It's not unreasonable to have questions about the Benghazi affair. It's natural, given the fog of mayhem that day, that uncertainties would linger. And since a global superpower's response to such a surprise assault would entail the reactions of vast and interlocking but still separate and quite human bureaucracies, from Defense to CIA to State to the White House, it is hardly shocking that mysterious gaps and logical lapses would appear in the record.
That, anyway, would be a fair conclusion reached by most any reasonable person.
So how did Sen. John McCain, appearing on today's "Meet the Press," frame the gnawing uncertainties he has about Benghazi? Why, as a "massive cover-up on the part of the administration," of course. Not as inescapable gaps, or inevitable human errors, or logical lapses, or even as a mere cover-up, which in itself begins to travel into obstruction-of-justice territory. No, this is a massive cover-up.
Yeah, that should do it. When your standard-issue hysteria isn't working, crank it up. Avoid fair conclusions and calm reasonableness at all costs. Yeah, most voters really admire that.
One sure sign that you have a gambling addiction is when your response to a loss is to double-down every. single. time.
Posted by: Chris Andersen | February 17, 2013 at 04:29 PM
Good one, Chris. Very. Good. One.
Posted by: Beauzeaux | February 17, 2013 at 04:54 PM
I guess if it's not selling, sell it harder. The republicans really don't care what happened. Not that that's news to anyone here. If they were, they'd be more interested in finding who did it and bring them to justice instead of just laying all of the blame at the Obama administration's feet, in the hope of what? Impeaching him? They were already trying to sell this hysteria before the election, it didn't work. Now they are leaving us without a Secretary of Defense over it-for now-anyway. They didn't seem this concerned about another administration ignoring all the warnings before another 9/11 happened.
Posted by: AnneJ | February 17, 2013 at 05:47 PM
Hmm. Ambassedor travels to insecure location where, apparently the only people he could be meeting were the people who died with him. And those were people who for all practical purposes remained nameless for several days. In other words they were members of he intelligence community and the meeting was clandestine. If there needed to be a reason for that same community to give somewhat misleading talking points to people like Susan Rice I think you need look no further. Did they need to buy time to alert other agents or their contacts that covers were blown? Did they need to extract other people who couldn't be named for the same reason Valerie Plame couldn't be? Inquiring minds might want to know but probably shouldn't. Maybe there is a cover up but maybe there there was a damn good reason for a cover up. And maybe I read too much Lecarre.
Posted by: Peter G | February 17, 2013 at 06:18 PM