I still have no damned idea what exactly is being covered up, but here is Issa explaining it for us:
House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) responded to President Obama’s forceful condemnation of the GOP’s effort to portray his administration’s response to the attacks on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya as a cover-up on Monday, suggesting that the president sought to downplay the severity of the incident by describing the killings of four Americans as an “act of terror” rather than a “terrorist attack”
In the day following the Benghazi attacks, Obama appeared at the White House Rose Garden alongside then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In his remarks, Obama referred to the incident as an “act of terror” and used the phrase again at a campaign rally the day after in Denver, CO. “I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished,” he said.
But Issa claimed that Obama relied on the “act of terror” formulation to dissuade Americans from thinking it was a terror attack, thus improving his chances of re-election.
That clears everything up!
How long before Dan Burton is in his backyard shooting a thesaurus?
Alex S.
So it’s the letters a, t and k. That’s why Rand Paul said that Hillary should never hold elected office.
The Ancient Randonneur
Ever wonder what happened to his other brother named Darrel? Investigate!
the Conster
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Dave
So saying “act of terror” is worse than Watergate and/or Iran-Contra?
Who knew semantics were so serious…
Scott S.
He used a phrase which would be acceptable to almost everyone but not to crazy-ass Republicans who are fishing for something to impeach about!
TIME FOR IMPEACH NAOW!
Ash Can
Does Darrell Issa need to bring an interpreter with him to the congressional cafeteria when he orders his lunch, so that he ends up with something he can actually eat? He seems to have reached the point where his ODS has rotted his brain so extensively that he’s no longer capable of making any fucking sense at all.
Dave
Clinton’s parsing of the word “is” made more sense than Issa’s bullshit.
quannlace
Not to worry. The ‘IRS ‘targeting’ Tea Party groups’ has replaced Benghazi as the Greatest Scandal In American History !!
Svensker
I LOLd.
Sophist
Sweet fancy Moses.
People voted for this man…
jl
Issa’s track record on effective scandal mongering is poor. He lacks skills.
If innocent people and U.S. officials had not died in the attack, maybe the public would appreciate Issa’s attempts at humor. But I don’t think they will.
If Issa wants to deliver on his promise to pump out politically devastating, administration wrecking, DemocRAT slaying scandals 24/7, he really needs to move on and try something else. The IRS scandal is more promissing, since it is an actual scandal, though I seriously doubt the WH had anything to do with it.
On the other hand, like the budget cuts for State Dept. security, the corpoate hack news media could point out that Congress has a potential causative role in this too, since they have blocked a permanent replacement for IRS chief.
Which I guess Rubio did not notice when he demanded that an official who does not exist resign in disgrace today.
Grumpy Code Monkey
WAT
The Dangerman
Bengazi hasn’t hit any chords with the populace; they’ve tried mightily, but it’s a dry hole.
It’s about to be All IRS and All The Time. Bengazi will be quietly forgotten (until Hillary is nominated).
ETA: Or what quannlace said before me (shakes fist).
Ash Can
@jl:
How so?
schrodinger's cat
What is with the fonts of the post titles? I blame
ObamaTunch.rikyrah
@the Conster:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Jockey Full of Malbec
Why go to all that trouble to manufacture consent, when you can just manufacture a scandal?
Much more efficient.
ranchandsyrup
It takes a car thief to impeachasize a blah president.
Also, Glenzilla says that progressives that don’t understand BENGHAZI! should read this Wash. Examiner piece: http://washingtonexaminer.com/tim-carney-four-americans-and-the-truth-died-in-benghazi/article/2529410?custom_click=rss
askew
Apparently, the new media obsession is whether or not Obama cried during the press conference today when discussing Benghazi/IRS. And The Fix wants to know why it took 3 days for Obama to address the IRS scandal. I hate them all so much.
pseudonymous in nc
@ranchandsyrup:
ITYM “a thief of cars.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@The Ancient Randonneur: Thanks for the laugh.
J.W. Hamner
When Obama said “act of terror” I assumed they were taking people into a darkened bathroom and having them say Candy Man five times… knowing that it was actually a terrorist attack CHANGES EVERYTHING.
the Conster
@ranchandsyrup:
Didn’t we already do this dance with him? Glenn’s a Benghazi ratfucker, determined to ratfuck this nothingburger all the way to 2016 for his BFF Rand.
Liquid
Seattle Times — IRS/ Tea Party nonsense — GOP vows probe. At least I was ‘sitting down’ for that horseshit.
