From CNN, September 24, 2004:
The president, in a thinly veiled reference to Kerry, went on to say that sending “mixed messages” would make the effort in Iraq more difficult.
“You can embolden an enemy by sending mixed messages.”
This was not the first — or last — time Bush made this sort of comment. It was basically a staple of Bush-Cheney rhetoric during the Iraq war. Anyone who questioned the administration was, essentially, a traitor, giving aid and comfort to our enemies.
But now, faced with an immediate crisis, Romney and his surrogates couldn’t even wait to get the story right before pouncing on Obama. And it hasn’t stopped, not for a moment, even as news came out that a U.S. ambassador had been killed, that the attack in Benghazi was planned, and now that violence has spread to Yemen.
As a practical matter, I am always leery of efforts to suppress dissent and debate. But this is a fluid situation, and maybe, just maybe, waiting a few days to let things settle out before going on the offense would have been, you know, more presidential.
I’m not sure Romney’s comments make a big difference in terms of managing the situation. Obama seems to be following his usual, cool and collected approach. But this is a still-developing situation, and it is disappointing to see the rightwingers trying to make political hay even as our embassies remain under threat in several countries.
I know, I know. Why should we have expected any different? But it is worth reminding folks about how bizarre Romney’s response was.
matryoshka
Romney is not concerned with looking presidential. He’s only concerned with being awarded the presidency.
BGinCHI
It’s not Romney, it’s the source code.
lonesomerobot
Interestingly, Chuck Todd made a fairly constructive comparison to candidate Reagan’s response to the failed Iran hostage rescue on MSNBC this morning.
Immediately after, Reagan calls for unity and prayers. Six days later, he finally goes after President Carter with criticism of how he handled the event.
Of course, Reagan also went behind everyone’s back and brokered a deal with the Iranians before he was elected, acting as a representative of the US government when he wasn’t yet anything of the sort.
schrodinger's cat
Romney is not fit to be President. BTW where are those tax returns?
General Stuck
The GOP has been tacking ever more toward the reactionary , really since Bush’s second term. And it seems to be reaching an apex defying previous norms of politicking. Flying by seatpants and turning on dimes for a degree of contrarianism not seen since Jefferson Davis last shat in the White House of the Confederacy.
El Cid
Yes, but Mitt Romney is just defending us against Al Qa’ida, given that now Al Qa’ida is known to be working to re-elect Obama.
Steve
After Rumsfeld claimed yesterday that the embassy attacks were attributable to “America’s perceived weakness,” Daily Kos nailed it by listing no fewer than 11 separate attacks on our diplomatic holdings overseas while Bush was President. This week’s events were the first such attacks under Obama. So seriously, you want to go there?
If 9/11 had happened under a Democrat, you can bet we would have heard this message for years afterwards. Yet somehow, in the real world, the 9/11 attacks occurred in spite of Bush’s steely resolve. Go figure!
artem1s
call me conspiracy minded but that smirk yesterday just bugged the hell out of me. Is it crazy to think these guys would try to manufacture an Iran type hostage situation so they could make President Obama, in fact, the black Jimmy Carter?
this election, its getting to me…
Sly
No need to feel any discomfort. A presidential campaign, in a petty attempt to chase the news cycle, making a knee-jerk, factually vacuous cheap shot is engaging in neither dissent nor debate. Especially not when they couldn’t wait to climb on top of the bodies of four dead Americans before their families were even notified in order to do it.
Cassidy
@El Cid: Are we ever surprised about what that sack of shit does? One day, during his live feed on the tubez, some people will be witness to his demise as someone breaks in and murders him. Not in any way saying it will be me, but someone will have enough.
Jado
I think you are misinterpreting the situation – due to the fact that the Obama administration is illegitimate, there is no choice for Republicans but to issue actual, true, AMERICAN responses to international crises. They would hold off, but there is no one else, so the job falls to them.
On the other hand, it would be convenient for them if other people would shut the hell up about these sort of situations. Republicans have enough trouble linking unrelated events to Iran without these distractions.
