Benghazi hearing?

[Ironrite]

Four Americans died in Benghazi. We need to investigate and find out why the requests for extra security are denied and why the army was given the order to stand down instead of go to Benghazi and why Obama did not pick up the phone and speak to a single person when he was aware that the compound was under attack.

Because House Republicans cut funding for our overseas diplomatic missions.

THIS ^

[Grave_n_idle]

No, they just blamed all of Islam, only agreed to testify if it wasn't under oath and claimed that the Vice-President 's office was a secret, fourth branch of government.

Clearly superior to any unbiased mindset.

"He was worse!" is a defense now...how, exactly?

Because if this is a scandal - then the four attacks on our diplomatic staff in Karachi alone, over 4 years of the previous Presidency - must also have been a scandal. And given the scope of the lies that were told then, and the scope of the violence over that term-and-a-half - if THIS 'scandal' has reactionaries saying it's ten times worse than Watergate... then Bush's handling of the attacks on Diplomats must have been a sin on the scale of skinning Jesus as wearing him as a Jesus-suit to sodomise Satan.

Either that or this scandal is fake.

[New Chalcedon]

No, they just blamed all of Islam, only agreed to testify if it wasn't under oath and claimed that the Vice-President 's office was a secret, fourth branch of government.

Clearly superior to any unbiased mindset.

"He was worse!" is a defense now...how, exactly?

Because the very same Republican Congressmen now howling for Obama's impeachment - most particularly Darrell Issa, who sees himself as the ringmaster of this three-ring circus - didn't bat an eyelash when Bush did that. Apparently, doing all that wasn't an impeachable offense - or even an investigable one - but giving the wrong talking-points to someone on a Sunday talk show is. At least according to Republicans.

Also, some of us are old enough to remember that many of these very same Congressmen spent literally years doing little but investigating Bill Clinton - the previous Democratic President - over every trifling thing they could find. They were practically pulling up the edges of the White House carpets to see whether the cleaners there were hiding the silverware!

This is the MO of the Republican Party when a Democrat gains the Presidency:

(1) Pretend that they're not really American ("draft-dodger" Clinton; the birthers all over Obama);
(2) Allege fraud in the election, no matter how wide or convincing the win;
(3) Hamstring the Presidency by any and every means available, including abuse of investigations and oversight powers;
(4) When the smallest inconsistency comes to light, trump it up into something "worthy" of impeachment and spend two or more years forcing the President to do nothing but defend himself.

Hopefully for the GOP, this will now be followed by #5 for Obama as with Clinton:

(5) Watch as the President's preferred successor runs away from their accomplishments, and goes on to lose, allowing a Republican to win the White House.

This whole Benghazi investigation is nothing more than step #3 in their playbook, and it's apparent from Issa's rhetoric that he's building up to #4.

[Wikkiwallana]

It doesn't.

As I pointed out, at some length, earlier - under the last Republican President, in a term and a half - 60 dead in 10 separate diplomatic-targeted attacks.

It's nothing to do with poor handling or lying - it's absolutely objectively about Republican politicians and their pet media creating a scandal out of something that didn't even raise their eyebrows when it was a Republican President.

Presumably those previous attacks didn't see Bush or his State Department blaming a youtube video for the violence that occurred (Or perceived as doing such).

And what's wrong with blaming the youtube video before more detailed info arrives? It sparked extraordinarily similar violence in a nearby country.

[Choronzon]

This thread is proof that there are very, very few intellectually honest conservatives on NSG.

Which I didn't really need proof of, but its nice to have.

[The Emerald Dawn]

This thread is proof that there are very, very few intellectually honest conservatives on NSG.

Which I didn't really need proof of, but its nice to have.

Honestly, I attribute any hyper-conservative positions to the extremely young, or naive.

[Neo Art]

Here's my problem with these hearings. Let's pretend that the very worst of the right wing imagination is true. Obama learned of the attack on the embassay, he was, PERSONALLY, asked to intervene, he, PERSONALLY, could have intervened and he chose not to, which resulted in the death of four americans. Let's say that's ALLL true. He, PERSONALLY took the phone call of a dying ambassador and could have, if he chose, mobilizes the 101st Fighting American Badasses, who would have lept through secret american portal technology and arrive, instantaniously at the embassy, to scare of the Bad Guys (TM) and save the day for the red white and blue, but instead decided to hang up and go back to watching reruns of Blues Clues. Let's say that's actually what happened.

Ok.

And?

What are we having a hearing for? What business of it is Congress? Would that be a dick move? Absolutely. Would that be something Obama and his party should answer to the voters for? OK, fine. I have no problem with any voter using this as a event that guides how he or she votes.

But what's Congress have to do with it? Let's suppose for the moment that intervention WAS possible and Obama chose not to. OK. And? He's the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces. He decides when military actions are undertaken. Whether the Congress dislikes how he chose to use the military that he is in command of is irrelevant, it is his power to command them as he sees fit. And even if he chose to ignore the cries of a dying dipolmat (I don't believe he did) and decided not to militarily intervene that is still his choice as Commander in Chief.

So even if he did the very worst the right wing alleges he did, they STILL have no business conducting congressional hearings on the matter, because what they alleged he did was still within the discretion as the Command in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, and Congress has no authority to mandate that the president exercise his constitutional authority in a way they like.

