Hillary Clinton on Benghazi: The Fog of War or the Murk of Mendacity?

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In a Washington Free Beacon article entitled "Clinton Says She Never Lied About Benghazi, Cites ‘Fog of War’ Instead During Interview," Aaron Kliegman writes about Hillary Clinton's interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week." Kliegman writes:

"Host Stephanopoulos ... played two clips, each showing a parent of one of the victims saying that Clinton lied directly to them about the cause of the attack, including Charles Woods, father of retired Navy Seal Tyrone Woods, before asking, 'Did you tell them it was about a film? And what’s your response?'

Clinton responded that she has already answered all of these questions and 'can’t help it that people think there has to be something else there,' referring to Republicans who have been investigating the Benghazi attack.

She continued, 'I said very clearly, there had been a terrorist group, uh, that had taken responsibility on Facebook, um, between the time that, uh, I – you know, when I talked to my daughter, that was the latest information; we were, uh, giving it credibility. And then we learned the next day it wasn’t true. In fact, they retracted it. This was a fast-moving series of events in the fog of war and I think most Americans understand that.'

Stephanopoulos did not ask a follow-up question before moving the interview to Clinton’s unfavorable poll numbers amongst voters regarding her trustworthiness."

Indeed, there was no follow-up question from Stephanopoulos, who should have asked if Clinton was again in contact with the parents of the victims to inform them that the "film" had nothing to do with the attack.

It is no wonder that American voters believe by a nearly two-to-one margin that Clinton is lying about Benghazi.

Glenn Kessler, "Is Hillary Clinton a ‘liar’ on Benghazi?": Who Checks the Checker?

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In a Washington Post "Fact Checker" column entitled "Is Hillary Clinton a ‘liar’ on Benghazi?," Glenn Kessler assigns Marco Rubio two Pinocchios for claiming that Hillary was "exposed as a liar" after she "spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that [the Benghazi massacre] was because of a video." Kessler justifies these Pinocchios by asserting:

"Rubio is certainly within his rights to point out Clinton’s contradictory statements — and the remarks of the family members give us pause — but he does not have enough evidence to label Clinton a liar."

Yup, we should all take the word of Hillary "I remember landing under sniper fire" Clinton over the statements coming from the family members.

For more concerning Kessler's abominable handling of this matter, see Mark Hemingway's article entitled "Did WaPo's Fact Checker Inadvertently Expose Clinton Disseminating Classified Info on Benghazi?" in The Weekly Standard.

Shame on you, Kessler! Any credibility that you might have once wielded has now gone flying out the window of Mastro Geppetto's workshop.

Maureen Dowd, "The Empire Strikes Back": Does Truth Still Matter?

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Maureen Dowd is no fan of Hillary Clinton. In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Empire Strikes Back," Dowd upbraids the Republican members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi  for their inept questioning of America's former secretary of state; however, she also pinpoints Hillary's responsibility for the Libyan debacle. Dowd writes:

"Since she was, as her aide Jake Sullivan put it, 'the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya,' one of the Furies, along with Samantha Power and Susan Rice, who had pushed for a military intervention on humanitarian grounds, Hillary needed to stay on top of it.

She had to be tenacious in figuring out when Libya had deteriorated into such a caldron of jihadis that our ambassador should either be pulled out or backed up. In June 2012, the British closed their consulate in Benghazi after their ambassador’s convoy was hit by a grenade. A memo she received that August described the security situation in Libya as 'a mess.'

When you are the Valkyrie who engineers the intervention, you can’t then say it is beneath you to pay attention to the ludicrously negligent security for your handpicked choice for ambassador in a lawless country full of assassinations and jihadist training camps."

Dowd further declares:

"Trey Gowdy and his blithering band of tea-partiers went on a fishing expedition, but they forgot to bring their rods — or any fresh facts."

Not so fast, Maureen! As Stephen Hayes writes in a Weekly Standard article entitled "Still Waiting for the Truth":

"Charles Woods has been waiting a long time for the truth. He met his son’s body at Joint Base Andrews, three days after the attacks, at a solemn ceremony in just outside Washington, D.C. He first met Clinton at that brief memorial service. He remembers it well, in part, he says, because he took notes immediately after he spoke with her.

. . . .

He recorded Clinton’s exact words. 'We are going to have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of your son,' he read. Then he looked up. 'I remember those words: ‘who was responsible for the death of your son.’ She was blaming him and blaming the movie.'

Woods was skeptical at the time that she was telling the truth. His doubts were validated with each new revelation of the administration’s post-attack dissembling. But he was shocked by what he learned in the hearing Thursday.

At 11:12 p.m. on September 11, 2012, the night of the attacks, Hillary Clinton wrote to her daughter, Chelsea, and noted that the compound in Benghazi had been attacked by 'an al Quaeda-like group.' She did not mention a video, as she had in her public statement, released by the State Department an hour earlier.

The following day, September 12, 2012, Clinton spoke with Egyptian prime minister Hesham Kandil. Their discussion was captured by a State Department note-taker, whose job is to record conversations among high-level diplomats by producing a near-verbatim summary.

'We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film,' Clinton explained to Kandil, according to the State Department memo. 'It was a planned attack – not a protest.'"

Yes, Hillary lied to Charles Woods. She also lied to Patricia Smith. And Susan Rice, another of Dowd's so-called Furies, lied to the entire nation, with the knowledge and approval of President Obama, for which she was rewarded with the post of United States National Security Advisor.

Which brings me to the question of whether moral integrity still matters in today's world. Can a US presidential candidate flagrantly lie without repercussions to the parents of terror victims, in order to attain the highest office in the land? Regrettably the answer must wait until November 8, 2016, unless the FBI tosses a monkey wrench into Hillary's political machine before said date.

Gail Collins, "Hillary and Benghazi": An American Tragedy

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In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary and Benghazi," Gail Collins writes of the proceedings of the House Select Committee on Benghazi and Hillary's imminent testimony before that body:

"The first step on the road to national sanity is to acknowledge that our leaders all want to keep the people safe. There is absolutely no reason to worry on that point."

