Obama is in terrible trouble with regard to Libya. He lied during the debate and has stepped into a huge hole. Obama argued assertively that he had declared this an act of terrorism on September 12, 2012. If one reads Obama’s full statement, he clearly blamed this on an over-reaction to this obscure video. The Romney campaign will run video showing Obama saying the following, followed by a video of him denying this during the debate:
“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.
But there is absolutely no justification for this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts. Already many Libyans have joined us in doing so, and this attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya. Libyan security personnel fought back against the attackers alongside Americans. Libyans helped some of our diplomats find safety, and they carried Ambassador Stevens’ body to the hospital, where we tragically learned that he had tied.”
Later, he went on to say:
“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for”
If President Obama really thought he was calling this an act of terrorism, he forgot to tell his spokesman, Jay Carney. Carney was asked whether the attack was premeditated, and he responded with the following:
“It’s too early for us to make that judgment. I think — I know that this is being investigated, and we’re working with the Libyan government to investigate the incident. So I would not want to speculate on that at this time.”
On September 19th, Jay Carney was still claiming that the official Obama administration position was that there was no evidence of a pre-meditated attack:
“What I can tell you is that, as I said last week, as our Ambassador to the United Nations said on Sunday and as I said the other day, based on what we know now and knew at the time, we have no evidence of a preplanned or premeditated attack. This, however, remains under investigation, and I made that clear last week, and Ambassador Rice made that clear on Sunday. And if more facts come to light that change our assessment of what transpired in Benghazi and why and how, we will welcome those facts and make you aware of them. But again, based on the information that we had at the time and have to this day, we do not have evidence that it was premeditated. It is a simple fact that there are, in post-revolution, post-war Libya, armed groups, there are bad actors hostile to the government, hostile to the West, hostile to the United States.”
This means that either Obama was lying during the debate when he said he considered it an act of terrorism on September 12, or he never informed his staff that he thought it was an act of terrorism, or the Obama administration deliberately lied about what happened.
Obviously, none of these are good answers. This will come up in next week’s debate and Mitt Romney will be on it. Obama needs a miracle. He desperately needs to change the story. So, wouldn’t it be convenient if the Obama administration found someone that they can claim was responsible and order a drone attack to take him out. President Obama could go on national television, announce the death of the culprits, just like he did with Osama bin laden. Then he could say he was sorry for the confusing information, but he was too focused on bringing the killers to justice to pay attention to such trivial matters. It would be a win-win for Obama. He gets to look powerful and presidential and he can attempt to intimidate Mitt Romney into dropping the entire subject. If Mitt Romney continues to push the issue, Obama will accuse Romney of politicizing national security.
I have no way of knowing if this will happen. First, the Obama administration needs to have some evidence that they know who did this. Second, they need to find this person. Third, they need to get them in a situation where they don’t have to kill too many civilians to pull this off.
My guess is that our Commander in Chief is already hunkering down over his kill sheet desperately looking for a target of opportunity. If I were a terrorist who had even the slightest involvement in the Libya attack I would be afraid, very afraid. It would be a really good idea to disappear for a while. If you were advising President Obama, would you be overly concerned if they accidentally offed the wrong guy? They can always apologize after the election.
We all hope that the President of the United States would be above pulling this kind of political stunt, particularly with regard to national security. But we would also hope that a President of the United States would not lie the way Obama did during the debate. We would also hope than an administration would not continue to send people out to say something they knew was not true. Bill Clinton bombed Iraq in the middle of his impeachment trial and the press was more than willing to believe this was just a coincidence. If Obama does something similar no one in the main stream media will even question the timing and if a Republican dares question the timing they will become unglued. I still remember when Ted Koppel reported on the bombing of Iraq, and he noted that it came at a convenient time for Bill Clinton and that one would be tempted to question the timing, but he couldn’t do so because that would be unthinkable.
Send in the drones. I really hope I’m wrong.
TDM