And they know this. And that's the reason there's no way to claim these hearings aren't political. Because even if they reveal EVERY SINGLE THING that the republicans claim Obama did, there's still nothing the Congress can do about it. Because that was in the lawful discretion of the Office of Commander in Chief. They're just hoping that the President did something morally dispicable, and they're going to have hearing after hearing after hearing until somehow it gets caught on camera.

And the fact that taxpayer money is being wasted on these hearings, which can have absolutely no actual outcome in the vein HOPE that maybe someone will say something on camera that they can manufacture into a "controversy" on fox news, is despicable.

[Choronzon]

He, PERSONALLY took the phone call of a dying ambassador and could have, if he chose, mobilizes the 101st Fighting American Badasses, who would have lept through secret american portal technology and arrive, instantaniously at the embassy

Impossible, our Stargate's dial home device is damaged.

[Antic Master Fegelein]

Blazedtown
Because House Republicans cut funding for our overseas diplomatic missions.

MYSTERY SOLVED!

antics for all.

[Ovisterra]

Here's my problem with these hearings. Let's pretend that the very worst of the right wing imagination is true. Obama learned of the attack on the embassay, he was, PERSONALLY, asked to intervene, he, PERSONALLY, could have intervened and he chose not to, which resulted in the death of four americans. Let's say that's ALLL true. He, PERSONALLY took the phone call of a dying ambassador and could have, if he chose, mobilizes the 101st Fighting American Badasses, who would have lept through secret american portal technology and arrive, instantaniously at the embassy, to scare of the Bad Guys (TM) and save the day for the red white and blue, but instead decided to hang up and go back to watching reruns of Blues Clues. Let's say that's actually what happened.

Ok.

And?

What are we having a hearing for? What business of it is Congress? Would that be a dick move? Absolutely. Would that be something Obama and his party should answer to the voters for? OK, fine. I have no problem with any voter using this as a event that guides how he or she votes.

But what's Congress have to do with it? Let's suppose for the moment that intervention WAS possible and Obama chose not to. OK. And? He's the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces. He decides when military actions are undertaken. Whether the Congress dislikes how he chose to use the military that he is in command of is irrelevant, it is his power to command them as he sees fit. And even if he chose to ignore the cries of a dying dipolmat (I don't believe he did) and decided not to militarily intervene that is still his choice as Commander in Chief.

So even if he did the very worst the right wing alleges he did, they STILL have no business conducting congressional hearings on the matter, because what they alleged he did was still within the discretion as the Command in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, and Congress has no authority to mandate that the president exercise his constitutional authority in a way they like.

And they know this. And that's the reason there's no way to claim these hearings aren't political. Because even if they reveal EVERY SINGLE THING that the republicans claim Obama did, there's still nothing the Congress can do about it. Because that was in the lawful discretion of the Office of Commander in Chief. They're just hoping that the President did something morally dispicable, and they're going to have hearing after hearing after hearing until somehow it gets caught on camera.

And the fact that taxpayer money is being wasted on these hearings, which can have absolutely no actual outcome in the vein HOPE that maybe someone will say something on camera that they can manufacture into a "controversy" on fox news, is despicable.

I hope you know that I love you.

[Grave_n_idle]

Here's my problem with these hearings. Let's pretend that the very worst of the right wing imagination is true. Obama learned of the attack on the embassay, he was, PERSONALLY, asked to intervene, he, PERSONALLY, could have intervened and he chose not to, which resulted in the death of four americans. Let's say that's ALLL true. He, PERSONALLY took the phone call of a dying ambassador and could have, if he chose, mobilizes the 101st Fighting American Badasses, who would have lept through secret american portal technology and arrive, instantaniously at the embassy, to scare of the Bad Guys (TM) and save the day for the red white and blue, but instead decided to hang up and go back to watching reruns of Blues Clues. Let's say that's actually what happened.

Ok.

And?

What are we having a hearing for? What business of it is Congress? Would that be a dick move? Absolutely. Would that be something Obama and his party should answer to the voters for? OK, fine. I have no problem with any voter using this as a event that guides how he or she votes.

But what's Congress have to do with it? Let's suppose for the moment that intervention WAS possible and Obama chose not to. OK. And? He's the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces. He decides when military actions are undertaken. Whether the Congress dislikes how he chose to use the military that he is in command of is irrelevant, it is his power to command them as he sees fit. And even if he chose to ignore the cries of a dying dipolmat (I don't believe he did) and decided not to militarily intervene that is still his choice as Commander in Chief.

So even if he did the very worst the right wing alleges he did, they STILL have no business conducting congressional hearings on the matter, because what they alleged he did was still within the discretion as the Command in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, and Congress has no authority to mandate that the president exercise his constitutional authority in a way they like.

And they know this. And that's the reason there's no way to claim these hearings aren't political. Because even if they reveal EVERY SINGLE THING that the republicans claim Obama did, there's still nothing the Congress can do about it. Because that was in the lawful discretion of the Office of Commander in Chief. They're just hoping that the President did something morally dispicable, and they're going to have hearing after hearing after hearing until somehow it gets caught on camera.

And the fact that taxpayer money is being wasted on these hearings, which can have absolutely no actual outcome in the vein HOPE that maybe someone will say something on camera that they can manufacture into a "controversy" on fox news, is despicable.

While I think the rightwing would love to take a Democrat President out with sleight of hand between elections - hell, this is the second consecutive Democrat they've tried the trick on - I find myself thinking a lot of this is an attempt to pre-empt a Hillary run in 2016. They don't expect this to stick, they KNOW it's bullshit, but they want to be able to say 'remember Benghazi' (to a crowd of people who don't even actually remember it, now) 3 years from now.