Sorry, Gail, but I don't believe that. Not when President Obama can run off to play golf just minutes after expressing his grief over the beheading of American journalist James Foley. Not when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can promise Patricia Smith, mother of slain Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, a full accounting of the September 11, 2012 attack, and then just ignore Ms. Smith. You see, politics on both sides of the aisle is awash in narcissism, and most politicians don't give a damn about anyone except themselves.

Gail Collins continues her op-ed by observing:

"How do you know if politicians are transcending their parties when they’re investigating these painful and sensitive matters? Well, do they seem interested in important but unsexy issues like the State Department security chain of command?"

"Chain of command"? What are you intimating, Gail? That Hillary was too high up at the State Department to bear personal responsibility for the disaster? Well, I don't give a flying f*ck (pardon my French) about chains of command. A disaster of this magnitude occurs, and the head of the State Department should take personal responsibility . . . and not run for president. But Hillary, being Hillary, comes first.

What exactly did Hillary know prior to the disaster? Perhaps we will never know, owing to Hillary's erasure of her emails. (Let's see what the FBI determines regarding her use of a private server and the erasure of her emails, notwithstanding Obama's attempt to meddle with the investigation.) Collins says of Hillary's attempt to wipe clean her server:

"I believe I speak for many when I say that if email had been around during the Nixon administration, we would have seen erasures the size of Mount Whitney."

Nixon would have behaved worse than Hillary? I find that less than reassuring.

Which brings me to Biden's decision not to run against Hillary for the Democratic nomination. We still need to hear from the FBI, but as of now, Hillary appears to have the nomination in her pantsuit pocket. Now we must wait and see if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, thus heralding a hurricane of narcissism which might never wind down.

Maureen Dowd, "Will Hillary Clinton Be Pilloried by the Benghazi Committee?": Joe, It's Not Too Late

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In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Will Hillary Clinton Be Pilloried by the Benghazi Committee?," Maureen Dowd concludes:

"It’s not that Hillary has gotten so much more trustable. It’s just that the Republicans are so much less credible."

However, before reaching this determination, Dowd also observes:

"It remains hard to believe that Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other personnel could have been under attack at different facilities in Benghazi, Libya, over a span of seven and a half hours without any nearby military bases ready and able to provide air cover.

. . . .

Hillary’s decision to circumvent the State Department email system showed bad and paranoid judgment, and left her official emails as secretary vulnerable to hacking. And all her tap dancing that other secretaries did it and that none of the emails were marked classified at the time she sent or received them doesn’t get her off the hook."

Dowd is correct: The conduct of the Benghazi Committee reflects partisan interests, but heck, was the decision of Democrats, including Hillary, to line up behind President Obama and back his bogus nuclear deal with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei any more honorable?

What do these same Democrats have to say about Iran's October 11 testing of a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, which, according to Samantha Power, constituted "a clear violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1929"? Answer: Nothing.

Or stated otherwise, it's a rotten world, powered by narcissism and personal interest.

My question, however, is different: Doesn't the United States deserve better than Hillary?

Please, Joe, it's not too late.

David Brooks, "Hillary Clinton’s Opportunist Solution!": Congrats, David, You're on Hillary's Hit-List

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary Clinton’s Opportunist Solution!," David Brooks lambastes Hillary's opportunism. Brooks observes:

• "She’ll say what she needs to say now to become Bernie Sanders in a pantsuit."
• "When she announced her opposition [to the Trans-Pacific Partnership] to Judy Woodruff on the 'PBS NewsHour' she was performing a flip-flop of the sort that leaves gymnasts gaping and applauding."
• "[Hillary's flip-flop on the Trans-Pacific Partnership] suggested a whole style of campaigning and method of governing based on the principle of unprincipledness."

Congratulations, David, you're now on Hillary's hit-list - yes, it has been alleged that she keeps the names on a spreadsheet - and although my belief is that the email scandal should have ended her presidential campaign months ago, this could still prove a very dangerous place to be.

I would only add that Hillary is not alone when it comes to governing on the "principle of unprincipledness." Hillary has a soulmate in Vladimir Putin, and a new Washington Post opinion piece entitled "How America can counter Putin’s moves in Syria" by Condoleezza Rice and Robert M. Gates is well worth reading.

A flip side to Brooks's flip-flop allegations? In a Times op-ed entitled "It’s All Benghazi," Paul Krugman writes:

"I often wonder about commentators who write about things like those hearings as if there were some real issue involved, who keep going on about the Clinton email controversy as if all these months of scrutiny had produced any evidence of wrongdoing, as opposed to sloppiness."

All these months of scrutiny have produced no evidence of wrongdoing? Sorry, Paul, but don't you think that before reaching a conclusion, we should wait until Hillary and friends produce all the emails? And maybe - just maybe - we should also wait to hear the results of the FBI investigation?

Meanwhile, as reported in a Washington Free Beacon article entitled "Emails Suggest Clinton Pushed Libyan Business Interests of Off-the-Books Adviser" by Lachlan Markay and Brent Scher:

"A Hillary Clinton confidante and informal adviser used his direct access to the then-secretary of state to promote his business interests in Libya during that country’s 2011 unrest, newly released documents reveal.

According to a letter from Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., Okla.), chairman of the House panel investigating the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, Clinton internally raised the possibility of employing American security contractors, one of which Sidney Blumenthal had a direct financial interest in.

In a letter last week to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi committee, Gowdy also reveals that Blumenthal, who frequently emailed Clinton regarding the security situation in Libya, sent an email to Clinton’s personal address containing the name of a Central Intelligence Agency source in Libya.

'This information, the name of a human source, is some of the most protected information in our intelligence community, the release of which could jeopardize not only national security but also human lives,' Gowdy wrote."

Revealing the name of a CIA source to Hillary via a personal email address amounts to mere "sloppiness"? Sorry, Paul, I don't think so. At least not in my neck of the woods.

Dana Milbank, "Trey Gowdy’s unexpected Benghazi twist": Who Cares If Documents Were Culled by Clinton Loyalists?