Thank you on behalf of a grateful Republican nation.
Cassidy
@artem1s: No it isn’t.
kindness
NPR & WaPo comments have been appauling these last two days. I don’t mind principled arguments based on policy preferences and disagreements about government but it’s all been nothing but horrible lies and slander.
It is really hard to engage people who only want to evoke a visceral response. There’s no reason to their points. There is no shame to their statements.
Let’s all agree on one thing. When Obama is declared a winner on November 7th, we may well have another war on our hands. Now, most those who would choose that are 101 Chairborne and they are just ugly. It’s the others with guns and explosives I’m worried about.
MBunge
Shouldn’t somebody also point out that there’s something a little bit off about how foreigners killing Americans can be openly and immediately politicized but when an American kills Americans in a movie theater massacre, no one’s supposed to say dick about that?
Mike
Cacti
@lonesomerobot:
I wouldn’t be surprised if the neocons had a hand in the recent “protests”.
They’re desperate for another 1980. Nothing that Poppy did was worth remembering, and they’d like to forget everything about Dubya.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The theory is the reason for the smirk and the cheeps shots were because of Mitten’s butt hurt over being called a foreign policy newb by Obama.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/107173/former-romney-adviser-libya-they-stepped-in-it
smintheus
Speaking of CNN, did anybody see the Romney campaign’s talking points from yesterday which try to justify Romney’s precipitous comments? Nothing you haven’t heard from Romney and his surrogates, but it’s amusing to see the propaganda spelled out so baldly. They were leaked to CNN by “a GOP source”, which suggests to me that his allies are getting totally fed up.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Jado:
__
Somebody give Jado a gold star, for coming up with the correct answer.
And as I said yesterday, the true AMERICAN responses to international crises is always “Kneel before Zod”. Followed by tax cuts and increased defense spending.
General Stuck
In the thunderdome of American politics, cowing the opposition with factual free speech, to their un factual free speech, is not suppressing dissent and debate. It is hammering the other side into submission with the truth.
schrodinger's cat
If Romney really buys all the right wing BS about Obama then he is a bigger idiot than I had thought. It never helps to underestimate your competition.
aimai
To top it all off what Romney said was not, in fact, real criticism of a policy difference. Saying, in effect, “The President is a weak assed motherfucker” is not a contribution to an ongoing foreign policy crisis. It is just back seat backstabbing of the “Man in the Arena.” It used to be understood that we had just one president at a time. Running for President doesn’t give Romney the chops, or the right, to try to drive foreign policy during a major international incident. But in any event his remarks were not about what to do but were merely after the fact criticism of people whose lives were actually on the line and whose decisions actually mattered. Its nothing more than a little grousing from the cheap seats.
If it had at least been a substantive criticism of, say, an ongoing war that would actually be a policy issue that should be discussed. But Romney has had plenty of time to talk about that and he has said what he wanted to say. No one criticized him for that because its a totally legitimate foreign policy issue that is not a major crisis right now.
aimai
Culture of Truth
Obama is emboldening the enemy by not resigning now and letting the rich white man take over.
ChrisNYC
Gotta say I’m not getting the Kerry Romney comparison.
Kerry was saying that the Bushies were putting a veneer of success on Iraq — the spur for saying this was that the Iraqi PM came and gave an interview where he said thousands of terrorists were crossing the border into Iraq.
What Romney did is unbelievably different. As the attacks were happening and in the hours afterward, when the State Dept could not even confirm how many people were killed and who they were, came out and attacked the President and the actual people who were in the embassy. Andrea Mitchell was saying yesterday that she was blown over by Romney’s original press release because she got it when she was on the phone with State Dept people who were in ongoing crisis mode, unable to give her anything solid about Libya. That’s why he got (justifiably) skewered yesterday.
Tuesday night and Wednesday morning were the height of the crisis for our government and Romney, before the bodies were out of Libya, before the Benghazi staff had been transferred to Tripoli, said, “Here’s my opening.” If Kerry had come out when US troops crossed from Iraq into Kuwait in 2003 and said, “These goddamn jingoistic fuckers are screwing up and man these soldiers, goddamn baby killers, every one of them” that would be comparable. What Kerry said bears no resemblance to what Romney did.