Oh and the V22 Osprey is now magically NOT a $30 billion boondoggle. How about that!
Bokonon
Right. A scandal desparately in search of a reason for existing. Is this the best they can do?
Issa is essentially claiming that Obama used the right words, but not in the correct order. Because the President was trying to create a specific impression in the media. And that this failure to use the GOP’s preferred word arrangement was an abuse of the Presidency or something.
All this from the same gang of politicians that defended the Bush administration’s misleading and sometimes outright untrue talking points and PR about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and who aggressively questioned the patriotism and sanity of anyone who failed to agree.
Remember the claims of “Bush derangement syndrome”? Remember the “why do you hate America so much”?
There was no parsing of word arrangements then.
ranchandsyrup
@pseudonymous in nc: thx, indeed that is what i meant.
danimal
It just dawned on me that the reason we’re seeing non-scandals become SCANDALS!!! is that there really isn’t a chance of a damned thing becoming law until 2015 (maybe) or 2017 (more likely) and the Beltway denizens are bored.
Anyone wanna be immigration reform becomes a victim of the process? “How can we negotiate with the scandal-plagued Obama administration?” said the well-meaning, very-serious conservative lawmaker….
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@schrodinger’s cat: I think John finally found a font and setting, all caps, that matches the level of shouting of the voices in his head.
eric
You libtards think it is funny that Obambi refuses to call out his muslim brothers as the terrorists they all are. Just wait until the muslim terrorists take out the internet…then we can read all your posts about how it was more than just an “act of terror”. Peaceniks.
Ash Can
@ranchandsyrup: At this rate, by the time Obama leaves office, Greenwald will be writing for Stormfront.
jl
@Ash Can:
I meant ‘scandal’ in the sense that something bad actually happened that was wrong and should have been known to be an obvious mistake. Maybe I should have used another word. I don’t think there is any evidence that it is a scandal for the WH, since I don’t think it was involved at all. But, maybe a scandal for the IRS bureaucracy.
But it is bad, and probably illegal (I’m not sure about the legalities) for the IRS to target groups based on ideologically loaded key words that lead to different treatment of groups based on likely ideological or partisan ID.
I also think it was a stupid, incompetent, and ineffective approach to targeting bogus applications for tax exempt status. Too easy for people to detect and evade, for one thing.
GxB
Holds flicked BiC aloft “FREEBIRD!!”
If “D” leaves ‘Ghazi to-marrer…
will ya still re-mamber et…
The payoff being this turd just cannot change.
ranchandsyrup
@the Conster: Yeah, I just had a good laugh at him telling Brogressives to read Tim Carney in the WE.
MikeJ
@Dave:
Actually Clinton’s parsing of “is” made perfect sense. He was willing to admit to an affair in the past, but the wording of the question (using “is” instead of “was/were”) implied an ongoing affair.
schrodinger's cat
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): The voices are loud and they look messy.
Punchy
RudeState Trike Force to send thesauri to all Dem pollys!
Trollhattan
Benen harvested this gem–Issa v. the ambassador. One of these people is lying, could it be the car thief, hit-and-run transgressor? The facts, we should check those.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/13/18227238-we-dont-want-to-have-some-sort-of-a-stage-show?lite
ranchandsyrup
@Ash Can: Fire up the Brazilian Drone program!
RP
Genius.
libarbarian
Any got insights into the Conservative obsession with language over the last decade?
Part of me thinks that it’s related to their Green Lantern Theory of Everything – if we only labeled things exactly right then we can solve every problem or something
Elizabelle
I’m thinking on taking a break from politics-watching for a few weeks.
@danimal:
Very true.
Plus, too much of the press would rather write about a scandal (real or imagined) than cover policy, which is hard.
Also: covering policy honestly would get Republicans up in arms, because their record is poor and even when they have a nugget of a good idea, they take it to its radically insane length.
And, for the most part, the press will not say that openly either.
schrodinger's cat
Who is Dan Burton and why was he shooting a thesaurus?
ETA: Checked the link, some wingnut Congress Critter from the Clinton era.
Ash Can
And this is every possible flavor of awesome:
A politician is claiming that it’s a scandal that another politician parsed his words in such a way that it would make him look better, in the course of campaigning for office. Stop the fucking presses.