In his latest Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Trey Gowdy’s unexpected Benghazi twist," Dana Milbank praises Republican Congressman Gowdy for the manner in which he chaired the first public hearing of the House’s new Benghazi select committee on Wednesday:

"There was no discussion of talking points or stand-down orders, and only one of the seven Republicans on the panel — Jim Jordan of Ohio — even mentioned Clinton. Instead, Gowdy adopted as the theme of his first hearing an idea suggested by one of the committee’s Democrats, Adam Schiff of California: How well the State Department has been implementing recommendations to prevent future attacks on U.S. diplomats like the one in Libya two years ago that killed four Americans.

This is exactly what congressional oversight should be: a bipartisan effort by legislators to make sure executive-branch officials don’t repeat past mistakes."

"This is exactly what congressional oversight should be"? Oh really? On Monday, over at The Daily Signal, Sharyl Attkisson wrote in an opinion piece entitled "Benghazi Bombshell: Clinton State Department Official Reveals Details of Alleged Document Review":

"As the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepares for its first hearing this week, a former State Department diplomat is coming forward with a startling allegation: Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to 'separate' damaging documents before they were turned over to the Accountability Review Board investigating security lapses surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward with the story."

Although this could prove "untidy" for Dana Milbank, Mr. Maxwell's story demands a thorough examination by the select committee, extending far beyond "a bipartisan effort by legislators to make sure executive-branch officials don’t repeat past mistakes." At issue is the mere integrity of American democracy.

Maureen Dowd, "42 and 45 Overpower 44": Ignore Benghazi? Wisely and Slow, Mo!

"Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast."

- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"

Can you name a single accomplishment attributable to Hillary in her roles as First Lady, senator or secretary of state? I can't, but why should that stand in the way of her becoming the next president of the United States?

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "42 and 45 Overpower 44" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/opinion/sunday/dowd-42-and-45-overpower-44.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0), Maureen Dowd would have us believe that Hillary is a shoo-in to follow a faltering Obama as America's next president. Dowd writes:

"Things have now reached the point where it feels as though 42 and 45 have already taken over the reins of Washington power from 44, who is fading Snapchat-fast."

According to Dowd, many who supported Obama's candidacy in 2008 at Hillary's expense are now seeking to make amends, including the likes of Samantha Power, who once called Hillary a "monster."

The revival of the "Benghazi Scandal"? Ignore it! After all, her newspaper is not giving it any coverage, and Dowd would also have us know that the allegations are bereft of substance:

"Just to make the Clintons feel completely at home as they ramp up to the restoration, there is even a congressional investigation spurred by the vast right-wing conspiracy.

House Speaker John Boehner announced Friday that he would call a vote to set up a select committee to look into the Benghazi debacle, and whether Congress was misled by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the Obama administration.

As Slate’s Dave Weigel tweeted, 'The nice thing about having a Benghazi select committee is you can roll it over into the Hillary presidency.'"

Of course, it doesn't matter that Beth Jones, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, wrote on September 12, 2012, one day after the fatal attack on the Benghazi consulate (http://chaffetz.house.gov/sites/chaffetz.house.gov/files/US%20Department%20of%20State%20-%20Beth%20Jones%20emails_0.pdf):

"When [the Libyan Ambassador] said his government suspected that former Qaddafi regime elements carried out the attacks, I told him the group that conducted the attacks—Ansar Al Sharia—is affiliated with Islamic extremists."

It doesn't make a particle of difference that two days thereafter, on September 14, 2012, Ben Rhodes wrote the email, suppressed by Obama and friends, stating the administration's "goal":

"To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy."

Nor should it trouble us that on September 16, 2012, Susan Rice took to the airwaves to inform the American people that the attack on the Benghazi consulate was the result of that video:

"[O]ur current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated."

Moreover, it is absolutely of no consequence that Obama and Hillary thereupon disseminated this deceit during the days and weeks to come. Hillary was even cruel enough to foist this falsehood upon Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, one of the four Americans who died during the attack (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/benghazi-victims-mom-obama-hillary-and-biden-all-lied-to-me/).

In a subsequent declaration that will come back to haunt her in 2016, Hillary infamously declared regarding the underlying reasons for the tragedy:

"What difference, at this point, does it make!"

Actually, it should make all the difference in the world, unless we have truly reached a day and age when "public servants" can lie with impunity to the electorate.

Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell (Ret.), "We Should Have Tried" to Help Benghazi Consulate: A Blow to Hillary in 2016?

As reported by NBC News in an article entitled "Official: 'We Should Have Tried' to Help During Benghazi Attack" (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/official-we-should-have-tried-help-during-benghazi-attack-n94796) by Carrie Dann, the US military "should have tried" to send help to the Americans under attack in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, but instead waited for instructions from the State Department:

"A retired military official who served at U.S. Africa Command in Germany during the time of the Benghazi attack says that the United States 'should have tried' to send help to Americans under fire there.

'There are accounts of time, space and capability discussions of the question, could we have gotten there in time to make a difference,' Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell (Ret.) told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 'Well, the discussion is not in the ‘could or could not’ in relation to time, space and capability. The point is we should have tried.'

Lovell also told the panel that U.S. officials knew at the outset of the attack that it was 'hostile action' and not a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islam video. But as the military weighed its reaction, he said, 'there was a lot of looking to the State Department for what it was that they wanted.'"

And then there is also the recently revealed Rhodes email, which established the "goal" of underscoring "that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy" (see: http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-benghazi-documents-point-white-house-misleading-talking-points/).

Could these bombshells have an impact upon the chances of Hillary ('What difference does it make") in 2016? Although her nomination will still be a cakewalk, her election is far from assured.

Might she not run? Not a chance. Vanity will conquer reason.