To say that this has anything to do with dissent or suppression of speech or anything else is just, I think really really off the mark.
gbear
Far right christianist shit film is having the desired result: Stirring up trouble and getting people hurt and killed in the middle east. The filmmakers must be rubbing their hands in glee.
Culture of Truth
If Romney had a real job we could tweet non-stop that he’s doing it all wrong.
schrodinger's cat
@artem1s: You are not the only one, the neocons started the Iraq war based on cooked up reasons, they want to do the same with Iran. They did not pay any price for the Iraq misadventure, so they are trying the same schtick again with another daddy’s boy who wants to out do his father.
schrodinger's cat
@Culture of Truth: His real job is campaigning and he is doing it all wrong. EPIC FAIL.
lonesomerobot
@aimai: But it totally was a policy issue as far as Rmoney is concerned. You see, the only foreign policy stance Dubya Mitt has is, “no apologizing for American values”. That’s the entirety of his foreign policy.
Culture of Truth
@lonesomerobot:
And once we start taking that attitude, no one will ever dare to attack a US embassy again! So obvious.
ChrisNYC
@ChrisNYC: Sorry, can’t edit. I meant when US soldiers crossed from Kuwait into Iraq, not the other way round obvs.
beltane
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That’s a charitable explanation if ever I saw one. To me, Mitt’s smirk reeked was one of complicity. The smarmy little prankster was quite pleased with his henchmen’s handiwork.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I may have missed it in the flurry of threads recently, but has anybody brought up the parallels between this situation and the way Romney opened his fool mouth (and confirmed for everybody just how bad his judgment is) right in the middle of the delicate negotiations over whether Chen Guangcheng would be able to leave Beijing?
This isn’t just one data point. We have a trend here.
lonesomerobot
@Culture of Truth: Don’t forget to smirk. That’s how they know you’re serious.
jp7505a
@Steve: Obviously you don’t remember your history of 9/11 – Bill Clinton was retroactively named ‘President for the day’ for Sept. 11 2001 !!! :-):-)
roc
If Romney didn’t shoot himself in the foot in his rush to score cheap points, he could make legitimate criticism of why in the hell anyone was in Libya without a fortress-like embassy and a plane-load of marines. The country is in chaos ffs. The region is awash in military weapons and anti-American militants. Something like this, though I doubt anyone could have foreseen this exactly, was almost inevitable.
If it would be uncouth to build that kind of building or have those marines, then you simply don’t put State Dept civilians out there. Let the CIA do whatever work needs to be done in the meantime. They’re not nearly as exposed.
But, no. Romney had to shoot from the hip and (further) neuter not only his own credibility on the issue, but that of his allies.
He’s almost improbably bad at this.
maurinsky
I can’t help but think of The Princess Bride and Guilder and Florin. Someone out there wants to fire up the Islamic countries, and doesn’t care if people have to die to make it happen.
smintheus
Speaking of relevant previous elections, I think the reaction of journalists to Romney is partly related to their attitude towards McCain in 2008. A lot of the worst aspects of Romney’s campaign are directly parallel to how McCain behaved. Obviously there’s the shooting from the hip quality and the bizarrely precipitous stunts meant to turn a failing campaign around.
But there’s also the fact, which became increasingly clear to even the dumbest reporters, that McCain’s ideas about foreign policy were ill informed, unusually bellicose, and just impractical and crazy. McCain was also ready to insert himself into foreign crises and act as if he were already president…contradicting and undercutting the Bush administration’s attempts to soothe tensions and end conflicts abroad.
Remember McCain’s attempt to inflate that tawdry border dispute ginned up by Georgia into WWIII. He rushed before the cameras to start announcing what sounded like policy. He was totally extreme in his reactions. He was misinformed (he claimed it was the Russians who started the shooting). And it was Obama who was in agreement with Bush’s policy and who calmly supported the administration’s efforts to end rather than ramp up the war.