Fucking amazing.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It’s all about the words. Notice how “act of terror” contains three words and four syllables, while “terrorist attack” contains only two words but five syllables. You could take two breaths between the words in the first phrase, but you’d better fill your lungs to say the second one.
Or something…
Calming Influence
In a sane world, anyone spending even one hour “investigating” this, much less convening a hearing, would be run out of Washington on a rail for governmental Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. (In the original German, Vastefraudenbuse!)
? Martin
Man, Issa is just the worst kind of politician scumbag. Always has been. He financed a recall election for the specific purpose of electing himself governor without having to go through the primary process, only to be denied when a certain action hero jumped into the contest. Joseph McCarthy was an honest statesman compared to Issa.
Southern Beale
I think they’re just trying to associate the word “Benghazi” with “something really bad/sleeazy/scandalous” so that in a year they can trot the word out in ads against HIllary (“implicated in the Benghazi scandal,” “key player in covering up the Benghazi scandal”). No one really gives a shit what that actually is because it doesn’t matter. That’s not the point.
Mnemosyne
To be fair, a lot of fundamentalists and evangelicals really do believe that saying some specific magic words in the right order will prevent you from going to Hell.
Libertarians also frequently seem to be obsessed with the idea that words have to be said in a specific order to mean what everyone says they mean. I don’t really get it, but it seem to be pretty common with that crowd, which is why they’ve latched onto the “He said ‘act of terror’ not ‘terrorism’!” freakout.
scav
Somebody photoshop something of all these clowns holding up a King-size Crazy-quilt made up wholecloth of patched together scraps shouting “Cover Up! Cover Up!”. Or, We could collabotate on coming up with all the different pieces to be joined (and quilted) in some form of communial socialistic working together bee. Embroider a fake birth certificate using silk over here, Squeeze in some turban fragments there . . .
Trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup:
Is that how drones get rid of unwanted hair?
Seanly
Ummm, okay…
My Fox News-watching “independent” father-in-law was all about Benghazi when we visited him in Nashville last week. When we got on to the subject of taxes, my wife & I admitted that we’re for some s0cialism.
Amir Khalid
This weak sauce is so weak, it’s beyond homeopathic.
@schrodinger’s cat:
I agree. Post headlines should be in dark red Gothic extra bold. With initial caps.
Fair Economist
Actually, it turns out just to be an attack and not a “terrorist” attack. It wasn’t attempting to terrorize the State Department. (Issa is the one trying to do that) It was an attack to reduce the US’ influence on Libyan politics.
Heliopause
There was a “cover-up”, just not the one the idiot Republicans are talking about. This wasn’t just an attack on diplomats sipping wine with local dignitaries, it was a largely successful attack on the CIA. That embarrassed everybody involved, hence the hashing out of various self-serving talking points into a single version that lacked coherence.
Just Some Fuckhead
Really? Inhofe told me it was more serious than word order.
Citizen_X
I was looking for John Cole’s Juice of Balloon,, but apparently I have come to the wrong place.
Calming Influence
By the way, we can add another crime to the list of things brown people do that are punishable offenses: Cooking While Brown.
The money quote: An FBI agent said: ‘You need to be more careful moving around with such things, Sir’
But if pressure cookers are outlawed, won’t only outlaws have pressure cookers?
? Martin
@Just Fuck Some head: Word order is deadly serious.
Suffern ACE
So its a scandal about talking points and the use of focus group approved terms.
And the president should say things to help his opponents get elected? Is that how powerless we really want the executive?
Elizabelle
Maybe Darrell Issa could sit down with that libtard, Bob Gates:
Christian Science Monitor: Robert Gates: Obama made right decisions night of Benghazi attack
Pokeyblow
Car theft, or an act of car thievery?
Issa owes America an answer.
scav
Worse than Watergate — The dreaded Gate Of Water!!!
Poopyman
So is this blog now Juice of Balloons?
ranchandsyrup
@Trollhattan: Well played TH. Well played. The next innovation in the hair removal industry.
Happy early fire season! My brother was working the fire up in Chico and he is freaked out about the outlook for this year.
beltane
@Suffern ACE: That is exactly how powerless the GOP wants a Democratic president to be. When it’s a Republican in the White House, however, the president is to be given unlimited power over all aspects of foreign and domestic policy, and if anyone dare question the actions of such a president he or she will be immediately deemed a traitor and fifth columnist.
Roger Moore
@quannlace:
Updated for accuracy.
schrodinger's cat
@Calming Influence: The FBI was afraid that something was cooking.