[Choronzon]

I find myself thinking a lot of this is an attempt to pre-empt a Hillary run in 2016. They don't expect this to stick, they KNOW it's bullshit, but they want to be able to say 'remember Benghazi' (to a crowd of people who don't even actually remember it, now) 3 years from now.

Agreed.

"Remember how Hillary Clinton failed in her duty as Secretary of State to safeguard our diplomats abroad and lied about it?"

[Neo Art]

Here's my problem with these hearings. Let's pretend that the very worst of the right wing imagination is true. Obama learned of the attack on the embassay, he was, PERSONALLY, asked to intervene, he, PERSONALLY, could have intervened and he chose not to, which resulted in the death of four americans. Let's say that's ALLL true. He, PERSONALLY took the phone call of a dying ambassador and could have, if he chose, mobilizes the 101st Fighting American Badasses, who would have lept through secret american portal technology and arrive, instantaniously at the embassy, to scare of the Bad Guys (TM) and save the day for the red white and blue, but instead decided to hang up and go back to watching reruns of Blues Clues. Let's say that's actually what happened.

Ok.

And?

What are we having a hearing for? What business of it is Congress? Would that be a dick move? Absolutely. Would that be something Obama and his party should answer to the voters for? OK, fine. I have no problem with any voter using this as a event that guides how he or she votes.

But what's Congress have to do with it? Let's suppose for the moment that intervention WAS possible and Obama chose not to. OK. And? He's the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces. He decides when military actions are undertaken. Whether the Congress dislikes how he chose to use the military that he is in command of is irrelevant, it is his power to command them as he sees fit. And even if he chose to ignore the cries of a dying dipolmat (I don't believe he did) and decided not to militarily intervene that is still his choice as Commander in Chief.

So even if he did the very worst the right wing alleges he did, they STILL have no business conducting congressional hearings on the matter, because what they alleged he did was still within the discretion as the Command in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, and Congress has no authority to mandate that the president exercise his constitutional authority in a way they like.

And they know this. And that's the reason there's no way to claim these hearings aren't political. Because even if they reveal EVERY SINGLE THING that the republicans claim Obama did, there's still nothing the Congress can do about it. Because that was in the lawful discretion of the Office of Commander in Chief. They're just hoping that the President did something morally dispicable, and they're going to have hearing after hearing after hearing until somehow it gets caught on camera.

And the fact that taxpayer money is being wasted on these hearings, which can have absolutely no actual outcome in the vein HOPE that maybe someone will say something on camera that they can manufacture into a "controversy" on fox news, is despicable.

While I think the rightwing would love to take a Democrat President out with sleight of hand between elections - hell, this is the second consecutive Democrat they've tried the trick on - I find myself thinking a lot of this is an attempt to pre-empt a Hillary run in 2016. They don't expect this to stick, they KNOW it's bullshit, but they want to be able to say 'remember Benghazi' (to a crowd of people who don't even actually remember it, now) 3 years from now.

Oh, no, absolutely, this is ALLLLL about Hillary. I mean, think of how much they hated her husband, they have the same vitrol reserved for her, with the added bonus the right wing typically holds for someone who has the unmitigated gall to enter politics without a penis.

[The Emerald Dawn]

While I think the rightwing would love to take a Democrat President out with sleight of hand between elections - hell, this is the second consecutive Democrat they've tried the trick on - I find myself thinking a lot of this is an attempt to pre-empt a Hillary run in 2016. They don't expect this to stick, they KNOW it's bullshit, but they want to be able to say 'remember Benghazi' (to a crowd of people who don't even actually remember it, now) 3 years from now.

Oh, no, absolutely, this is ALLLLL about Hillary. I mean, think of how much they hated her husband, they have the same vitrol reserved for her, with the added bonus the right wing typically holds for someone who has the unmitigated gall to enter politics without a penis.

...Are you saying she doesn't have more balls than they do?

[New Chalcedon]

Oh, no, absolutely, this is ALLLLL about Hillary. I mean, think of how much they hated her husband, they have the same vitrol reserved for her, with the added bonus the right wing typically holds for someone who has the unmitigated gall to enter politics without a penis.

...Are you saying she doesn't have more balls than they do?

They think she doesn't. After all, these are the Macho Men of America (tm) - they don't need no broad except to make their sammiches while they hold a can of beer as they watch the football.

[Wikkiwallana]

Here's my problem with these hearings. Let's pretend that the very worst of the right wing imagination is true. Obama learned of the attack on the embassay, he was, PERSONALLY, asked to intervene, he, PERSONALLY, could have intervened and he chose not to, which resulted in the death of four americans. Let's say that's ALLL true. He, PERSONALLY took the phone call of a dying ambassador and could have, if he chose, mobilizes the 101st Fighting American Badasses, who would have lept through secret american portal technology and arrive, instantaniously at the embassy, to scare of the Bad Guys (TM) and save the day for the red white and blue, but instead decided to hang up and go back to watching reruns of Blues Clues. Let's say that's actually what happened.

Hell, if we did have that capability, I'd have been more pissed if he had used it. Because he would have just tipped our hand about the biggest breakthrough in military history since the invention of killing people. And he would have done it to save 4 lives, none of whom were irreplaceable or even all that high priority from a strategic standpoint, at the cost of God only knows how many could have been saved by keeping it under wraps until a suitable time to play it as a trump card.