Maureen Dowd, "Brace Yourself for Hillary and Jeb": It Can't Get Any Worse

Guess I got what I deserve
Kept you waiting there, too long my love
All that time, without a word
Didn't know you'd think, that I'd forget, or I'd regret

- "Baby Blue" by Badfinger

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Brace Yourself for Hillary and Jeb" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/opinion/sunday/dowd-brace-yourself-for-hillary-and-jeb.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0), Maureen Dowd wonders why the Oval Office will remain the domain of the Clinton and Bush families for decades to come. Dowd writes:

"By the time the Bushes and Clintons are finished, they are going to make the Tudors and the Plantagenets look like pikers.

Before these two families release their death grip on the American electoral system, we’re going to have to watch Chelsea’s granddaughter try to knock off George P.’s grandson, Prescott Walker Bush II. Barack Obama, who once dreamed of being a transformational president, will turn out to be a mere hiccup in history, the interim guy who provided a tepid respite while Hillary and Jeb geared up to go at it."

Yup, Obama once dreamed of being a transformational president, but with the economy still in the doldrums, Obamacare a shipwreck, and the world's tyrants laughing in his face, many of us can't wait for him to return to Chicago in 2017.

You get what you deserve, including this insipid op-ed, written at a time when Putin was preparing to send troops into Crimea, despite a warning from America's Procrastinator-in-Chief that "there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine."

Where did Obama go after issuing this threat? Did he descend to the White House Situation Room? No way! He proclaimed "this is now officially happy hour with the Democratic Party" (see: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/02/28/Obama-Takes-a-Friday-Official-Happy-Hour-With-The-Democratic-Party).

At least this time he didn't go to bed, as happened during the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.

Hillary or Jeb as Obama's replacement? As Mark Twain once said, "The institution of royalty in any form is an insult to the human race." On the other hand, it can't get any worse than what we've weathered over the past five years.

The Washington Post, "Senate report: Attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi could have been prevented": Hillary's Goose Is Cooked

Do you remember the "sensational" New York Times article by David Kirkpatrick, again claiming that the attack on the US mission in Benghazi "was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam" (http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=0)? Well, it would now appear that Kirkpatrick's conclusion is questionable to say the least. As reported in a Washington Post article entitled "Senate report: Attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi could have been prevented" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/senate-report-attack-on-us-compound-in-benghazi-could-have-been-prevented/2014/01/15/5e197224-7de9-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html?hpid=z1) by Adam Goldman and Anne Gearan, we now learn:

"A long-delayed Senate intelligence committee report released Wednesday spreads blame among the State Department and intelligence agencies for not preventing attacks on two outposts in Libya that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

The bipartisan report lays out more than a dozen findings regarding the assaults on Sept. 11 and 12, 2012, on a diplomatic compound and a CIA annex in the Libyan city of Benghazi. It says the State Department failed to increase security at its diplomatic mission despite warnings and faults intelligence agencies for not sharing information about the existence of the CIA outpost with the U.S. military.

. . . .

The report also notes, chillingly, that the FBI’s investigation into the attacks has been hampered inside Libya, and that 15 people 'supporting the investigation or otherwise helpful to the United States” have since been killed in Benghazi.'

. . . .

So far, the FBI has charged 13 people in connection with the attacks in sealed criminal complaints. More charges are expected. Members of the terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia, based in the Libyan city of Darnah, have been implicated."

"The State Department failed to increase security at its diplomatic mission despite warnings"? The Ansar al-Sharia organization, which has been linked to al-Qaeda (see: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/29/yes-there-is-evidence-linking-al-qaeda-to-benghazi.html), has been implicated in the attack?

Hillary's goose is cooked, unless Democrats, unlike Republicans such as Governor Chris Christie, need not take responsibility for the failings of their subordinates.

Gail Collins, "The Art of Senate Stoppage": How About the Art of Presidential Mendacity?

"The Art of Senate Stoppage"? How about the art of presidential mendacity?

It used to be that Americans thought that Obama was honest, but this is no longer the case. As reported by CNN (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/12/poll-obama-approval-ratings-drop-americans-say-hes-not-trustworthy/):

"President Barack Obama's approval rating among American voters has dropped to its lowest number in Quinnipiac University polling since he became President, according to a survey released on Tuesday that also raised new doubts about trust.

. . . .

According to the poll, a majority of voters, 52%, say the President is not honest and trustworthy, compared to 44% who say the opposite. It's the first time in Quinnipiac history that the president's trustworthy numbers are underwater."

The president is viewed by Americans as a liar? How can that be? Well, most recently his verisimilitude could not have been helped by repeated declarations that Americans would be able to keep their health care plans, notwithstanding the enactment of the Affordable Health Care Act ("period").

And then there was also the ridiculous attempt by Secretary of State John Kerry to explain away his willingness to sign an agreement with Iran in Geneva, easing sanctions in exchange basically for . . . nothing. We are now learning that this fibbing did not go over well even with Senate Democrats Reid and Schumer (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/world/middleeast/kerry-and-biden-ask-for-room-to-reach-a-nuclear-deal-with-iran.html?ref=world).

And then there was that "small" matter of Benghazi, where four Americans were left to die, while Obama and Hillary slept peacefully in their beds. The dissemination of the falsehood by the Obama administration that the attack was caused by a movie mocking Mohammad? Yes, I know, "What does it matter?"

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Art of Senate Stoppage" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/opinion/collins-the-art-of-senate-stoppage.html), Gail Collins, founder of the Bonbon School of Journalism (best practiced from a cushy couch), tells us that approval of Obama appointees is being blocked by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is threatening to hold up all federal government nominations until survivors of the Benghazi attack are allowed by Obama to appear before Congress. Cute as a button, Collins begins by observing:

"After a while, this sort of thing can weigh down a presidency. For instance, as you’ve listened with mounting frustration to the rollout of HealthCare.gov, did you ever wonder why President Obama is keeping Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, on the job? Try to imagine what would happen if she left. How much chance do you think the president would have of ever getting a replacement? I am thinking slightly worse than the odds on the White House being attacked by giant killer zucchini."

In fact, no one in the Obama administration is ever held accountable for their failures. Example: After Susan Rice made the rounds explaining that the Benghazi attack was caused by the movie, she was subsequently given the position of United States National Security Advisor for taking the heat.