TAPX486
Michelle Bachmann is now claiming that the IRS issue calls into question the validity of the 2012 election.
The well of stupid seems to be bottomless
Ben Cisco
That line of “reasoning” is so half done that EA tried to release it.
Nylund
You have to go deep into the weeds of wingnut sites to get the juicy stuff. Something about how Obama and/or Hillary wanted Stevens dead and deliberately set him up in a dangerous place and refused to help him. Supposedly it has something to do with Petraeus and his mistress as well. Real kooky conspiracy stuff. Issa likes giving red meat to that crowd, but can’t actually state the loony theories publicly, hence this lame “act of terror,” vs. “terrorist attack” answer.
Ben Cisco
@schrodinger’s cat: If only they could have smellllllllllleeeedddah…what the kid….was…cooking.
Ash Can
@jl: I find it very hard to understand how giving applications featuring overtly political language extra scrutiny is in any way wrong, given the fact that the law requires the IRS to deny the tax-exemption applications of certain kinds of partisan organizations in the first place. If they can’t screen applications, then what’s the point of having any limitations on exemptions at all? There’s nothing here.
Mezz (fpa Michael2)
@MikeJ:
Precisely, and they impeached him over it. So now we see the repugitard end game. The media’s laziness enabled them then, and they will enable them now.
Cassidy
There is only one scandal: the GOP cutting security funding for our Diplomats just to play politics with HRC at a time when billions of dollars in contracts were handed out to PMC’s to perform security operations for the State Dept.
beltane
@TAPX486: I hope she continues in this vein. The Obama-voting majority of Americans will love hearing these thinly veiled threats of disenfranchisement, and it’s a needed reminder that when the GOP can’t succeed by lying and cheating, they will always view stealing as an option.
Snarki, child of Loki
I’m pretty sure that they’re endangered in Indiana, if not extinct.
Calming Influence
A lot of this can be explained by the way Benghazi! just rolls off the tongue. If this had happened in Zliten, Libya, for instance, the GOP wouldn’t have had a chance.
Scott Alloway
@schrodinger’s cat: The heads are small caps. I kinda like them. Would look nice in Bernhard Modern font.
Tokyokie
When I read what Issa said, I thought it was an incredibly stupid statement. I feel so much better now knowing that it was actually a statement of incredible stupidity.
beltane
@Mezz (fpa Michael2) Do not call the media lazy. They are the hardest working whores on the planet, busting their well-paid asses day in and day out to convert GOP baboon-speak into serious, credible political discourse. This is the job they are paid to do and they do that job very well.
nellcote
@? Martin:
It’s the New Word Order they’ve been warning us about!
schrodinger's cat
@Ben Cisco: BTW thanks for liking my review of Star Trek, Emissary.
Calouste
@libarbarian:
They’ve devolved into a cargo cult. The words must be in exactly the right order for the magical incarnation to work, the meaning doesn’t matter.
jon
That this is portrayed as a cover up and doesn’t immediately bring about derisive laughter proves that a large portion of the Republicans in Congress and their lackeys, the Beltway Village People, are so stupid that they must repeatedly choke themselves as they attempt to tie their shoes each morning. If this is a cover up, then I must be smarter than all the Republicans in Congress. And if that’s elitist, then I can only say that’s because those people make stupid seem like a barely-achievable goal rather than an insult.
I eagerly await the press conference where Obama employs the Chewbacca Defense to defend himself against these attacks. If he has a chart where Darrel Issa is an Ewok, I will donate $500 to his campaign’s next email cause.
Soonergrunt
@pseudonymous in nc: I see what you did there.
Patrick
I am speechless…
If other countries are paying attention to the clowns in Congress, they must be wondering why the hell we keep electing such brain-dead people.
Calming Influence
@TAPX486: In all fairness, Bachmann may be on to something. If the IRS hadn’t unfairly squelched the apolitical tax-exempt Tea Party groups from raising huge amounts of money for Romney’s campaign, he might have had a chance!
nellcote
via Politico in 2010:
Baucus seeks probe of GOP groups
By: Kenneth P. Vogel
September 29, 2010 12:09 PM EDT
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Wednesday called on the Internal Revenue Service to investigate political activity by non-profit groups, specifically the GOP-allied groups spending tens of millions of dollars raised from anonymous donations to boost Republican congressional candidates headed into the critical midterm elections.