[Arkinesia]

No, they just blamed all of Islam, only agreed to testify if it wasn't under oath and claimed that the Vice-President 's office was a secret, fourth branch of government.

Clearly superior to any unbiased mindset.

"He was worse!" is a defense now...how, exactly?

Dontchaknow? We're all in second grade now.

[Alien Space Bats]

The howls for impeachment would drown out all other news.

Oh, wait - that's exactly what the GOP politicians are trying to do now. It seems that I've finally stumbled upon what the Republican Party considers an impeachable offense by a Democratic President: breathing when something bad happens anywhere in the world.

It probably has more to do with poor-handling/lying (depending on your political persuasion) than breathing.

No, because the Reagan Administration's response to the Beirut barracks bombing was to fast-track the invasion of Grenada in order to create a flush of patriotic pride thanks to a successful display of American military power (which, if you may recall, was still tarnished in the way of the defeat of American arms in Vietnam, the bungled raid on Koh Tang [during the Mayaguez incident], and the disaster at Desert One [during the Iran hostage crisis]). Given the way in which the GOP screamed "Wag the Dog!" when President Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and the Sudan (on August 20th, 1998) in retaliation for the East African embassy bombings (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans) less than two weeks earlier, because — according to the President's critics (many of whom appeared on FOX News, which was just beginning its work to establish a right-wing "reality bubble"), the retaliation (code-named "Infinite Reach") was nothing more a "distraction" from what was really important (namely, the Lewinsky scandal).

<pause>

Yeah, you read that right.

It's easy to predict the future when you can remember the past, and it's also easier to understand the present, as well. The events of 1983 and 1998 tell us pretty much everything we need to know about present-day politics in America.

---

In 1983, President Reagan got a black eye from the failure of both U.S. intelligence to unearth the suicide bombing plot against French and American forces in Southern Lebanon, as well as the Marine's own failure to provide adequate security for their barracks on the ground; the result was not the death of 4 Americans State Department personnel (as in Benghazi), but 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers (for France, this was the worst loss of life in any engagement since the end of the Algerian War in 1962; for America, this was the worst single-day loss of Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima [a record that has not yet been surpassed], the worst single-day loss of U.S. personnel overall since the opening day of the 1968 Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War [another record which has not yet been surpassed], and the deadliest single attack on Americans since the end of the World War II [a record that has only been surpassed by 9/11]). The response, as stated above, was to rush plans to depose the new revolutionary government on Grenada (a scheme which the Reagan Administration had already been working on); rushing these plans caused considerable confusion in the operation, with a resultant increase in the loss of life among both U.S. servicemen and civilians on the ground.

Overseas, the U.S. got hammered for its intervention in Grenada, which was widely viewed as illegal. At home, OTOH, the press and the public ate it up. Some Democrats howled: Congressman Ted Weiss (D-NY) introduced a bill of impeachment, but it went nowhere (it did not enjoy the support of the Democratic leadership within the 98th U.S. Congress). The following year, Democratic Presidential candidate Walter Mondale attempted to use the twin intelligence and security failures in Beirut against the President in his re-election campaign, but the issue gained no traction and the Mondale campaign readily dropped it; as for Grenada, he grumbled about Reagan's failure to consult with our allies (especially Britain, as Grenada was technically part of the Commonwealth) or play well with the world community, but he knew better than to accuse the President of playing politics with the invasion (which, in fact, he very clearly was), since public opinion polling continued to show that Reagan's swift action to "save Christmas" was broadly popular among the American people.

This is not to say that the events in question had little impact on partisan politics. Ronald Reagan's decision to act unilaterally (and without consulting Congress) led directly to the passage of the Boland Amendment, as Democrats in Congress did not wish to wake up some morning to discover that the U.S. had invaded Nicaragua; the Boland Amendment, in turn, led to efforts by the White House to circumvent it, and that produced the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-to-late 80's. But on the whole, the Democratic response to these events, while sharply partisan, was still well with past norms of political behavior as far as American party politics is concerned.

---

The bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania was more than a shock to Americans; it sent the intelligence community and the Clinton Administration scrambling. The degree of planning, timing, and organization displayed by al-Qaeda in executing two simultaneous attacks on American diplomatic targets in the capitols of two different countries was the first real indication that al-Qaeda was a much greater danger than anyone had realized up until that point in time.

President Clinton's response was to unleash a wave of cruise missile attacks on al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan which was alleged by the U.S. to have links to the terrorist organization. The attacks came less than two weeks after the embassy bombings, and just three days after the President had been summoned to testify before a grand jury on the question of whether or not he had lied in a sworn deposition filed in response to accusations of sexual harassment by Paula Jones.

Focusing on the grand jury testimony rather than the embassy bombings, Republicans accused the President of using military force to "wag the dog" — a reference to a film by Barry Levinson released just the previous December (less than a month before Matt Drudge broke the Lewinsky story). This narrative animated subsequent discussions of the attacks, their value and place in American counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda, and even the whole question of how best to proceed in waging the War on Terror after 9/11. After all, one of the goals of Operation "Infinite Reach" was to kill Osama bin Laden (he had been expected to be visiting the Jarawah traing camp near Khost, one of the four camps targeted); in the subsequent (and deeply politicized) narrative, then, the potential (and later, actual) death of Osama bin Laden ended up getting downplayed in importance by Republicans ("I truly am not that concerned about him"), for whom a counter-narrative (slowly) began to emerge: Namely, that the "proper" way to address the threat of Islamic fundamentalism was through the occupation and American-led transformative reconstruction of the Muslim world into American-style Western "democracies" (really, market-oriented Western republics governed — democratically or not — by secular, pro-Western, pro-business elites), a strategy that would ultimately require multiple American armed interventions in the Middle East, beginning with Iraq — and whose final result would be American neo-colonial domination of the region, its people, and all of its oil wealth ("Iraq is the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia is the strategic pivot, and Egypt is the prize").

