What If Obama Actually Believes This?
Yesterday, Ambassador Susan Rice went around on the talk shows to distribute an odd talking point:
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice blanketed the TV airways Sunday to reinforce the Obama administration’s position that the deadly violence at American outposts across the Middle East last week was the result of an anti-Muslim video -- delivering her message on four morning talk shows.
"What sparked the violence was a very hateful video on the Internet," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday." "It was a reaction to a video that had nothing to do with the United States."
Now, even the folks running Libya aren't so stupid as to advance this line. Heck, they've already rounded up some of the advance plotters for the, um, very very spontaneous attack.When the Obama administration first started spewing this line, I figured they were just trying to buy a few hours of time to get their story straight. But it's been days now, and they keep saying it.All of a sudden I'm terrified that they actually believe this. If so, we're in far worse shape than we may have thought.
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Oct '11
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
By the way, why was Susan Rice on the Sunday morning shows? Where's Hillary Clinton?!
May '10
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
I loved John O'Sullivan's description: "It's like watching a weak swimmer being swept out to sea."
Jun '12
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
There's two possibilities here.
1. They don't believe it. But they know that if they keep saying it, there are those people here who will be comforted and won't have to question their support of the President.
2. They DO believe it, because their ideology says that no one could possibly hate us now that we've taken a sharp left turn, begun to disempower ourselves, started to acquiesce to their demands, etc.
Either way, it's not a good place to be. Personally, I think it's 2. And the reason I think that is the picture you just posted. They're acquiescing and apologizing and hauling people in because they really believe that by doing so we will show how sensitive and understanding we are, and then peace and love and puppies and unicorn rainbows for everyone!
They don't understand that they are showing weakness to an implacable enemy, and thus encouraging them to continue.
To paraphrase Hugh Hewitt, that which pays gets repeated.
Jul '10
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
I might, might, believe that the initial attack on the consulate was spontaneous. Street protests in the Middle East are more intense than the ones we have here, and a country like Libya, fresh from a civil war, is likely awash in lost and stolen military hardware. Okay, fine.
But the follow-on attack, at the covert diplomatic safehouse nobody was supposed to know about? Precisely timed to the arrival of the US/Libyan extraction team with the evacuees? Accurate, well-timed mortar fire on a point target does not just "happen".
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with mortars knows this is bogus.
Aug '12
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
Out here in Flyover Country, we can tell when someone is an idiot without have to send them for an IQ test. We can also tell that Obama and his entire crew must be hitting the choom pretty hard.
Dec '11
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
Any opposition has to be spontaneous and any bad economic news has to be unexpected when you believe that you think you have solved the diplomatic and economic problems. It is really hard to decide which is worse is the administration fooling us or are they fooling themselves?
I often wish I could connect Jay Carney or David Axelrod up to a lie detector. This could make some interviews and press conference a whole lot more interesting.
Mar '11
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
The U.S. is a Chevy Suburban going 110 mph in the fast lane on I-95 with a 2 year-old standing on the front seat playing with the steering wheel while staring at all the pretty lights on the dash.
Jul '12
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
I was very impressed that the local New York CBS station aired the story along with its very public rebuttal from Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, saying that it was a planned attack (although perhaps disingenously blaming it on "foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago"). An actual crack in the Obama Protection Wall?
Mar '12
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
Seriously?! The Obama administration doesn't believe this. They do, however, have a low enough regard for the American people and the press sycophants to believe that we can be made to believe it. It's the timing that surprises me. If you need to be terrified, think about what they have planned for an October surprise. And Mr. Arthur, where's Hillary? Two ideas come to mind. She seemed to be truly upset at the loss of Ambassador Stevens. Perhaps she is distancing herself from the lack of adequate reaction and concern from the White House. Else, she may be full-force preparing for October. This WH has more than one shoe left to drop. Terrified? That's a time when I assume a posture: on my knees, and thank God for opening our ears to hear Truth.
Jun '10
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
The terrorists are the cattle rustlers calling ahead to make sure that further up I-95 all the lanes are full of standing cattle.
Dec '10
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
To put a little cynicism on it, I don't think it matters what they believe. What they know is that the Romney campaign will say it is not just in response to a stupid internet video, and they can't be seen agreeing with Romney regardless of the cost in American lives. There's an election to win.
Aug '11
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
I've been assuming that they're trying to keep their story straight. I figured that once they announced they weren't answering any more questions on the grounds that there's an Ongoing Investigation, that was the signal that they needed to shut up all the various state department officials who weren't yet on the same page.
So Susan Rice is just giving the official line, but they most certainly know it's false.
The sad part is, the citizens are buying this official line. That's what terrifies me the most. I thought maybe this would shake the faith of the cult members, but the Obamazoids are still quite devoted to The One. That's frightening.
Jun '12
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
I never thought I'd see the day when a Libyan president was more truthful than an American president. I am starting to really worry that the destruction wrought by President Obama and the Democrats is irreversible. I simply cannot fathom how anyone could support this man. But I know people who do.
Jan '11
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
We're dealing with a classic case of Belief Formation.
Is it that they believe self-serving nonsense? Or do they know it's a lie and they keep repeating it for self-serving gains?
There's another possibility, fairly common among humans:
When you can't admit to being wrong, you cling to any explanation that makes you look right.
Nov '10
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
There must be a Bradley Effect going on here. There is no other possible explanation for half the country apparently thinking these nitwits are doing a good job at anything.
Mar '11
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
Okay, so, let's pretend we actually by premise (1), that it was spontaneous. When the spontaneous crowd was almost immediately co-opted by extremists with heavier weapons, does this not indicate that the extremists recognize the uses of such chaos? That perhaps before this particular incident they might have considered the consequences of such a situation breaking out, and were immediately able to set in motion a contingency plan to take startling advantage of it?
Moreover, so, it is "quite common" in post-revolutionary Libya for militias who have refused to disarm to roam about in public--a fact that surprises none of us familiar with failed states where no monopoly on the use of force exists.
In that case, Ambassador, why was it that our diplomat's security detail was so light?
Sep '10
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
Ms. Rice displayed that common bureaucratic skill of making even fantastic and horrible events sound boring.
I watched her on Fox News Sunday and I could feel all the oxygen being sucked from the room whenever she started to drone on about how normal all this is and how they are just following standard operating procedure by evacuating non-essential personnel.
Nothing to see here.
Feb '12
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
KC Mulville:
When you can't admit to being wrong, you cling to any explanation that makes you look right. · 2 hours ago
Spot on!. This, right there! They absolutely believe what they're shoveling. Extreme confidence in the job that they are doing are a hallmark of this administration.
Jun '10
Re: What If Obama Actually Believes This?
Wylee Coyote: Accurate, well-timed mortar fire on a point target does not just "happen".
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with mortars knows this is bogus.
Please allow me to piggyback on this terrifically astute observation:
RPGs, RPKs, and mortars are expensive, and typically not laying around in quantity, especially in the amounts needed to mount large-scale, sustained attacks on two locations almost simultaneously. Also, these kinds of things aren't learned from teh intarwebs; Benghazi was done by pros. The only reason Cairo didn't turn into a fiasco was because (no big secret here) we have a very old, strong, and well-trusted network of sources in Egypt, second only to the Brits. In Cairo we paid heed and evacuated; in Benghazi we didn't, whether from distrust or hubris, we can't know, because our intel manager was murdered.
Which brings me to the article. Why is FBI investigating? Forensics, and maybe an attempt at filling the human intelligence vacuum. Contra to what Rice says in another interview, there is NO "consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community" other than State is in panic mode, and this CYA is damaging intelligence and diplomatic efforts.