Recent media reports detailing the activities of big-spending GOP-leaning political groups “have raised serious questions about whether such organizations are operating in compliance with the Internal Revenue Code,” Baucus wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman.
danimal
@Heliopause: You have hit the target dead center. The CIA was acting under cover of the State Department. And the cover was blown up, burnt down and exposed to the world.
Trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup:
Smart man, your bro. We’re luxuriating in a 17% of average snowpack and have already had a dozen or more days in the 90s. Popped up to Amador county wine country Saturday and the hills are already brown, which shouldn’t happen for another month. The state should just set aside its recent unexpected revenue for firefighting, because they’re spending the money on that whether they like it or not.
Roger Moore
@Calming Influence:
Pressure cookers are only being banned for suspicious looking furriners. Honest, Red-White-and-Blue blooded Real Americans® will still be allowed to have them.
Villago Delenda Est
Lolwhut?
Just when you think they’ve found the Marianas Trench of stupid, they dig even deeper.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@beltane:
And the reason why so many 501c4 tea party applications were audited is because there are so many more of them. The IRS was inundated with applications from these groups after the tea party was born in 2009. Some areas have multiple tea party orgs all doing the same thing.
This IRS “scandal” reminds me of the “gaffe” Obama committed because he pointed out, correctly, that a lot of folks cling to their God, guns and hating folks not like them when things aren’t going their way. Those are the Republicans 3 main causes – God/Jesus being denied, Obama is gonna take yer guns and the Mexicans are too dumb to be allowed to become citizens.
jl
@Ash Can:
No, there is nothing wrong with looking for bogus tax exempt applications. I do have a problem with implementing a screen for bogus applications that consists of looking for the phrase ‘tea party’ and few other key phrases.
Leaving aside the ethics an legalities of it, I think it is incompetent. As I said previously, it is (edit: way way way! WAY!) too easy to detect and evade.
So, after the hoo haw over the ethics and legalities have died down, I would like to know why the IRS is using such incompetent, ineffective, and easy to detect and evade methods to its job.
Is that clear enough for you?
Edit: If the IRS is forced to use such incompetent methods because they don’t have enough agents or money, then they need more resources.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
They aren’t going to be satisfied until they’ve dug a mohole of stupidity and then gone a bit deeper to create a mantle eruption.
ranchandsyrup
@Trollhattan: My brother works on the fed side but he said the exact same thing you did about the state saving $ for this season. Going to be awful. Stay safe and (relatively) cool up there, Trollhattan.
Trollhattan
@Patrick:
Reminds me of Dinesh D’Souza who goes to the mat with his “Obama an anti-colonialist!” theory, because Obama’s book is titled “Dreams of My Father.”
Now why did’t he use “from,” sheeple? I’ll tell you why: A witch!
vhh
The poetic meter of the words “terror attack” is a troche (– ^) followed by an iamb (^–). The meter of of “act of terror” is two troches. Thus, the Impeachable Offense appears to be . . . using a word stress pattern that does not conform to GOP doctrine. And this makes exactly as much sense as anything that Darrell Issa says about the matter.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ben Cisco:
Burn!
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan:
Can you build a bridge out of him?
Trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup:
Thanks! We’re urban enough that we’re not going up in flames (we just get to breathe the smoke) but I’d best get all my camping done early this year.
Tokyokie
@Ben Cisco: You mean like No. 3 killer Hanada?
http://www.planetvideo.com.au/blog/2009/04/04/branded_rice.jpg
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
You can, but only a privately owned toll bridge, not a commie free (bird) bridge. That would be wrong.
Funkula
Darrell Issa Explains It All.
Mnemosyne
@Trollhattan:
Because he barely knew his father, so the title is referring to the dreams Obama had “of” his absent father?
Nah, too easy.
Comrade Dread
Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Wingnut.
Okay, I speak the 2001 edition and a lot has changed, but if I recall saying “act of terror” makes it sound like a criminal action that took place by petty criminals who should be pursued with the full force of the law.
“Terrorist attack” on the other hand, makes it sound like the act of a military out to destroy us, our civilization, our God, our dog, put our wives and daughters into burqas and harems, and get rid of the bacon and hot dogs, which was performed by sooper-terrists who must be killed or renditioned and tortured in an undisclosed location away from ‘Merika.
So by Obama calling it an ‘act of terror’, he’s not taking terrorism seriously enough, is trying to fool the real ‘Merikans into thinking it was just a normal, sissified criminal action, and lull us all into complacency so the Mooslim Brotherhood (who has INFILTRATED THE GOVERNMENT) can finally unleash their Sharia law and Halel food upon us.