This explains how Republicans could blame Bill Clinton for 9/11, accusing him of having taken "no action" against al-Qaeda throughout the 1990's: In their eyes, attempts to eliminate the organization's leadership cadres — up to and including OBL himself — were "irrelevant" to the final outcome of the war against Islamic fundamentalism. Likewise, once al-Qaeda and the Taliban were ejected from Afghanistan, they became "unimportant": We now had a client government in charge in Afghanistan, so the obvious next step was to go after the next most important target on the list — namely, Iraq. The full answer to the question posed by the press in that now-famous March 13th, 2002 news conference puts President Bush's words in their proper context:

Q: But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

BUSH: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.

IOW, what mattered was not who was in charge of al-Qaeda, the state of its cadres, or the condition of its command structure; what mattered was who controlled Afghanistan. We did, and so it was time to move on.

Democrats, on the other hand, have come to accept John Kerry's take on the best way to fight the War on Terror: Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are a criminal organization, and the best way to eliminate that organization is to kill or capture its leadership, disrupt its cadres, and run it into the ground.

Kerry told me he would stop terrorists by going after them ruthlessly with the military, and he faulted Bush, as he often does, for choosing to use Afghan militias, instead of American troops, to pursue Osama bin Laden into the mountains of Tora Bora, where he disappeared. ''I'm certainly, you know, not going to take second seat to anybody, to nobody, in my willingness to seek justice and set America on a course -- to make America safe,'' Kerry told me. ''And that requires destroying terrorists. And I'm committed to doing that. But I think I have a better way of doing it. I can do it more effectively.''

... ''I think we can do a better job,'' Kerry said, ''of cutting off financing, of exposing groups, of working cooperatively across the globe, of improving our intelligence capabilities nationally and internationally, of training our military and deploying them differently, of specializing in special forces and special ops, of working with allies, and most importantly -- and I mean most importantly -- of restoring America's reputation as a country that listens, is sensitive, brings people to our side, is the seeker of peace, not war, and that uses our high moral ground and high-level values to augment us in the war on terror, not to diminish us.''

This last point was what Kerry seemed to be getting at with his mantra of ''effectiveness,'' and it was in fact the main thrust of his campaign pitch about terrorism. By infuriating allies and diminishing the country's international esteem, Kerry argued, Bush had made it impossible for America to achieve its goals abroad. By the simple act of changing presidents, the country would greatly increase its chances of success in the global war on terror. Both candidates, in fact, were suggesting that the main difference between them was one of leadership style and not policy; just as Bush had taken to arguing that Kerry was too inconstant to lead a nation at war, Kerry's critique centered on the idea that Bush had proved himself too stubborn and arrogant to represent America to the rest of the world.

But when you listen carefully to what Bush and Kerry say, it becomes clear that the differences between them are more profound than the matter of who can be more effective in achieving the same ends. Bush casts the war on terror as a vast struggle that is likely to go on indefinitely, or at least as long as radical Islam commands fealty in regions of the world. In a rare moment of either candor or carelessness, or perhaps both, Bush told Matt Lauer on the ''Today'' show in August that he didn't think the United States could actually triumph in the war on terror in the foreseeable future. ''I don't think you can win it,'' he said -- a statement that he and his aides tried to disown but that had the ring of sincerity to it. He and other members of his administration have said that Americans should expect to be attacked again, and that the constant shadow of danger that hangs over major cities like New York and Washington is the cost of freedom. In his rhetoric, Bush suggests that terrorism for this generation of Americans is and should be an overwhelming and frightening reality.

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

This analogy struck me as remarkable, if only because it seemed to throw down a big orange marker between Kerry's philosophy and the president's. Kerry, a former prosecutor, was suggesting that the war, if one could call it that, was, if not winnable, then at least controllable. If mobsters could be chased into the back rooms of seedy clubs, then so, too, could terrorists be sent scurrying for their lives into remote caves where they wouldn't harm us. Bush had continually cast himself as the optimist in the race, asserting that he alone saw the liberating potential of American might, and yet his dark vision of unending war suddenly seemed far less hopeful than Kerry's notion that all of this horror -- planes flying into buildings, anxiety about suicide bombers and chemicals in the subway -- could somehow be made to recede until it was barely in our thoughts.

Kerry came to his worldview over the course of a Senate career that has been, by any legislative standard, a quiet affair. Beginning in the late 80's, Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations investigated and exposed connections between Latin American drug dealers and BCCI, the international bank that was helping to launder drug money. That led to more investigations of arms dealers, money laundering and terrorist financing.

Kerry turned his work on the committee into a book on global crime, titled ''The New War,'' published in 1997. He readily admitted to me that the book ''wasn't exclusively on Al Qaeda''; in fact, it barely mentioned the rise of Islamic extremism. But when I spoke to Kerry in August, he said that many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror.

'Of all the records in the Senate, if you don't mind my saying, I think I was ahead of the curve on this entire dark side of globalization,'' he said. ''I think that the Senate committee report on contras, narcotics and drugs, et cetera, is a seminal report. People have based research papers on it. People have based documents on it, movies on it. I think it was a significant piece of work.''