On top of all that, you had a McCain campaign that engaged in a long series of smears against his opponent, especially attempts to paint Obama as unpatriotic and unAmerican. And McCain’s running mate was even more dishonest, hyper-aggressive, and more ignorant and ill-prepared than he was. McCain was supposed to be the most serious and stable candidate among a pack of light-weights in 2008, and yet he turned out to be almost as big a sham as the rest.
It really must seem to the media like the Republicans are re-running the failed 2008 campaign, and failing in exactly the same ways as before.
General Stuck
Free Speech?
Never brings a Kazoo to a Bullhorn fight.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of wierdness what is with this “Obama is weak in the Middle east”? I know I am an Obamabot but he’s been pretty much encourage stuff we want, like Arab Spring, while quietly blowing shit up we don’t want, like Al Quida. These wingunts are seriously stupid enough to want an Iran war?
Ann Rynd
@artem1s: I said this yesterday on a pos and was told to not even joke about about it. Koch money, September surprise to give R time to get up to speed, I would not put it past them.
Rock
I’m surprised, though I shouldn’t be I guess, by the media not explaining the context around the original tweet. It was sent out by an embassy employee in an attempt to defuse what they perceived to be a dangerous situation. The life of the person who sent it was on the line that night, as well as the other embassy employees. Are we really going to second-guess the decision by a person on the ground to send out a pretty mild rebuke of propaganda fanning religious intolerance ? Apparently we are.
Even the liberal New Republic calls the original statement “flaccid” and questions why it it 16 hours for the Obama administration to disavow. I’d like for whomever wrote that to go sit their ass in Egypt with an angry crowd looming and see what they do.
gene108
@El Cid:
I’m wondering, why it took a right-winger media type so long to connect the dots between the Obama and al-Qaeda nexus that the death of bin Laden revealed?
I personally was thinking someone would’ve pointed out Obama snuffing bin Laden was just another Chicago-style gangland hit, where the little dog takes out the big dog, so he can be in charge.
aimai
@roc:
I’ve been thinking about this and I think that the answer lies in the fact that we already blew it with all the ordinance and fortified embassies in another country nearby. It actually is quite difficult to ship lots of soldiers and fortify an embassy without stepping on the feelings of the country in question. Perhaps the Obama Admin and the State Department made a foolish mistake trying to keep a low military presence in a massive hot spot but they very carefully picked a stellar Ambassador who was, personally, involved in the liberation of Libya, someone who had a personal connection to Benghazi, spoke Arabic, etc..etc..etc…
Sometimes you gamble and lose. Sometimes you have to take a chance that the upside of a small, unmilitarized footprint wins you more friends than enemies. Given the historic feelings of every single Muslim country about the US throwing its military might around, and the history of mission creep in places like Vietnam, it may well have been thought that the price we would pay with a large force of Marines or “military advisors” or just armed mercenaries was too great at this point.
aimai
gene108
@Cacti:
Common now, I think the Family Medical Leave Act, the American Disabilities Act and introducing Cap-and-Trade as a means to combat acid rain are worth remembering.
Howlin Wolfe
@El Cid: Now Cokie can say, “It’s out there!”
danimal
@MBunge: I can’t agree more. The gun debate needs to happen after the inevitable next mass shooting. The conservatives have persuaded me on this.
Steve
@smintheus: I don’t know why you think McCain’s views on foreign policy were so unserious. I mean, the time he said that someone needs to get the Sunnis and Shiites in a room and tell them to cut the crap, that was a pretty thoughtful recommendation in my book.
General Stuck
I am just guessing, but considering the mindset of most professional diplomats, that are reluctant to have their mission militarized by too many guys with guns. Which may be some of what happened here. Especially in a situation where a country is in a nascent state of post revolution and we want to get in good with the new rulers. It’s a pretty good calculus to conclude that more American marines, is not productive, especially in the ME. I think there is room for legitimate criticism by Romney on that score. But he is a rudderless fool, thankfully, for the forces of good.
