Jeffrey A. Setaro

Political & Cultural Commentary from a Constitutional Conservative.

Bumps in the Road

By

“But I was pretty certain and continue to be pretty certain that there are going to be bumps in the road because, you know, in a lot of these places the one organizing principle has been Islam.”

— President Obama in an interview with “60 Minutes.”

When I originally posted this editorial cartoon by the Investors Business Daily’s Michael Ramirez yesterday I didn’t think it needed comment, it stands on its own… and starkly illustrates the callousness of President Obama’s remarks.

A premeditated terrorist attack on an American diplomatic mission that results in the death of an American Ambassador is not a bump in the road, it is an act of war.

An act that, as the Wall Street Journal notes today, this administration was ill-prepared for and has been slow to acknowledge:

In his United Nations speech on Tuesday, President Obama talked about the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and declared that “there should be no doubt that we will be relentless in tracking down the killers and bringing them to justice.” What he didn’t say is how relentless he’ll be in tracking down the security lapses and intelligence failures that contributed to the murders. Let’s say there’s some doubt about that.

None of the initial explanations offered by the White House and State Department since the assault on the Benghazi consulate has held up. First the Administration blamed protests provoked by an amateurish anti-Islam clip posted on YouTube. Cue Susan Rice, the U.N. Ambassador and leading candidate for Secretary of State in a second Obama term: “What happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction . . . as a consequence of the video, that people gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent.”

Administration officials also maintained that the diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt, the site of the first attacks this September 11, were properly defended and that the U.S. had no reason to prepare for any attack. “The office of the director of National Intelligence has said we have no actionable intelligence that an attack on our post in Benghazi was planned or imminent,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week, calling the security measures in place there “robust.”

Cell phone video footage and witness testimony from Benghazi soon undercut the Administration trope of an angry march “hijacked” by a few bad people. As it turned out, the assault was well-coordinated, with fighters armed with guns, RPGs and diesel canisters, which were used to set the buildings on fire. Ambassador Chris Stevens died of smoke inhalation. Briefing Congress, the Administration changed its story and said the attacks were pre-planned and linked to al Qaeda.

Related