... Through his immersion in the global underground, Kerry made connections among disparate criminal and terrorist groups that few other senators interested in foreign policy were making in the 90's. Richard A. Clarke, who coordinated security and counterterrorism policy for George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, credits Kerry with having seen beyond the national-security tableau on which most of his colleagues were focused. ''He was getting it at the same time that people like Tony Lake were getting it, in the '93 -'94 time frame,'' Clarke says, referring to Anthony Lake, Clinton's national security adviser. ''And the 'it' here was that there was a new nonstate-actor threat, and that nonstate-actor threat was a blended threat that didn't fit neatly into the box of organized criminal, or neatly into the box of terrorism. What you found were groups that were all of the above.'

In other words, Kerry was among the first policy makers in Washington to begin mapping out a strategy to combat an entirely new kind of enemy. Americans were conditioned, by two world wars and a long standoff with a rival superpower, to see foreign policy as a mix of cooperation and tension between civilized states. Kerry came to believe, however, that Americans were in greater danger from the more shadowy groups he had been investigating -- nonstate actors, armed with cellphones and laptops -- who might detonate suitcase bombs or release lethal chemicals into the subway just to make a point. They lived in remote regions and exploited weak governments. Their goal wasn't to govern states but to destabilize them.

The challenge of beating back these nonstate actors -- not just Islamic terrorists but all kinds of rogue forces -- is what Kerry meant by ''the dark side of globalization.'' He came closest to articulating this as an actual foreign-policy vision in a speech he gave at U.C.L.A. last February. ''The war on terror is not a clash of civilizations,'' he said then. ''It is a clash of civilization against chaos, of the best hopes of humanity against dogmatic fears of progress and the future.''

This stands in significant contrast to the Bush doctrine, which holds that the war on terror, if not exactly a clash of civilizations, is nonetheless a struggle between those states that would promote terrorism and those that would exterminate it. Bush, like Kerry, accepts the premise that America is endangered mainly by a new kind of adversary that claims no state or political entity as its own. But he does not accept the idea that those adversaries can ultimately survive and operate independently of states; in fact, he asserts that terrorist groups are inevitably the subsidiaries of irresponsible regimes. ''We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients,'' the National Security Strategy said, in a typical passage, ''before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends.''

By singling out three states in particular- Iraq, North Korea and Iran -- as an ''axis of evil,'' and by invading Iraq on the premise that it did (or at least might) sponsor terrorism, Bush cemented the idea that his war on terror is a war against those states that, in the president's words, are not with us but against us. Many of Bush's advisers spent their careers steeped in cold-war strategy, and their foreign policy is deeply rooted in the idea that states are the only consequential actors on the world stage, and that they can -- and should -- be forced to exercise control over the violent groups that take root within their borders.

Kerry's view, on the other hand, suggests that it is the very premise of civilized states, rather than any one ideology, that is under attack. And no one state, acting alone, can possibly have much impact on the threat, because terrorists will always be able to move around, shelter their money and connect in cyberspace; there are no capitals for a superpower like the United States to bomb, no ambassadors to recall, no economies to sanction. The U.S. military searches for bin Laden, the Russians hunt for the Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev and the Israelis fire missiles at Hamas bomb makers; in Kerry's world, these disparate terrorist elements make up a loosely affiliated network of diabolical villains, more connected to one another by tactics and ideology than they are to any one state sponsor. The conflict, in Kerry's formulation, pits the forces of order versus the forces of chaos, and only a unified community of nations can ensure that order prevails.

... If Kerry's foreign-policy frame is correct, then law enforcement probably is the most important, though not the only, strategy you can employ against such forces, who need passports and bank accounts and weapons in order to survive and flourish. Such a theory suggests that, in our grief and fury, we have overrated the military threat posed by Al Qaeda, paradoxically elevating what was essentially a criminal enterprise, albeit a devastatingly sophisticated and global one, into the ideological successor to Hitler and Stalin -- and thus conferring on the jihadists a kind of stature that might actually work in their favor, enabling them to attract more donations and more recruits.

This critical difference between the two men running for the presidency, over what kind of enemy we are fighting and how best to defeat it, is at the core of a larger debate over how the United States should involve itself in the Muslim world. Bush and Kerry are in agreement, as is just about every expert on Islamic culture you can find, that in order for Americans to live and travel securely, the United States must change the widespread perception among many Muslims worldwide that America is morally corrupt and economically exploitative. It is this resentment, felt especially strongly among Arab Muslims, that makes heroes of suicide bombers. The question vexing the foreign-policy establishment in Washington is how you market freedom. Is the establishment of a single, functioning democracy in the Middle East enough to win the ''hearts and minds'' of ordinary Muslims, by convincing them that America is in fact the model for a free, more open society? Or do you need to somehow strike at the underlying conditions -- despotism, hopelessness, economic and social repression -- that breed fundamentalism and violence in the first place?

The neo-conservatives have advanced a viral theory of democracy. In their view, establishing a model democracy in the Arab world, by force if necessary, no matter how many years and lives it takes, would ultimately benefit not only the people of that country but also America too. A free and democratic Iraq, to take the favorite example, will cause the people of other repressive countries in the region to rise up and demand American-style freedom, and these democratic nations will no longer be breeding pools for nihilistic terrorists. Like so much of Bush's policy, this kind of thinking harks directly back to the cold war. The domino theory that took hold during the 1950's maintained that an ideological change in one nation -- ''going'' communist or democratic -- could infect its neighbor; it was based in part on the idea that ideologies could be contagious.