But more to the point, Collins is basically telling us to "get over" Benghazi:

"While Congressional committees have questioned tons of people about Benghazi, he says he needs to hear from five survivors of the attack. The State Department doesn’t want to provide them because they might wind up being witnesses in criminal trials if the perpetrators are ever caught.

The five were already questioned by an independent review commissioned by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That panel found that officials like U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice were wrong when they theorized the attack might have grown out of a protest against a crude movie making fun of Muhammad. The review also found that security at the compound was inadequate. The assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security resigned."

Sorry, Gail, but I don't buy it. I served many years in a combat unit, and there have been those who have claimed that my inability to forgive and forget stems from PTSD, but I would still like to know why Obama and Hillary made no credible attempt to save the four American victims.

Collins concludes:

"The one thing that doesn’t seem to be on Graham’s list of questions that needs answering is whether we should have used military force to topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in the first place. Even if it seemed like a good idea at the time, maybe we ought to reflect. After all, Libya’s not looking like the happy ending we might have hoped for."

Got it: If we had never helped topple Qaddafi by "leading from behind," the Benghazi fiasco would never have happened, i.e. Obama should have trusted his better instincts. But then there was also Qaddafi's 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, killing 270 innocent people, and his ongoing sponsorship of terrorism around the globe (see: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/libyan-terrorist-muammar-qaddafi_552474.html).

Yes, I know, let bygones be bygones. I need to master my PTSD, and Graham needs to move on, so as to smooth Hillary's election in 2016. Ultimately, however, Hillary will discover that there are not a few road apples waiting in her path.

Joe Hagan, "Hillary in Midair": A Gassy Balloon Awaiting a Pinprick

Notwithstanding the fact that there are another three and a half years until a bumbling Barack Obama vacates the White House, all eyes are already on Hillary. Might Hillary, every bit as narcissistic and incompetent as Obama - name one accomplishment during her tenure as secretary of state - decide, for the good of the nation, to forgo the race? Not a chance. Meanwhile, America's "progressive" media is already clearing the path.

In a New York Magazine article entitled "Hillary in Midair" (http://nymag.com/news/features/hillary-clinton-2013-9/index3.html), Joe Hagan attempts to paper over the Benghazi affair:

"Hillary might have left the State Department unsullied by controversy if not for the Benghazi episode, in which the ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other consulate staffers were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate. The NATO intervention in Libya was the most important foreign intervention of her tenure, and a seemingly successful one, but the lack of security in Benghazi and the confusion over how the incident occurred set off a heated Republican attack on Clinton’s handling of the disaster, and she was roasted on the cable-news spit for weeks. In January, she took responsibility for the deaths of the four Americans before Congress—while also questioning her inquisition, snapping at a Republican congressman, 'What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.'"

Benghazi will be the go-to bludgeon for Republicans if and when Clinton tries using her experience at State to run for president. It is a reminder that Clinton, despite the cool, centrist façade she has developed in the past four years, is only a misstep away from being a target of partisan rage once again."

Hillary will be the "target of partisan rage once again"? Sorry, but let's have a look at exactly what was said by Hillary in her interchange with Senator Ron Johnson during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on January 23, 2013 (see: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/may/08/context-hillary-clintons-what-difference-does-it-m/):

Johnson: No, again, we were misled that there were supposedly protests and that something sprang out of that -- an assault sprang out of that -- and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact, and the American people could have known that within days and they didn’t know that.

Clinton: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator. Now, honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. The IC has a process, I understand, going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out. But you know, to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.

Well, for starters Hillary actively participated in the cover-up surrounding the circumstances involving this travesty. One need only listen to what the mother of Sean Smith, one of four Americans killed in the Benghazi attack, has to say about Hillary and friends.

"It is our job to figure out what happened"? Well, if that's the case, Hillary and Barack didn't do their jobs. A month and a half ago, we learned from CNN that there has been no serious effort by the US government to investigate the murders of Sean Smith, Ambassador Stevens and two other Americans (see: http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2013/07/31/ctw-benghazi-witness-damon.cnn#/video/world/2013/07/31/ctw-benghazi-witness-damon.cnn). CNN's Arwa Damon spoke freely, in public, at a hotel coffee shop for two hours with Ahmed Abu Khattala, a leader of Ansar al-Sharia, who witnessed, and may have directed, the Benghazi embassy attack. No one from the US government ever contacted him.

Moreover, how do you "figure out what happened" in Benghazi and prevent it from ever happening again if you refuse to ascertain whether the deaths stemmed from a spontaneous protest or a planned attack by an al-Qaeda affiliate? It makes a big difference. In fact, I would say that it makes all the difference in the world if you want to take smart, effective measures to bolster US embassy defense and "to prevent it from ever happening again."

"Partisan rage" against Hillary? As much as it would be nice to have a first female president of the US, left, right and center should rise up against Hillary's unscrupulous, self-serving antics.

Maureen Dowd, "Reince Is Right": Guess Who Hates Hillary

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?," she asked, casting her eyes northward in the direction of New York's Westchester County.

Yes, Maureen Dowd despises Hillary.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Reince Is Right" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/opinion/dowd-reince-is-right.html?_r=0), Maureen Dowd takes aim at a four-hour NBC mini-series, starring Diane Lane, and a CNN Films documentary, both depicting the life of Hillary ("What difference, at this point, does it make?") Clinton. Dowd writes:

"Reince Priebus says a lot of goofy things, but the chairman of the Republican National Committee has a point.

Films can dramatically alter the way famous people are viewed, making them cooler, more glamorous, more sympathetic — and the reverse. Clever filmmakers can offer up delicious soufflés of propaganda and storytelling, putting a new imprint on the historical record."

Hmm, films can make people "more glamorous"? You don't say?

In case you didn't catch it, Hillary declared in January:

"With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk last night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."

"It is our job to figure out what happened"? Well, if that's the case, Hillary and Barack didn't do their jobs.