Howlin Wolfe
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: These wingunts are seriously stupid enough to want an Iran war?
Yes. SATSQ.
General Stuck
@aimai:
well said, you beat me to it.
Origuy
@roc:
The attack was on the consulate in Benghazi. The embassy in Tripoli has better security. Now it could be asked why the ambassador wasn’t in Tripoli on the 9/11 anniversary, which tensions would be high.
japa21
It suddenly struck me (I can be a little slow at times) that Romney and his campaigned have studied the old Bush/Rove/Cheney campaigns and looked to see what meme seemed to have helped them the most. One of the biggies was that liberals wanted to have our enemies go through therapy because many of us actually stated it would be a good idea to actually know what is motivating them.
This “sympathize with the bad guys” approach is a take off on that.
Paul
Thank you for posting this. Back in 2004, anybody who dared criticize the Iraq war was labeled a traitor etc. By their own dwarfed logic, Mitt Romney is a traitor. According to Bush, he has emboldened our enemy. Newt Gingrich and Jon Kyl are also traitors, all per their own logic.
MazeDancer
There are two possibilities why Romney made his move:
1) He’s an idiot
and/or
2) It’s part of the “I’m with Isreal, Muslims are Terrorist” voter appeal.
Bibi wants Mitt elected. Romney goes Chairborne Macho. He also stands up for “free speech”. Ultimately, there has to be discussion of what is free speech and what is inciting violence and possible WWIII.
Romney is pro “say anything you want about those Muzlim Terrists and WWIII.” Free speech!
Obama Administration mentions the need for limiting You Tubes that could trigger WWIII, he’s a week appeaser.
This points to video being made by right wing Christianists wanting WWIII. With added bonus of Armageddon and Second Coming.
Ann Rynd
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Jonathon Capehart did on MSNBC yesterday.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@aimai:
__
This is a really important point. So many Americans have gotten into a habit of thinking of the rest of the world, (especially outside of Europe) as a sort of subcolony that it is really easy to assume that we can just put down as much of a military footprint as we want, anywhere we want, without any constraint. From this premise flows the conclusion that a lightly fortified compound was an act of negligence. Understanding that the host country has both responsibilities to fulfill in terms of security (a responsibility that in this case 7 Libyans gave their lives to defend) and that they may be gravely offended to the detriment of American interests if we unilaterally override their measures, that thought is hard to come by, especially in today’s media environment.
1badbaba3
@artem1s: That would probably work, if he was, indeed the black Jimmy Carter. Too bad, so sad for them. Conversely, they are the ones constantly living in the past, invoking spirits, and talking to empty chairs. Hey, jackasses! You’re fighting against an imaginary Obama! The real one is kicking your ass all over town, embarrassing you in front of your women, and turning your kids into democrats.
@Cassidy: Nah, he’ll probably get into such a rage that he’ll start jigglin’ and that jiggle will grow into a shake, and that shake will grow exponentially, and then there’ll be shakin’ and quakin’, and then the quakes will open up a (very, very, very) large chasm right underneath him and down goes jabba. Hopefully no innocents will be harmed in the making of this fantasy.
(Heavy sigh) If only…
1badbaba3
@artem1s: That would probably work, if he was, indeed the black Jimmy Carter. Too bad, so sad for them. Conversely, they are the ones constantly living in the past, invoking spirits, and talking to empty chairs. Hey, jackasses! You’re fighting against an imaginary Obama! The real one is kicking your ass all over town, embarrassing you in front of your women, and turning your kids into democrats.
@Cassidy: Nah, he’ll probably get into such a rage that he’ll start jigglin’ and that jiggle will grow into a shake, and that shake will grow exponentially, and then there’ll be shakin’ and quakin’, and then the quakes will open up a (very, very, very) large chasm right underneath him and down goes jabba. Hopefully no innocents will be harmed in the making of this fantasy.
(Heavy sigh) If only…
Cacti
@MazeDancer:
I think it’s this, plus personal insecurity over his Vietnam-era cowardice, and an outsized need to prove how macho he is.