... Kerry, too, envisions a freer and more democratic Middle East. But he flatly rejects the premise of viral democracy, particularly when the virus is introduced at gunpoint. ''In this administration, the approach is that democracy is the automatic, easily embraced alternative to every ill in the region,'' he told me. Kerry disagreed. ''You can't impose it on people,'' he said. ''You have to bring them to it. You have to invite them to it. You have to nurture the process.''

... [Joe] Biden, who is perhaps Kerry's closest friend in the Senate, suggests that Kerry sees Bush's advisers as beholden to the same grand and misguided theories. ''John and I never believed that, if you were successful in Iraq, you'd have governments falling like dominoes in the Middle East,'' he told me. ''The neo-cons of today are 'the best and the brightest' who brought us Vietnam. They have taken a construct that's flawed and applied it to a world that isn't relevant.''

— "Kerry's Undeclared War", Matt Bai, The New York Times, October 10, 2004

Kerry's view was not his alone: It has been evolving on the Democratic side of the aisle for years. For better or worse, you have to fight al-Qaeda the same way we fought the Colombian drug cartels. Of course, this also means that the West must ultimately find a way to rob Islamic fundamentalism of its attractiveness, because — just as with the War on Drugs — no successful conclusion can ever be achieved without finding a way to address the so-called "demand side" of the equation.

For Republicans, such views are anathema bordering on treason, appeasement, surrender, or all three. And in their minds, too, the connection between the policies of Clinton and Obama on this front is absolutely clear. Indeed, in many ways it is the Democrats' embrace of Kerry's ideas that, to their minds, represents the very essence of why Benghazi is a "scandal":

It's revealing that, before applying it to Kerry, Bush originally ascribed the "law enforcement" approach to the Clinton administration. It's true that, in the early 1990s, the Clinton administration and the intelligence community did not yet understand that terrorist acts by al-Qaida amounted to coordinated assaults, rather than the random acts of a few fanatics, à la the Oklahoma City bombing. But once they started to grasp the problem, it's simply not true that the Clintonites viewed al-Qaida as nothing more than an international criminal gang. "We were operating under the law of armed conflict," Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger told the Sept. 11 commission, "… not under law enforcement principles." Republicans mock Clinton for firing missiles at what turned out to be a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. But they were missiles, not subpoenas. (In retrospect, should Clinton have done more militarily? Of course. But it's not like Bush or his allies advocated sending ground troops to Afghanistan before September 2001.)

— "Kerry's Other War Record: How Bush distorts his opponent's views on terrorism", Jonathan Chiat, Slate, April 13, 2004

To Republicans, by focusing on OBL and his organization — instead of the "clash of civilizations" — Obama is adopting Clinton's "failed" "pre-9/11" strategy: He's giving up on the War on Terror. The attack in Benghazi is, in their minds, "proof" that the War on Terror isn't "over"(not that, as I have said repeatedly, this Administration has ever actually claimed that it was over [and not that the pace of drone strikes in any way suggests that they believe that it's "over"]); the "scandal", then, is that Obama and his White House are trying to claim to have done something they have not, in the name of abandoning a war we have to fight, for the sake of our very survival — a war that started in Afghanistan, continued in Iraq, and must now move on into Syria and — eventually — Iran. The changes in the talking points, the "refusal" to use the term "terrorism", the "lies" uttered to the American people — all of these things are part of a plot to abandon the war against Islamic fundamentalism and surrender to the enemy.

And this, in turn, explains why Democrats can't even begin to understand what "Benghazi" is really all about. To their ears, Barack Obama never hoisted a "Mission Accomplished" banner, even in the wake of the raid on Abbottabad that killed OBL two years ago. He never said that the war was over, he never said that we would never have to worry about al-Qaeda or Islamic fundamentalists again; he never said anything of the sort. He said that we had "decimated" the organization's leadership (a fact which is demonstrably true); he said that the organization's capabilities had been degraded (which is also demonstrably true); he said that we had our foes on the run (an assertion that is also basically true, even if only with some argument); but he never, ever said that the fight was finished. To Democrats, there have been no lies from the White House on the state of al-Qaeda, nor would it make any sense to lie — as the Administration's record in the War on Terror is one of solid accomplishment. Why would any President or any White House need to lie about doing their job well?

For Republicans, though, the narrative is different. Osama bin Laden was unimportant in 1998, when Bill Clinton attacked him in an effort to distract the public from what really mattered (namely, Monica's semen-stained dress); he continued to be unimportant in 2002, when George W. Bush shifted the focus of the War on Terror to Iraq, where it rightly belonged; he was even more unimportant when Barack Obama had him killed in 2011; and his death still means nothing today. We should not have pulled out of Iraq; we should not pull out of Afghanistan; we should be going into Syria with both feet, hard; and we need to get ready to go into Iran. How in God's name are we going to win the War of Terror without occupying the whole of the Muslim world and dealing with Islamic fundamentalism on the ground, where we can transform their violent culture directly?

[Alien Space Bats]

While I think the rightwing would love to take a Democrat President out with sleight of hand between elections - hell, this is the second consecutive Democrat they've tried the trick on - I find myself thinking a lot of this is an attempt to pre-empt a Hillary run in 2016. They don't expect this to stick, they KNOW it's bullshit, but they want to be able to say 'remember Benghazi' (to a crowd of people who don't even actually remember it, now) 3 years from now.

It's an attempt to establish a pattern.