Last Wednesday we learned from CNN that there has been no serious effort by the US government to investigate the murders of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans (see: http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2013/07/31/ctw-benghazi-witness-damon.cnn#/video/world/2013/07/31/ctw-benghazi-witness-damon.cnn). CNN's Arwa Damon spoke freely, in public, at a hotel coffee shop for two hours with Ahmed Abu Khattala, a leader of Ansar al-Sharia, who witnessed, and may have directed, the Benghazi embassy attack. No one from the US government ever contacted him.

Suddenly, today, we are informed in a New York Times article entitled "U.S. Charges Libyan Militia Leader in Benghazi Attack" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/world/africa/libyan-militia-leader-charged-in-2012-benghazi-attack.html) by Michael S. Schmidt:

"Federal law enforcement authorities have filed murder charges against Ahmed Abu Khattala, a prominent militia leader in Benghazi, Libya, in connection with the attacks on a diplomatic mission there last Sept. 11 that killed the United States ambassador and three other Americans, according to senior law enforcement officials."

How's that for damage control?

NBC and CNN will seek to reshape our perceptions of Hillary?

Good luck.

David Brooks, "Religion and Inequality": Narcissism, Plutocracy, Prevarication and Mud

"It's been a brilliant journey of self-awakening, and you've simply got to ask yourself -- what is happiness to you."

- Ventura asking David if he wishes to awaken from suspended animation, "Vanilla  Sky" (2001), written by Cameron Crowe.

Was it always this bad? Was government always so corrupt? Were people always driven by greed? Or is it simply that we are so much more aware of all that swirls around us owing to the Internet and the immediacy which it grants?

More to the point, are you adaptable to this new age of narcissism and plutocracy, or would you prefer to remain in suspended animation? What is happiness to you? Is it all about happiness? Is it all about you?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Religion and Inequality" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/brooks-religion-and-inequality.html), David Brooks observes the ascendancy of "meritocratic hierarchy of professional success" at the expense of other status hierarchies. Brooks writes:

"Many rich people once felt compelled to try to square their happiness at being successful with their embarrassment about it. They adopted what Charles Murray calls a code of seemliness (no fancy clothes or cars). Not long ago, many people covered their affluence with a bohemian patina, but that patina has grown increasingly thin.

Now most of us engage in more matter-of-fact boasting: the car stickers that describe the driver’s summers on Martha’s Vineyard, the college window stickers, the mass embrace of luxury brands, even the currency of 'likes' on Facebook and Reddit as people unabashedly seek popularity.

The culture was probably more dynamic when there were competing status hierarchies. When there is one hegemonic hierarchy, as there is today, the successful are less haunted by their own status and the less successful have nowhere to hide."

Culture was more "dynamic"? I don't know what this means. My value system is antiquated. My handful of customers know that I live by a code of ethics. I don't sport luxury brands. You won't find me on Facebook. I read books, and I listen to the same music that I listened to in the 1960s, not that I'm certain it was any better then.

And when you live in the past, you don't easily forget. A week ago, David Ignatius, in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Susan Rice, a provocateur in the West Wing" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-susan-rice-a-provocateur-in-the-west-wing/2013/06/05/5b7f0e10-ce22-11e2-8f6b-67f40e176f03_story.html?hpid=z2), wrote:

"Enough, already, about Benghazi."

Sorry David, but not enough already about Benghazi. Americans were spared having to see what was done to Ambassador Steven's body after the Obama administration refused to lift a finger to prevent his murder and the deaths of three other Americans. Since that time, none of those responsible for this abomination have paid the price.

Do Obama and Hillary go to bed thinking about Chris Stevens? I doubt it.

I am also insulted by the answer of US State Department spokesperson Jennifer Psaki to a question concerning the Obama administration's response to the use of chemical weapons by forces loyal to Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2013/06/210579.htm):

QUESTION: Okay. But the approach still is – and correct me if I’m wrong – the approach still is that if chemical weapons use can be – is proved to a certainty or to a degree with which you’re confident that it is – that is accurate, that that is a game-changer --

MS. PSAKI: Correct.

QUESTION: -- and that a game-changing means a policy shift, correct?

MS. PSAKI: That is – the President said it is a redline, it is a game-changer. What that means in terms of the options, as you know, I will leave that to them to discuss.

QUESTION: Well, does changing the game mean – I mean, to me, that means that – that would signal – it would be a harbinger of a policy shift. Am I incorrect?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t want to get ahead of where we are, which is we’re not at that point.

QUESTION: So a game-changer doesn’t necessarily change the game. Is that what you’re saying?

MS. PSAKI: Well, Matt, the President himself --

QUESTION: Because I don’t get it then.

MS. PSAKI: The President himself, and the Secretary has repeated, have said – let me just finish – that this is a redline, that if it’s crossed there are a number of options for them to consider. But we’re not at that point yet, so I don’t want to get ahead of what it means when we’re not at that point yet. We haven’t crossed --

QUESTION: Okay. Well, fair enough. Now it seems to – you seem to be implying that one of the options is to do nothing, is to change nothing. Is that an option?

MS. PSAKI: Again, I’m not going to analyze the President’s options. They’re expansive. They’re – he’s asked his national security team to look into them.

QUESTION: All right. I understand. But it seems to me the Administration has been about as clear as mud on this, on what it means. And I just want it --

MS. PSAKI: Some mud is clear.

"Some mud is clear"? I worked in muddy farm fields when I was younger, I waded through mud in the military, but I have yet to encounter clear mud.

Welcome to our brave new world, home to a culture of lying, which has become second nature to anyone pursuing a career in government. Unlike David (Tom Cruise) in "Vanilla Sky," I think I would opt to continue living in suspended animation.

New York Times, "U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls": Welcome to the Fascism of the New Left

After learning that Susan Rice would replace Thomas Donilon as national security adviser and that Samantha Power had been nominated by Obama to replace Rice as UN ambassador, I went to sleep feeling nauseous.

