The Presidential election is only a few days away. As with any election involving an incumbent, the result will not only tell the story of which candidate’s message resonated more strongly with the American people, but it will also be a referendum on the current administration. In the end, it will either be a ringing endorsement of the last four years or a stern rebuke. Obviously, issues like the economy and ObamaCare will carry the most weight in determining the outcome, but I would like to suggest that another area ought to be considered with equal care. Whether we are speaking about the cronyism of the bailouts or the scandal-plagued Department of Justice, this Administration has been marked by corruption and deception to an unfathomable degree. And in the wake of Fast and Furious, when many of us said that we were witnessing the worst scandal to involve a United States President, the White House outdid themselves with the 9/11 embassy attacks. I submit to you that while Benghazi may not rank high on the average voter’s list of priorities, the endorsement or rebuke of the President on this particular issue will have wide-sweeping cultural ramifications.
The Lynch-Mob
Leading up to the string of attacks on our embassies, the now infamous YouTube video, had been viewed by just about no one. It hadn’t gone viral. It wasn’t the subject of blog posts or a conversation starter in online forums. It had been viewed less than a hundred times. And yet, when the tragedy took place, our leaders boldly pointed the finger at the video’s creator. Ambassador Rice immediately began making the rounds on television shows to push the White House narrative. Hilary Clinton repeatedly, even during a memorial service for those killed in the attack, blamed the “disgusting and reprehensible” video. The President himself blamed the video in numerous interviews and speeches, including high-profile appearances before the UN, on Letterman, and the View. He called the film’s producer a “shadowy character” and bizarrely proclaimed, to an international audience at the UN, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Jay Carney insisted that despite the fact that numerous attacks were made on the anniversary of 9/11 and protesters were shouting “Obama, Obama we are all Osama,” that the events were not aimed at “any policy of the United States or the government of the United States or the people of the United States.” He reiterated the official position, they were “in reaction to this movie.” And for weeks, this went on. The President’s most faithful celebutants followed suit. George Clooney said “Freedom of speech means you have to allow idiots to speak, and that’s the unfortunate thing.” Bette Midler whined, “Who are the idiots who made the video and put it on YouTube? When do we meet them? They should be charged with murder.” That was the general consensus among left-wing pundits and pop culture icons. Whoever this “shadowy” guy was, he was evil, and a murderer, and we should know his name. And then, we did. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was forced to hide out with family members. The calls went out for his arrest. Free speech is great, but surely we could arrest him for something. Before long, investigators brought him in for questioning to determine if they had grounds to charge him with anything, or what the ACLU and the liberal writers of Law and Order usually like to call a “fishing expedition.” Sure enough, they found something. He was arrested for violating the terms of his probation because he directed the film under an alias and accessed the internet without permission from his probation officer. And while arresting someone for violating their probation is both common and just, holding a non-violent offender, without bail, certainly isn’t. At this time, more than a month after we knew for sure that his video played no role in the Benghazi tragedy, he sits in jail because he is still considered a “danger to the community.” No one has offered him so much as an apology.
Mr. Nakoula may very well be a petty criminal and a first-rate jerk, but he did not deserve to be falsely accused by the leader of the free world of causing American deaths. The President knew, from day one, that there was no protest leading up to the attack, and he encouraged an entire nation to funnel their rage squarely on the head of one man. His administration encouraged a lynch-mob mentality, putting the personal safety of both the filmmaker and his family at enormous risk, when they knew all along this man didn’t deserve it. He was a crook and a liar who made a tacky low-budget movie. He was unsympathetic and an easy target. It is the sort of situation that we used to watch unfold only in third-world countries and oppressive regimes like the Soviet Union. The government messes up and instead of taking responsibility, offers up an unlikeable nobody as the fall-guy. It’s the sort of thing that we used to look at and say, “man it would be terrible to live under a government like that.” And while the story has a somewhat sunnier tone because the truth, or at least some of it, has come out, it is important to remember that this is through no action of the Obama Administration. It was not until documents and emails were leaked to the press that the President and his cabinet acknowledged that this was a terrorist attack, totally unrelated to the YouTube video. We should be terrified to think that our leaders would knowingly allow an innocent party to take the blame for their own incompetence, but this is so much worse than that. They invented the story, actively promoted it, and then fanned the flames of outrage both here and abroad. So much for “innocent until proven guilty.” Allowing such people to have four more years is a frightening proposition. If you think it took a lot of arrogance and disdain to pull something like this in the first place, imagine how it will be when those responsible believe they got away with it. They will only be emboldened to do it again, perhaps more carefully, and the fragile trust between the people and our representatives will be utterly shredded.
The Press
The President was not alone in pushing the movie-review-gone-wild theory. He couldn’t have done it without an enthusiastic press. I can’t fault them for the amount of coverage this story received early on. It is a big story and it deserves a lot of attention. The problem is that almost every network, except for that one liberals hate so much, ran full-steam ahead with the video story, without ever raising an eyebrow. They forgot the investigative part of “investigative reporting!” Consider that this is the same media who told us not to jump to conclusions when a lunatic shouting “Allah Akbar” shot up Fort Hood. The same reporters who pronounce the word a-lleg-ed-ly in slow-motion when discussing Michael Jackson. These same “journalists” helped spread the story that one man set off an international string of riots, with ZERO supporting evidence. Our society romanticizes the press as these relentless seekers of truth. The heavyweights of network news write biographies and speak at college graduations about how they took on the government and “spoke truth to power.” But, in reality, they’re not only afraid to speak truth to power, they’re afraid to ask it a question. The President of Libya put his standing as an ally and millions of dollars in U.S. aid at risk when he came forward and disputed President Obama’s claims only days after the attack. And yet, no one (outside of conservative media) was very interested in looking into it. At that point, long before the piles of damning evidence that we have today came out, any journalist worth his salt should have been all over this story. Even if they were certain our President would be proven correct, a credible news organization would have thrown every available resource into finding out why the two stories didn’t match. They should have found it odd, that the despite White House claims that an investigation was under way, the FBI was blocked from investigating until October. This was the sort of story that journalists are supposed to drool over, but they weren’t even curious.