REPUBLICANS IN 2072: "Do you realize that every Democratic President who's held office over the last 80 years has been impeached?!? The Democrats are hopelessly power-mad and corrupt!!! Don't vote for THEM!!!!!"

I predicted this four years ago. I'm going to stand by that prediction.

[Khadgar]

Why ASB you make the Republicans sound completely clueless.

[The Emerald Dawn]

Why ASB you make the Republicans sound completely clueless.

They, uh, they don't need help there.

[Alien Space Bats]

Why ASB you make the Republicans sound completely clueless.

It's a matter of perception, of the world in which you live. It's also a matter of the "facts" you choose to embrace, and the truths they contain. To Republicans, it's the Democrats who are clueless: They're the ones who can't understand that you can't defeat al-Qaeda "with subpoenas"; that only by completely rebuilding the Muslim world in a way that is compatible with Western ideals, the way we rebuilt Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan at the end of the Second World War, can we be safe (that is also, BTW, part of the reason why they still see Russia as an enemy: We never occupied Russia; we never had a chance to reconstruct it with a Marshall Plan and turn it into an Americanized regime consistent with our values; therefore it remains at its heart an inimical threat, and will until we do succeed in occupying and radically transforming it).

That Democrats are giving up in the War on Terror and are Hell-bent on appeasing the radical, fundamentalist forces that threaten our way of life is obvious to the GOP. Defeatism and surrender are, in their eyes, hard-coded into the liberal mind. Liberals are intrinsically anti-American; they refuse to champion American values because they fundamentally hate America and have ever since the 1960's. One cannot champion what one does not believe in, and liberals just don't believe in America. Therefore they will naturally side with anyone opposed to it; when it comes to Islamic fundamentalism, they will apologize for its violence, apologize for its bigotry, apologize for its misogyny, and do everything possible to accommodate it while it grows ever stronger, even if doing so ultimately means their own destruction.

Nor would things chance even if you succeeded in pointing this behavior out to them. First, they will not believe it; but second, even if they did, they would still persist in it, because they hate themselves. Liberals think that America is evil; liberals think that America ought to be destroyed; liberals think that they ought to be destroyed, and will meekly accept their own enslavement and destruction when the end comes because they believe, being tainted by America's intrinsic evil since they were born, they deserve nothing better. They are sick; they are mentally ill; they cannot be counted upon to see reason, but simple seek collective suicide. That is why they work so hard to betray this country to its enemies, and it's why they cannot every be trusted with anything (and especially power). For the sake of American survival, they need to be removed from power, and by any means necessary.

It's all a matter of how you see the world.

[Khadgar]

Why ASB you make the Republicans sound completely clueless.

It's a matter of perception, of the world in which you live. It's also a matter of the "facts" you choose to embrace, and the truths they contain. To Republicans, it's the Democrats who are clueless: They're the ones who can't understand that you can't defeat al-Qaeda "with subpoenas"; that only by completely rebuilding the Muslim world in a way that is compatible with Western ideals, the way we rebuilt Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan at the end of the Second World War, can we be safe (that is also, BTW, part of the reason why they still see Russia as an enemy: We never occupied Russia; we never had a chance to reconstruct it with a Marshall Plan and turn it into an Americanized regime consistent with our values; therefore it remains at its heart an inimical threat, and will until we do succeed in occupying and radically transforming it).

That Democrats are giving up in the War on Terror and are Hell-bent on appeasing the radical, fundamentalist forces that threaten our way of life is obvious to the GOP. Defeatism and surrender are, in their eyes, hard-coded into the liberal mind. Liberals are intrinsically anti-American; they refuse to champion American values because they fundamentally hate America and have ever since the 1960's. One cannot champion what one does not believe in, and liberals just don't believe in America. Therefore they will naturally side with anyone opposed to it; when it comes to Islamic fundamentalism, they will apologize for its violence, apologize for its bigotry, apologize for its misogyny, and do everything possible to accommodate it while it grows ever stronger, even if doing so ultimately means their own destruction.

Nor would things chance even if you succeeded in pointing this behavior out to them. First, they will not believe it; but second, even if they did, they would still persist in it, because they hate themselves. Liberals think that America is evil; liberals think that America ought to be destroyed; liberals think that they ought to be destroyed, and will meekly accept their own enslavement and destruction when the end comes because they believe, being tainted by America's intrinsic evil since they were born, they deserve nothing better. They are sick; they are mentally ill; they cannot be counted upon to see reason, but simple seek collective suicide. That is why they work so hard to betray this country to its enemies, and it's why they cannot every be trusted with anything (and especially power). For the sake of American survival, they need to be removed from power, and by any means necessary.

It's all a matter of how you see the world.

Delusional then. Okay.

[The Serbian Empire]

But no seriously, I wouldn't say it's a coverup or a "watergate." Now if Bush was president, it would obviously be both.

DA-DA-DADA! CAPTAIN FALSE EQUIVALENCY TO THE RESCUE!

No, the journalists in the American media are 90% Democrats. They'd have all the reason in the world to push Bush into a Watergate like scandal if this happened in his administration if it wasn't know that Dick Cheney was even worse.

[Wikkiwallana]

DA-DA-DADA! CAPTAIN FALSE EQUIVALENCY TO THE RESCUE!

No, the journalists in the American media are 90% Democrats. They'd have all the reason in the world to push Bush into a Watergate like scandal if this happened in his administration if it wasn't know that Dick Cheney was even worse.

And I'm sure you can back up this claim?