of crowds or consciousness of revolutions, I can't just remember the title or precise subject.
One could think of a "mousetrap" scenario designed to damage Romney beyond redemption.
Suppose these embassy freak shows were all faked and Romney didn't know that but found
his star rising as he vented on Obama's incompetence but the MSM decried his recklessness.
If Ambassador Stevens was negotiating a cease fire with Al Qaeida in deepest secrecy and if
successful, this could have likely won the election later for Obama by revealing Romney to be
a warmonger and an idiot.
Then the terrorists killed everyone as they had always intended to do.
Dreams of election victory become ashes and now a massive coverup under way?
.
The present US Administration did to Christopher Stevens more or less what they have done to about a hundred soldiers in Afghanistan:
sent into danger with little or no protection.
The case of Mr. Stevens is interesting, in that it is unusual for a moonbat to die as a result of leftist policies.
Speaking of connecting the dots: Perhaps it has been discussed here and I missed it but is anyone questioning why John Baird hops off a plane, grabs a mike and out of (seeming) nowhere announces Canada is pulling diplomats out of Iran...a few days before 9/11/12...
They were warned.
So far MSM has given Obama a free pass on the Bengazi attacaks, and more recently the blatant lie wrt Fast and Furious.Huge issues, crickets from MSM.
Romney doesn't have a chance.
I would say, given the article and comments above, that if Romney loses this campaign he is an EVEN GREATER fool than Obama, and the USA will have dodged a bullet. A man who can't beat an opponent as lame as Obama can't lead the USA. Couldn't lead a Scout troop for that matter.
With all due respect to people mentioning the power of the press, let us recall that the press has been bleeding viewers at an ever increasing pace these last four years. Having the MSM on his side is a lot less of an advantage for Barry than it used to be.
Just sayin'.
The Phantom, 1:13a.m.--
Further to my reply to ET above, your point about the MSM, which you've made now at several posts, is the absolutely critical one: the response to the embassy debacles, the response to Romney's "47 percent" comment, including Biden's gaffe about the 650,000 troops in Afghanistan, and the misleading polling, etc. -- take these together and they add up to Obama's "Nicolae Ceaucescu moment".
All are and were a series of bald-faced and incompetent miscalculations and serial misrepresentations -- but they didn't care. They and the media figured that they could say and/or do whatever suited their purposes and they'd never be found out. They had deluded themselves into believing that the MSM was still powerful enough to carry it off -- and that delusion is now clearly on display, and people get it.
In the last two days, my wife and I have flipped to CNN four times for maybe four minutes total -- once the coverage was about the Peggy Noonan article, twice yesterday morning my wife came to me and said, "they're still on about that Romney tape; now they want to know when it happened, where was the fundraiser, etc." -- the same tactic they used on Sam Bacile -- and last evening, in a things-have-gone-from-the-sublime-to-the-ridiculous-moment, Piers Morgan had Jesse Ventura on -- I'm not making this up -- to talk about all the strange things that Mitt Romney has been saying lately.
Recall, if you would, the anecdote from Bob Woodward's new book about how Obama, in the midst of his complete miscarriage of the the debt ceiling negotiations, touched John Boehner's arm and said, "I have great confidence in my to convince the American people".
Ever since Romney's response to the embassy crisis, he's been going up in the tracking polls and Obama's been going down. Expect Ceaucescu-esque panic soon.
Thanks for your encouragement in the power of reality, David Southam. I too always say that 'facts trump fiction'. But, I can't underestimate the power of fiction.
We still get a lot of people who get their, ah, information, from the general media alone, and who don't bother with blogs-for-truth. Thus, they totally accept Obama's self-description as a victim of Bush and Congress (ignoring that Congress was controlled by the Democrats); accept Obama's statement that the stimulus was a great success and 'staved off a depression' (heh, prove it).
And that unemployment at above 8%, 'could be worse'; and that the millions on food stamps, 'kept them fed'; and, above all, that the key method to solve everything, would be to simply take more wealth-from-the-wealthy.
After all, Obama claims that, despite the top 1% paying 40% of the federal tax income, and the top 25% paying, 86%, well, heck, take more and suddenly, No More Debt! Because, as Obama says, 'it's not fair' and they should 'spread the wealth'. Romney gives 50% of his wealth to taxes and charity. I wonder how much Obama gives; after all, he has an impoverished half-brother in Kenya whom he totally ignores.
But, Obama is the Teflon Man, and all one has to do is read the msm comments, and see how many accept his 'misinformation and manipulation'.
ET said: "I too always say that 'facts trump fiction'. But, I can't underestimate the power of fiction."
ET, I agree with you that propaganda is an extremely powerful tool, and that the MSM has deliberately shaped public opinion to the advantage of the socialists since at least the time of Roosevelt. Propaganda got Barry elected in 2008, no question about it.
But I think 2008 was their last hurrah. They hit the wall a couple years ago and since then many of their sacred cows have died.
Consider that gun control is dead despite everything the MSM can do, despite the all-out assault in every Hollywood movie and TV show, despite the Fast & Furious effort to Frankenstein a semblance of life back into its stinking corpse. Consider that not just Global Warming but the entire Greenie agenda is in tatters, and people are beginning to actively hate them over the Keystone pipeline and the Solyndra debacle. Consider that the cry of RACIST!!! has become something of a running joke. Consider that their latest push, the War on Women with Sandra Fluke as field marshal, is sitting on the starting line spinning its tires and getting zero traction outside the MSM echo chamber. Consider the Tea Party, and the Chick-fil-A moment.
Barry gots lotsa commotion but no forward motion, his propaganda push is going nowhere.
I'm proud to be an SDA flying monkey, one of the twenty million or so that are raining heckfire down on Barry's parade.
Kate, we need t-shits. 1st Canadian Flying Monkeys, SDA Squadron.
There is litle doubt te media are part of an anti-constitutiona, anti-America narrative and agenda.
There is litle doubt the media are part of an anti-constitutiona, anti-America narrative and agenda.