I feel dumber for having typed that. I’m going to have a drink and a long shower now.
muddy
He’s really freaked out by it because he knows the previous president did it the other way to – he relied on color-coded terror alerts at times he needed a boost in the polls, or to distract people from some other horrible shit he was doing.
That’s how a real American would handle it. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, so let’s have a heaping helping of that, and clutch it to ourselves.
Ash Can
@jl:
You want to know what’s clear? Here’s what’s clear:
There was a thread earlier today that dissected this issue in great detail. What really is clear is that the Cincinnati office of the IRS adopted a coping strategy for scrutinizing the flood of 501(c)4 applications that hurt the feelings of certain groups whose applications were being scrutinized. Boo fucking hoo. As Klein says in this article, it’s the IRS’s job to screen these applications. If they were being flooded with applications from left-wing organizations (and some of the office’s tag words could easily apply to them as well), I’d consider it a scandal if the IRS weren’t trying to get through the backlog. And if it meant screening for politically-charged terms, especially in the absence of actual guidelines from above and sufficient personnel and resources (which was pointed out over and over in the earlier thread), I for one find that entirely understandable.
ranchandsyrup
@Funkula: Loved me some Melissa Joan Hart back in the day.
Bobby Thomson
@Ash Can: he isn’t already? Color me surprised.
MattR
@Ash Can: IMO, it was not the perfect way to do things, but it was not an unreasonable attempt given the circumstances.
PS. Can we somehow blame this all on Colbert? Didn’t he create a couple 501(c)4’s along with his SuperPAC?
Calming Influence
OK, what questionable word did I use to put me in moderation? This time? “And”? “The”? “Or”? Gimme a frickin clue.
ETA: And my comment was so timely and relevant! Moderation is depriving the community of my wonderful comment!
Gravenstone
Shorter Issa, if you torture the language enough, it will confess. Of course, we know it’ll be a false confession, but it will still serve the desired political purpose.
IowaOldLady
I see Issa says you can fly commercial from DC to Benghazi in 7 hours. Having just flown from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Lyon, France, I doubt that very much.
Villago Delenda Est
@Calming Influence:
Word Press is being all Joffrey on you.
Calming Influence
The people who wrote the Word Press code need to be slow-roasted on a spit.
Chris
@Cassidy:
I’d need to know a lot more about context (e.g. what that money would have actually gone to) but like I said before, the creeping securitization/militarization of our embassies abroad (culminating in that monstrosity they called “the Green Zone”) pisses off diplomats like there’s no tomorrow because it makes it harder and harder for them to do their jobs, which I imagine would be doubly true of CIA field officers.
The fact that Congress cut security funds is worth pointing out simply to highlight their hypocrisy and the extent to which they couldn’t care less about diplomats’ lives. But I’m not convinced extra security would actually have been wanted, especially given Stevens’ approach to diplomacy.
ericblair
@Calming Influence:
Since the cat’s out of the bag already, you might as well know that we’re ordering a drone assault on Eyjafjallajökull next week. We estimate that the neural damage from the resulting hearings will wipe out 97% of Obama’s enemies within two weeks after the event.
Seebach
@libarbarian:
Actually, the obsession with language reminds me of the Chinese Legalists, also a conservative group. They were obsessed with the “rectification of names”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectification_of_names
The Rectification of Names (Chinese: 正名; pinyin: Zhèngmíng; Wade–Giles: Cheng-ming) is the Confucian doctrine that to know and use the proper designations of things in the web of relationships that creates meaning, a community, and then behaving accordingly so as to ensure social harmony is The Good.[1] Since social harmony is of utmost importance, without the proper rectification of names, society would essentially crumble and “undertakings [would] not [be] completed.”
Tonal (visible) Crow
Republicans have now shifted into hyper-drive, and are rapidly approaching the event horizon at which they become fully self-satirizing.
“Act of terror” vs. “terrorist attack”? Really?
Tonal (visible) Crow
@Calming Influence:
..as they’re repeatedly basted with high-octane sockialism sauce.
catclub
@ericblair: I am surprised that the answer to ‘Where were the Marines?’ Isn’t: the Shores of Tripoli.
Or maybe I am late and missed it.