Before long, it became obvious that President Obama had made fools of the mainstream media. The story he gave them was proven to be absolutely false. And while a few reporters claimed to be “upset” that they were misled, they still weren’t willing to ask any tough questions. There were emails showing unanswered requests for security, live-streaming video of the attack, orders to stand down, testimony that everyone knew from the beginning it was a terrorists attack, and word that nearby US troops were not sent to stop the 7 hour attack. When finally given a chance to question the President, the best Mika Brzezinski could muster was, “Why has it been so easy for the Administration’s critics to say it does not have its story straight on Benghazi?” The President then blathered on about how much it “offends” him when people say that and, by the way, he’s got “a pretty good track-record” when it comes to stuff like this. And that was good enough for Mika. From one network to the next, the story was the same. As soon as it turned out that this was going to make the President look bad, they either dropped the Benghazi story in favor of more Mitt-romney-binders-of-women jokes or spent all their investigative powers determining how bad the President’s feelings must hurt right now. With the election on the line, the press tossed aside any pretense of integrity and went into full-on campaign and cover-up mode. This sent an important message to the White House, no matter what the charges, most of the press would rather help advance liberalism than help spread the truth. To appreciate the cultural significance of re-electing Barack Obama, you need only to picture two things; a government that doesn’t fear the press and a press that thinks the people don’t notice.
The Military
Perhaps the most culturally significant aspect of the Benghazi tragedy is an apparent disregard for human life, particularly the lives of our soldiers. As disturbing as it was to hear about the horrific death of our Ambassador and to find out that we had been lied to about the events leading up to the attack, it was nothing compared to the shock I felt when I read about the final hours of the lives of Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. What we know so far is that the former Navy SEALS were about a mile away from the consulate when they heard the gunfire. According to reports, they requested to go to the aid of the Ambassador Stevens several times and were told to “stand down.” They went anyways. Despite being overwhelming outnumbered, they did their best to protect the people in the consulate. During the seven hour attack, with help less than an hour away, no one else came. Sources who have heard the audio tapes of communications from the annex say that Woods can be heard begging for air support. None came. And while White House officials can argue about who did or did not give the order to “stand down,” there is no dispute that live-streaming video of the attack was playing in the Situation Room. And still, they sent no one. Help was literally a phone-call away.
The President has yet to answer as to whether or not he was in the Situation Room, but we know that he was in the White House at the time. So, either he was somewhere else in the building for seven hours and didn’t bother to check out what was going on, or he was watching the live feed and didn’t bother to intervene. The President continues to claim that he both sprung into action and was totally unaware of anything that happened. He was strategizing with his staff, but he isn’t sure if he was in the room with them. The safety of the men and women stationed there were always his top priority, but he can’t recall ever reading their numerous requests for security before the attack. He immediately started an investigation into what went wrong, but blocked the FBI investigators from going in until October. He claims to be wrecked with grief over the loss of life in Benghazi, but when the bodies of two heroes who risked their lives to save others made it home, he was still talking about a stupid YouTube video. According to Charles Woods, Tyrone’s father, Secretary Clinton came up to him at his son’s memorial service and swore that the Obama Administration would see the people who caused this tragedy brought to justice, the ones who made the video. If not for the leaks coming from distraught sources on the inside, we would have never known of the heroics which took place that day. Barack Obama and his staff would have robbed the grieving parents of even that small comfort. And for what? For national security? To keep some secret that could save millions of lives? No, because on day one they invented some silly story about a movie and they wanted to keep it going.
The men and women who volunteer for oversees military and security duties, know the risks going in. They know that they will serve with and under imperfect men. Men who will at times experience lapses in judgement and maybe even courage. They don’t expect everything to go according to plan, but they also don’t expect to be abandoned by their President. It is tragic every time a soldier dies in defense of this nation, but it unconscionable for one to die because of a cheap political maneuver. We are a nation that respects and admires our soldiers. We cannot place them in hands of a commander that doesn’t lead them with the same level of respect and admiration. You can tell a lot about a nation by how they treat their soldiers. If we allow this President to serve another four years, I shudder to think what it says about us.
I’ve heard a few conservative pundits, Glenn Beck most notably, respond to the Benghazi revelations with some variation of the same phrase, “I no longer recognize my country.” And I think there is something to that. The tragedy which unfolded in Benghazi is not an isolated story, but one that embodies the shift that has taken place in our nation. Four years ago every major network started their evening news with total death count from the Iraq war. Does anyone even know how many have died since then? Would you be surprised to know that more have died in the last four years than in George W. Bush’s two terms in office? Four years ago, covering Cindy Sheehan was a staple for network news. Today, no one is interested in interviewing Charles Woods. Four years ago, our elementary-aged children knew about the massive breach of trust Richard Nixon committed with Watergate. Today, how many adults don’t have a clue about the misdeeds of our sitting President? Four years ago, Americans would have been screaming in the streets if they thought for even a second that the White House had watched Americans die in real-time and did nothing. Four years ago, we would have demanded the resignations of anyone who dared to blame an international tragedy on an innocent man. When we vote on Tuesday we are not just voting between two candidates. We are delivering our verdict on the last four years. We will either tell the President that we don’t mind turning a blind eye to negligence, incompetence, and deceit or we will tell him that we’ve been watching all along. The country that allows the Benghazi tragedy to stand is one that is foreign to me. On November the sixth, I hope to see a country I recognize.
