Last Night’s Debate: Libya
Delaware Dem is buried under polling numbers, so I’m jumping in on this – with DD’s blessing! There are two separate issues concerning the exchange on Libya last night. I’ll deal with the easy one first.
Mitt Romney Struts into a Beautifully Laid Trap
Here’s the exchange:
MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, I — I certainly do. I certainly do. I — I think it’s interesting the president just said something which is that on the day after the attack, he went in the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror. You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror. It was not a spontaneous demonstration.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please proceed.
MR. ROMNEY: Is that what you’re saying?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please proceed, Governor.
MR. ROMNEY: I — I — I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Get the transcript.
MS. CROWLEY: It — he did in fact, sir.
So let me — let me call it an act of terrorism — (inaudible) —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy? (Laughter, applause.)
Here’s the thing, I think Obama’s use of the phrase “act of terror” last night was deliberate. I think he just knew Romney would jump on that exact phrase – which is something the Romney campaign might want to think about. Obama would have never been able to pull this off without Romney acting according to Obama’s plan.
Here’s the second point…
Romney Was Offensive
Obama had every right to say this:
The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. That this was an act of terror and I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime.
And then a few days later, I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base and grieving with the families.
And the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. Ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as president, that’s not what I do as Commander in Chief.
What has astounded me since the Libya incident is the way that Romney’s first instinct was to run to a microphone and politicize a tragedy. While our embassy staff was fighting and dying Mitt Romney was willing to use them to score political points. There is no other explanation for what Romney did that night.
And I’m not saying that we can’t discuss Libya. I’m saying that Mitt Romney practically performed a happy dance that night. I’m saying that the only thing on his mind was scoring political points. He wasn’t thinking about the country. He wasn’t capable of restraint or level headedness. He wasn’t even capable of recognizing the complexities of events such as these. Basically, he’s a loose cannon. And I truly believe that his behavior that tragic night disqualifies him for the office of the presidency.
DELAWARE DEM: Thanks Pandora for tackling this subject. I agree completely with you. Mitt Romney is, plain and simple, a craven opportunistic asshole who was perfectly content to dance on the graves of those four honorable and patriotic Americans we lost if it served him politically. What caused last night’s epic Gerald Ford Moment for Mitt Romney was not necessarily anything that the President did, but the fact that the right wing lives in a conservative news bubble, fueling itself in an endless loop between Drudge, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and the host of Brietbartian blogs. They actually believed that the President didn’t say the attack was an act of terror because they believed their own propaganda without actually reading or watching what the President said. They got hoisted on their own pretard and it was a beautiful thing to see. And can I say, the most thrilling moment of that Libya encounter was not the Candy Crowley Fact Check but it was President Obama’s “How Dare You Sir” stare down of Romney. I have never seen the President so passionate, so righteously angry, so indignant, and the look on Romney’s face was one of pure weakness.
Tags: 2012 Presidential Debates, Libya, Mitt Romney, President Obama
I saw the clip this morning and when the President said, “Please proceed,” I was wondering where he was going to go with it – when he got to “Get the transcript,” it all clicked.
I wonder how Fox News is contending with the transcript?
He wasn’t even capable of recognizing the complexities of events such as these.
Romney definitely failed the Commander-In-Chief test. And I thought that Obama reminding Romney that he knew these people, knew their families, they worked for him, he sent them into harms way, was a great reminder that this business can have pretty high stakes well beyond an election.
I tried to make this point yesterday, I think, but I actually do think that there is something to be learned about what happened in Libya and our response to it. But the fact that Romney came straight out of the gate working at politicizing this tragedy is exactly why they can’t get much traction on it. On the other hand, I wonder why Obama isn’t pointing out that Congressional cutbacks in security don’t help when these assignments are getting more dangerous.
One of my wingnut friends was crying on Facebook this morning complaining that saying Act of Terror is not the same thing as “terrorist attack” and that the fact that the video was also discussed in the speech and at the UN somehow negates what the President said.
The old saying: if you are explaining, you’re losing, applies here.
But more to the point, the wingnut excuses are irrelevant. Romney lied. Got called on it. The proof is irrefutable and obvious to all.
Anyone defending Romney on that subject is now also a dirty liar. Plain and simple.
Is the Republican lying or deluded? It is the eternal question.
However, Obama didn’t explicitly label the Benghazi strike terrorism in those Sept. 12 remarks. What he did say is: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation.”
Crowley admitted Romney was correct. Ooppss.
Actually, she did no such thing. But perhaps you forgot you weren’t on Fox News here.
See, Jay is just like the wingnut I was talking about. You’re a loser, Jay, and you know it. Your candidate lost last night, and you know it.
I just went back to watch the video of the Rose Garden speech. Here’s the summary:
Benghazi
Benghazi
Benghazi
Benghazi
Benghazi
Anniversary of September 11, 2001
Acts of terror
Benghazi
Benghazi
If you think that acts of terror didn’t have anything to do with Benghazi, you are a political hack trying to spin a heroic American’s death into a political win.
Oct. 16th post Pandora asked “THIS CAN’T BE TRUE CAN IT?”
Never underestimate the vulgarity or stupidity of power-hungry, greedy extremists such as Romney and his advisory group. Blind ambition will never allow self-policing of one’s moral failings and those inhumane thoughts will prevail in any intellectual debate with oneself.
Well Pandora shocking and stupid as it was, It can be true and was true and boy did the President clean Mitt’s clock on the entire subject. President Obama’s self control in regulating his demeanor when he uttered the simple word “offensive” was a tableau in anger management that I could never hope to achieve. A sterling presidential moment for the ages. Mitt’s performance proves that there are no limits to the depths of moral turpitude to which a man of greed will sink to try to gain power. Goodnight Mr. Romney and sleep well as only a person bereft of conscience can.
Most of you don’t watch boxing. If you did, you would know that when you get an opportunity, you bank on it. When a punch hits, that second of puzzlement is your opportunity to land 5 more, creating more dazed moments….. and you keep it up, until the body hits the floor.
Restraint is pointless here, and should be the lesson learned from 2008 and beyond. There can be no surrender till November. Anyone who supports the middle class must work harder than ever to make sure there is no coming back of the ugliness John so eloquently portrays above. We can finish conservatism forever. We are tired after fighting it for thirty years. Let’s all pitch in, do this thing so we can all get back to the real important things in our lives. Don’t stop hitting them now.
I agree. The President is not enough Muhammad Ali and too much Jackie Robinson for me. Although I’m not an average American, and job one is getting elected.
From Factcheck.org a liberal owned and ran site. Got love the last line.
The transcript does show that Obama said in a Rose Garden speech on Sept. 12: “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.” That night, he said at a Las Vegas fundraiser: “No act of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world, and no act of violence will shake the resolve of the United States of America.”
But Romney isn’t entirely wrong. Romney claimed Obama refused for two weeks after the Benghazi attack to call it a terrorist attack and, instead, blamed it on a spontaneous demonstration in response to an anti-Muslim video that earlier that day triggered a violent protest in Egypt.
The president did seem to suggest in his Rose Garden speech that a reason for the Benghazi attack was the video. Obama said: “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 to this type of senseless violence. None.”
It is also true that Obama, after the Rose Garden speech and Las Vegas event the same day, refrained from characterizing the attack as an act of terrorism. The administration adopted a wait-and-see position, deflecting questions until the investigation into the attack could be completed. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, for example, was asked in a Sept. 17 press briefing if the administration considered the Benghazi attack an act of terror. She said: “Again, I’m not going to put labels on this until we have a complete investigation, okay?”
Obama refused to characterize it as a terrorist attack even after others in the administration said it was.