Bill Arnold
@Fair Economist:
I’ve been wondering as well why there hasn’t been more pushback on this. Basically, it was an attack by a radical Islamist militia, known to be operating openly in the area, using standard light military weaponry, against a CIA base which had diplomatic cover. The attackers were not on a suicide mission.
Tokyokie
@IowaOldLady: Out of curiosity, I just checked. The quickest one can fly commercially from D.C. to Benghazi is just under 17 hours, flying Washington National to JFK, then JFK to Istanbul (not Constantinople), then Instanbul to Benghazi, with about an hour layover at JFK and a couple of hours’ layover in Istanbul. Maybe you could make it in that short of time if you were to fly private charter, but as near as I can tell, there is no direct service between any of the D.C. airports and any North African destination.
Tokyokie
@catclub: However, the shores of Tripoli are still about 400 miles from Benghazi.
beltane
@Tokyokie: Not even from DC to Cairo? And from Cairo I’m sure it’s just a quick camel ride across the desert to Benghazi, 1/2 and hour tops.
bemused
Legislator car thief and arsonist head of oversight committee. Legislature flatearthers on science committee. How anyone can take the GOP seriously is beyond me.
artem1s
@jl:
Since the GOP wants the Teahaddists shut down as they are horning in on their grift, I’m thinking this particular scandal will go nowhere.
David Hunt
@Patrick:
Actually I think what’s going through their minds is closer to, “Oh Fuck! These morons are the last super-power on Earth!”
Cassidy
@Chris: I don’t know the whole context, but the State Dept. had been specifically recruiting combat vets for missions abroad as personnel security.
jl
@Ash Can:
OK, then, we agree! I also think that they should have gone after all 501(c)4s. And I hope they were. And I suspect that Koch brother, Pete Peterson, and, yest, teabagger, groups were more likely to be problematic. But that does not excuse cutting corners, or using ineffective and counterproductive ways to find the frauds.
gelfling545
@Ash Can: This has been troubling me about the IRS deal. Surely I remember correctly that there are frequent calls to rip the tax exempt status from groups engaging in overt political action, no? Frankly I do not believe the IRS is anywhere near vigilant enough in denying exemption to phony non-profits (and I believe this for groups of whatever political persuasion ) and to believe that any group styling itself “tea” anything is most likely not about providing healthy beverages to the poor.
Mostly, though it seems to me that the IRS goes after these things as they recognize a pattern, such as finding that many claims for deduction x are fraudulent, so directing attention to returns claiming exemption x, etc. Thus, if a lot of their “tea” applications seem to fall into the not legitimate group, then the name becomes a red flag.
Tokyokie
@beltane: I checked Rabat, Marrakech, Casablanca, Tenerife (which is technically Spain, but the Canary Islands are usually considered to be part of Africa rather than Europe), Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli, Cairo, Alexandria and even relatively close destinations on different continents such as Lanarca, Malta and Tel Aviv, and there are no direct commercial flights from any D.C. airport. You need to either connect in someplace like New York on this side of the Atlantic or Istanbul (not Constantinople) on the other side. But I’m guessing it’s been awhile since Issa flew overseas on a regularly scheduled commercial flight.
tones
Exactly, they have reluctantly admitted that the “consulate” was really more of a CIA spook factory with very few if any staff who were not agents assets whatever they are called.
The locals figured out that the consulate really was only a house of spies and took action.
Here we are treated to “Our wonderful and peaceful ambassador staff of innocence” when they knew all along it was literally a house of spies.
And they hate Wikileaks for proving to all the world that the vast majority of all ambassadors and consulates are exactly the same thing.
CIA, otherwise known as AL-CIA-duh, the database.
Cassidy
@tones:
Ummm? You needed Wkileaks to tell you this? Way to bravely forge a path out of the 80’s!
gvg
re the IRS scrutiny of groups called tea party-as I recall most of those earlier tea partiers had a rabid thing about taxes and would give higher odds than random chance that a group calling itself anything to do with tea party would be up to tax evasion. Higher than some other kind or republican, conservative or evangelical group. So I don’t find this to be likely to be a real scandal.
David Koch
a winger called Randi Rhodes this afternoon SCREAMING “act of terror” versus “act of terrorism” makes all the difference in the world. So she played a tape of bush using the phase of “act of terror” and he said, that’s different because that was in the past.
I wish i was making this up.
El Cid
@Bill Arnold: If we distinguish between locally armed informally associated groups, local and regional militias, and international terrorist organizations, the terrorists win.