Rice, who happily lied to Americans on behalf of the Obama administration concerning the facts on the ground in Benghazi? Yes, I know, David Ignatius in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Susan Rice, a provocateur in the West Wing" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-susan-rice-a-provocateur-in-the-west-wing/2013/06/05/5b7f0e10-ce22-11e2-8f6b-67f40e176f03_story.html?hpid=z2) writes today:

"And then there’s Benghazi: Obama is swapping a man who generally avoided the Sunday talk shows for someone who nearly committed career suicide for delivering the famous talking points (for which she was otherwise blameless). Enough, already, about Benghazi."

Sorry David, but not enough already about Benghazi. Americans were spared having to see what was done to Ambassador Steven's body after the Obama administration refused to lift a finger to prevent his murder. Since that time, none of those responsible for this abomination have been made to pay the price. Forgive me - maybe it's my Posttraumatic Stress Disorder acting up - but I can't forget such outrages.

Samantha Power? The very same person who called for a massive US army presence to protect Palestinians from the Israel Defense Forces? The person who called Hillary Clinton a "monster"? The person who wrote of John Kerry (http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2008/03/barack-obama-interview-power):

"The lesson we got was that the only thing worse than John Kerry being Swiftboated was his being slow to respond. God love him, he must have thought that having got shrapnel in his ass out there bought him some credibility. It didn't."

Well, at least she was right concerning America's new secretary of state.

But as nauseous as I was last night, little did I know what would await me in the morning.

In its current lead online article entitled "U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/us/us-secretly-collecting-logs-of-business-calls.html?_r=0) by Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, The New York Times reports:

"The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over 'on an ongoing daily basis' to the National Security Agency all call logs 'between the United States and abroad' or 'wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.'"

The article concludes:

"The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2011 for a report describing the government’s interpretation of its surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. But the Obama administration withheld the report, and a judge dismissed the case."

What has happened to The Times? After refusing to participate in Eric Holder's off-the-record discussion, they are now investigating violations of Americans' basic First Amendment rights? Is Jill Abramson finally getting wise to Obama's "Little Shop of Horrors"?

Gail Collins, "Michele, Here’s the Bell": Red Herring

A definition of "red herring" from Merriam-Webster:

2. [from the practice of drawing a red herring across a trail to confuse hunting dogs]: something that distracts attention from the real issue.

What the heck is wrong with Minnesota? In ancient times, I used to like Walter Mondale, and going back to the stone age, I also cared for Hubert Humphrey. But that was then. Today, Minnesota has brought us the likes of Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum (who once compared Hamas rockets fired at Israel with "drive by shootings," see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2009/11/open-letter-to-congresswoman-betty.html) and Michele Bachmann to Congress.

Michele Bachmann of Tea Party fame will not be running for reelection in 2014. Do I care? No.

But Gail Collins cares, and so does Charles Blow.

Today, Collins, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Michele, Here’s the Bell" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/opinion/collins-michele-heres-the-bell.html?_r=0), and Charles Blow, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Bachmann Bows Out" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/opinion/blow-bachmann-bows-out.html), both get their knickers into a knot over Bachmann.

Sorry, but grumpy old man that I've become, I just don't give a damn. Why? Simple: There's still the Benghazi scandal, something which still demands answers, and whereas Obama is busy playing "What I don't know can't hurt me," and Hillary is in hiding deep underground until it all blows over, it just doesn't want to go away.

Yes, I know that I should not also be reading nefarious right-wing journals, but as Peter Wehner writes in The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/they-ll-always-love-obama_729022.html):

"Take the New York Times. On May 17, in a story about how President Obama is trying to move beyond his current problems, the Times declared, 'In the last few days, the administration appears to have stopped the bleeding. The release of internal e-mails on Benghazi largely confirmed the White House’s account.'

Except it did no such thing. The White House’s account was that neither it nor the State Department made any substantive changes to the talking points related to the Benghazi attacks. We have irrefutable evidence—actual documents—that they did. The White House’s account was that a YouTube video critical of Muhammad sparked a spontaneous assault on the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. Except this is a fabrication. The White House’s account was that the administration had no idea Islamic terrorists were responsible for the attack until many days later. Except we have emails that prove high-ranking State Department officials knew Ansar al Sharia was involved within 24 hours of the attacks. The White House has not come clean on any of these matters."

And Colonel David Hunt writes in Breitbart (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/29/Blame-the-President-for-Benghazi):

"When the American mission in Benghazi, Libya was attacked on September 11th, 2012, only one person had the positional authority, legal mandate, and communications apparatus to give the order to defend our personnel on the ground: the President of the United States.

The President did not give that order, and four Americans died in Benghazi that day. All the rest of the nonsense to which we have been treated–from prepared talking points, congressional hearings, and finally to the outright lies–matter not when compared to the ignominious moments in which the President of the United States refused to do his job.

That same day, two other American embassies in the Middle East were also under attack in Sana, Yemen and Cairo, Egypt. As a result, our intelligence systems were on high alert. When the calls, satellite and drone feeds, faxes, and reports began bombarding every command center from Germany to the United States, our nation, already at war for eleven years, was again under siege. Staffs from Africa Command, European Command, the National Military Command Center, the CIA Operations Center, the State Department Operations Center, and the White House Situation Room were fully operational.

. . . .

The road to that indecision is littered with policy and leadership failures that culminated in an American mission and clandestine CIA base being attacked and the murder of our Ambassador and three dedicated Americans doing their jobs. However, the one person responsible for it all is the one man who could have, but refused to, even try to stop the carnage... the President of the United States.

All the President had to say within the first two hours while being briefed by the Secretary of Defense was, 'Send in a response force.' This command, followed by his signature on a paper called Cross Border Authority, would have ordered the Department of Defense to do everything and anything to save lives in Benghazi, Libya."

Interesting. Hunt is saying more or less what that nasty neocon, Maureen Dowd, also concluded in The New York Times (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/maureen-dowd-when-myths-collide-in.html).

Yup, I'm waiting to learn hear what Obama and Hillary discussed that evening at 10 p.m. when those men were being butchered (see: http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/05/28/Krauthammer-Says-the-Obama-Clinton-10-00-PM-Phone-Call-May-Be-The-Biggest-Scandal-Of-All). Will we ever know? Not if Obama and friends, who once were committed to transparency in government, can help it.