Inside every blustering neocon is a scared little boy.
Todd
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
They miss hearing Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” at July 4 picnics and all the ersatz, jingoistic pronouncements of “‘Murka, Fuck yeah” while pretending to love the Troops.
They’re longing for condemnations of France, renaming Freedom Fries, and ‘Murkan exceptionalism all under a proper Calvinist cross.
smintheus
@Rock: As I pointed out on another thread, the guy who posted the video went back and added comments in Arabic inciting violence against the US…including this: “It is a 100 percent American movie, you cows.” The natural interpretation of that in the Arab world is that the video has government backing. So it was reasonable, prudent, and necessary for the Cairo embassy to disavow the video and tell Egyptians that it’s not US policy to offend anybody’s religious beliefs. It was the natural thing for any embassy to do in that situation; their job is to maintain good relations with their host nation.
danimal
Here’s how the right would handle this.
Rumor has it that Al Queda was involved in the consulate attack. Do you stand with Mitt Romney and Al Queda in criticising President Obama, or do you stand with the millions of Americans who believe in American ideals? Do you honor the service of Ambassador Christopher Stephens?
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not only does Rmoney not have a good read on Obama, he doesn’t have a good read on himself
Sun Tzu would just go crazy with all the teaching points here.
1badbaba3
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: As long as they don’t have to fight it themselves, Fuck yeah! ! ! !
jurassicpork
Mike Flannigan weighs in on the Arab/Muslim unrest and comes to the conclusion that virtually but President Obama is to blame.
jurassicpork
Mike Flannigan weighs in on the Arab/Muslim unrest and comes to the conclusion that virtually everyone but President Obama is to blame.
GregB
Kind of sick to mys stomach reading FaceBook comments from people I know saying that this is war and we need to start a crusade and turn the region into glass.
How soon before there’s a Fox News report implicating Iran in this attack?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
You bet your ass they want war in Iran: On the first day, oil shoots up to $200-300 a barrel. Meanwhile, the remains of domestic dissent (ie the Enlightenment) can finally be crushed. Eventually, Jeebus returns to toss all the godless liberals into the Lake of Fire so he can begin his 1000-year reign of peace in New Jerusalem.
Not snarking, either. There are people who “know” this, who seriously believe this, and who wantthis.
Monkeyfister
For a Party claiming Ronald Reagan as their patron saint, they sure are not responding in any way like Candidate Reagan did in the face of tragedy.
“Reagan told a Los Angeles press conference, “This is a difficult day for all of us Americans. . . . It is time for us . . . to stand united. It is a day for quiet reflection . . . when words should be few and confined essentially to our prayers.””
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/history-lesson-what-ronald-reagan-said/2012/09/12/966e5ef4-fcf9-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_blog.html
Paul
@GregB:
Where would the money to fund this war come from? I thought these folks claimed they were concerned about our deficit. Hell, on FoxNews almost on a daily basis they claim that the deficit will ruin our country. Right…
I guess they once again live in fantasy land (the Bush era) where wars are free and all you have to do is do a budget supplemental so it doesn’t impact the immediate budget.
Tonal Crow
@matryoshka:
Romney: All “Yess my Precious!” all the time.
Villago Delenda Est
@Paul:
Deficits only matter if a Democrat is in the White House.
If it’s owned by the GOP, feel free to charge shit to your great-great-great grandchildren’s VISA cards.
Tonal Crow
@schrodinger’s cat:
Fixed.
—
Romney: Like Sarah Palin, but shoots first and aims later.
General Stuck
Who’s the badass in this POTUS race?
I am a little surprised a poll question was asked about this, but it does seem a reasonable question per current events, and the chest pounding of moral midget Mitt.
JWR
“Embolden” If there’s one word that reminds me of Bush II, it’s “embolden”. It was used so often during his reign that it seemed as if he invented it all by himself.
dr. luba
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I haven’t seen anything about it on BJ, but Rachel Maddow dissected this in depth on her show last night. The entire program was about Mitt and the current crisis. Andre Mitchell was on, too, sharing her disbelief at his performance. But, yes, the meddling was covered in depth.
