Betrayal as clear as a sore toe
By Wes Pruden
PrudenPolitics.com
Mitt Romney should think of the betrayal in Benghazi
as gout in Barack Obama’s left big toe, and step on
it hard at every opportunity. The president will
feel it, and the memory of Ambassador Chris Stevens
deserves no less.
Making foreign policy an issue is usually hard to
do, since most voters think a foreign affair is a
naughty weekend in Paris. But this foreign affair is
different.
The betrayal in Benghazi – and that is exactly what
it was – was tragic for Mr. Stevens and his family,
and it went beyond tragedy for the rest of us. The
ambassador, watching the security arrangements
dissolving over a period of weeks, had begged
Washington for additional help. The White House
answered with silence, not even sparing a little gas
money for the 1936-vintage DC-3, a lumbering old
airplane with a legacy of service in a half-dozen
wars, assigned to American diplomats in Libya. The
plane was insurance for a quick getaway. There was,
however, $108,000 available to install a charging
station for a fleet of Chevy Volts at the embassy in
Vienna. It was a question of green priorities.
Mr. Obama, who fell in love with the sound of his
voice many years ago, no doubt figured that if there
was a genuine need for more security he would make a
speech. Surely the terrorists, like the birds, would
fall to the ground at the sound of that voice. So he
and his surrogates, including Hillary Clinton,
started spinning tall tales about what the attack on
the U.S. consulate was all about. Who could doubt a
messiah, particularly one so close to the land of
the pharaohs?
They insisted, against the evidence that a blind man
could see, that the trouble was not a terrorist
attack, or a “man-caused disaster” or even
“workplace violence,” as we are now told by the
White House to call Islamic terrorism. Everybody
else in the Middle East called it terrorism,
probably meant to mark the observance of 9/11, which
is the highest high holy day of radical Islam,
observed annually with a beheading or a
dismemberment of an infidel. So why couldn’t Mr.
Obama call it what it was? Even the president of
Libya, who ought to know, called it by its right
name.
Barack Obama, if he is as smart as he wants us to
think he is, knew better. So did Mrs. Clinton and
even Jay Carney, the president’s mouthpiece. Mitt
Romney called it for what it was, the betrayal of
Americans in Benghazi, and the glitteries and
notabilities of the mainstream press, many of whom
probably knew better, too, rallied for the ritual
crucifixion of the Republican nominee.
Nevertheless, President Obama, figuring he had no
alternative, “doubled down on denial.” He couldn’t
admit that he hadn’t, after all, eliminated al-Qaeda
once and for all. For a fortnight he and his
surrogates insisted that the original cover story
was true.
Joe Biden doubled down on denial, too, in his debate
with Paul Ryan. Nobody expects a lot from ol’ Joe.
The Obama campaign is comfortable sending him out to
say whatever crosses his mind, which is usually a
hoot. He’s always good for comic relief.
Mr. Romney must resist the temptation to be nice to
the point of reticence in his second debate with the
president. He has to double down himself, telling it
like it was about betrayal in Benghazi. He can be
polite and respectful. No noisy talk-over, and none
of ol’ Joe’s idiot smiles. He should remember to
step often on that big toe, Tuesday night and
afterward, pretending that Barack Obama is suffering
gout. He can expect the worst from moderator Candy
Crowley, puffed up, as you might say, with
self-importance and eager to prove that the
Romney-Ryan ticket is a Republican death wish, as
she said it was just after Mr. Ryan was chosen.
The president revealed himself in the aftermath of
Benghazi to be either terminally naïve, which would
require an absence of judgment, or terminally
incompetent. Neither quality is exactly what anyone
wants in the White House. Or it could be something
worse.
Amb. Christopher Stevens
Mr. Obama knows he looks foolish rattling across the
country in pursuit of Big Bird, Elmo and the
assorted muppets of a child’s imagination. But it
beats having to explain why he rattled on about an
Internet video that almost nobody has seen while
American interests are on fire all about him. The
president and the Democrats are living in a fantasy
land, and it’s up to Mitt Romney to jerk them back
to the reality where the rest of us live.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington
Times.