Villago Delenda Est
@JWR:
Like “Embiggen”, it’s a perfectly cromulent word.
Tractarian
Reagan was asked in a 1980 debate how he would have dealt with the hostage crisis. His reply:
How do we think Mitt will respond to the question of how he would have handled the embassy attack?
maurinsky
I find it horribly amusing how the wingers are claiming that Muslims are uniquely and abhorrently violent, and therefore, asking for genocide to resolve the situation (more or less, because killing a few of them certainly isn’t going to teach them a lesson, am I right?)
Tonal Crow
Pssst! Wingnuts! “Romney” is a deep-cover Obama agent, whose sole mission is to torpedo the Republican Party below the waterline by acting like a crazy clown and losing in a landslide. It’s not too late to draft Newt! Pass it on!
Suffern ACE
@dr. luba: Thanks for reminding me of that. I honestly think sometimes that they confuse embassies with military bases and think we should blast our way out of every sticky situation that comes up.
kabiddle
Two words: Terry Jones
aimai
@Monkeyfister:
Technically, when something similar happened to Reagan (the Bombing of the Marines in Beirut) Reagan cut and run.
aimai
Chris
@GregB:
Not Fox News, but PJM’s already done it.
http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2012/09/13/death-of-ambassador-stevens/?singlepage=true
“Now I admit what follows is pure speculation, but we have to ask cui bono, who profits from violence of this nature driving the Arab world further from the U.S., Israel and the West. Well, al-Qaeda, of course, but I suspect they’re not that deep into the intelligence business that they’re fabricating movies, even of this crude nature. No, this seems to be the work of a country with an intelligence service, one that has the reach even to cross our borders to plot the assassination of a foreign ambassador, one that frequently works through cutouts and has a fair amount of expatriate citizens in Los Angeles, the capital of film (well, once upon a time).
You probably know the country I’m talking about, even if you haven’t clicked on the links. And you’re probably thinking “Oh, Simon, he always thinks it’s them.” Well, I do. You’re right. So I’ll leave it there.”
Mike G
@Paul:
Military spending is magical to Repukes, it transcends all their criticism of other government spending being evil big guvment, “stolen from hard-working Murkans”, “never created a single job”. The military budget can never be big enough, and an “emergency” can always be conjured up to justify opening the spigots for more cash. And don’t you dare criticize military spending or you’re a commie/terrist/enemy of the week.
catclub
@Chris: He was getting at Israel, right?
Lurking Canadian
@Paul: Same way they pay for everything: lower taxes on job creators.
AnneW
@gene108:
The other two belong to Poppy Bush, but the Family Medical Leave Act is Clinton’s.
johnny kitchitikipi
@artem1s:
No.
We have seen and heard the depth of hate their base has, the talk of ‘not one of us’, the insinuations Obama is a traitor, the hints and actual plots for ‘2nd Amendment remedies’. We have seen the Base’s hate-filled tweets and images they post. I will never forget that ‘Rope’ image of the President, lynched.
Why is it crazy to wonder if guys who are so beholden to their base would try treason when their base hints at murder?
It’s not crazy, given the kind of crazy and the white-hot hate that is coming from the right.
Romney’s attacks on the president were a fifth column action. His whole damn campaign has been.
Their goal is to undermine and destroy this president. It’s not crazy to wonder how far they would be willing to go to achieve that.
Chris
@johnny kitchitikipi:
More importantly, why is it crazy when they’ve already done it? Nixon sabotaged the 1968 peace talks by making South Vietnam a promise he couldn’t keep just to win an election. There’s at least a distinct possibility that Reagan made similar arrangements with Khomeini in the hostage crisis, and a certainty that he made arrangements with him and with Nicaraguan terrorists that should’ve gotten him impeached.
Treason is no big deal to them. After all, “they own this country,” so it’s theirs to do with as they wish. Selling your country out when it fails to demonstrate appropriate obedience to you is a simple exercise in property rights, like giving your dog to the pound because he misbehaved.