The IRS and AP/Rosen scandals? Also frightening, but let's start with answers regarding Benghazi, where brave Americans were needlessly sacrificed so that Obama could be reelected without us ever knowing about the resurgence of al-Qaeda.

"Face the Nation": Dan Pfeiffer Tells a Bald-Faced Lie Concerning Benghazi

Today, on "Face the Nation" (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50147142n), Bob Schieffer and Dan Pfeiffer, Assistant to the President of the United States and Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy and Communications, had the following interchange:

Bob Schieffer:

"Susan Rice . . . had no connection whatsoever to the events that took place in Benghazi, and yet she was sent out, appeared on this broadcast and other Sunday broadcasts five days after it happens, and I'm not here to get into an argument with you about who changed which word in the talking points and all that. The bottom line is, what she told the American people that day bore no resemblance to what had happened on the ground in an incident where four Americans were killed."

Dan Pfeiffer:

"But . . . what she said, and now that the talking points have been released, or the e-mails and the talking points have been released, we know that what she was saying was what the CIA believed at the time. When we got additional information, we put that out. We tried to get it as right as we could, and as we got new information, we showed it to the American people."

The CIA believed at the time that the Benghazi assault resulted from a spontaneous demonstration provoked by an Internet video? Sorry, no way. We still don't know who was responsible for interjecting the Internet video into the matter, but we do know that the West Wing, the State Department and the CIA removed any mention of al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, from the talking points.

As reported by Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/petraeus-email-objected-benghazi-talking-points-220924269.html):

"Then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points the Obama administration used after the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public, according to emails released Wednesday by the White House.

Under pressure in the investigation that continues eight months after the attacks, the White House on Wednesday released 99 pages of emails and a single page of hand-written notes made by Petraeus' deputy, Mike Morell, after a meeting at the White House on Saturday, Sept. 15. On that page, Morell scratched out from the CIA's early drafts of talking points mentions of al-Qaida, the experience of fighters in Libya, Islamic extremists and a warning to the Cairo embassy on the eve of the attacks of calls for a demonstration and break-in by jihadists.

Petraeus apparently was displeased by the removal of so much of the material his analysts initially had proposed for release. The talking points were sent to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to prepare her for an appearance on news shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, and also to members of the House Intelligence Committee."

Yes, Pfeiffer's fabrications at this late date, in flagrant denial of the facts and falling far beyond the realm of "spin," make me nauseous.

Apparently Pfeiffer believes that by engaging in "speed talk," he can obscure the truth.

How is it that a man as smart as Obama is incapable of understanding that those around him are burying whatever is left of his credibility?

New York Times Editorial, "Scandal Machine": It's All a Republican Conspiracy

Those blockheads from the editorial board of The New York Times are back with yet another inane defense of the One, entitled "Scandal Machine" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opinion/the-republicans-scandal-machine.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), in which they blame the Republican Party for all three scandals currently plaguing the Obama administration. These hyper-partisan buffoons write:

"The Internal Revenue Service, according to an inspector general’s report, was not reacting to political pressure or ideology when it singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny in evaluating requests for tax exemptions. It acted inappropriately because employees couldn’t understand inadequate guidelines. The tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, never a scandal to begin with, has devolved into a turf-protection spat between government agencies, and the e-mail messages Republicans long demanded made clear that there was no White House cover-up.

The only example of true government overreach was the seizure of The Associated Press’s telephone records, the latest episode in the Obama administration’s Javert-like obsession with leakers in its midst.

. . . .

There are no 'things like this,' beyond a coincidence of bad timing. But they do have one thing in common: when bound together and loudly denounced on cable television and in hearings, they serve to obscure the real damage that Republicans continue to do to the economy and the workings of government."

The IRS targeted conservatives owing to "inadequate guidelines"? The IRS needs detailed guidelines to prevent it from engaging in politics? Heck, The New York Times has a comprehensive set of guidelines for ethical journalism, but they are completely ignored by its senior editors (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/sodom-and-gomorrah-plagiarism-and.html). Sorry, boys and girls, but we're not all on drugs.

Benghazi was never a scandal? I suppose the 12 drafts of the talking points were intended to provide Americans with a more accurate description of what happened in Libya. The editorial board of The Times also seems to forget that scathing op-ed  written by Maureen Dowd, a Republican among Republicans, denouncing the Obama administration for its Benghazi perfidy (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/maureen-dowd-when-myths-collide-in.html).

Thank goodness, The Times is willing to acknowledge that there was government overreach involving the AP fiasco.

These scandals were all just a "coincidence of bad timing"? Sorry, but the scandals were more than a coincidence, and derived from a combination of no leadership at the top, overzealousness of sycophantic idolaters, and a devotion to "spin" rather than to truth.

David Brooks, "When Governments Go Bad": What's Missing From His Op-ed? Win a Brand New . . .

Who would ever believe? Yet another JG Caesarea Challenge Round! Are you ready to test your erudition?

First, you need to read David Brooks's latest New York Times op-ed entitled "When Governments Go Bad" (http://wap.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opinion/brooks-when-governments-go-bad.html), which ends on a highly philosophical note:

"People can only have faith in a government that self-restrains, and there’s little evidence of that now."

Fascinating . . . yawn. I used to tell my children that they need to "self-restrain," but a lot of good that did.

Who cares about children? How can I possibly compare children with government? Give it a little thought. In any event, back to the JG Caesarea Challenge Round! You've read the op-ed and you want to be a winner, so tell us what's missing. A hint: This time, it's two things.

Five, four, three, one . . . Time's over! (Not The New York Times, silly - Chapter 11 is still a little ways off.) Drop your pencils!

Sorry, what's that you say? What happened to "two"? Like the IRS and the Justice Department, I don't play fair. In addition, I already told you that "two" are missing.

The answers . . . a drum roll please . . .

First, Benghazi goes ignored by Brooks. We already know that Brooks is unhappy that everyone is picking on his friend Victoria Nuland (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/brooks-the-next-scapegoat.html?_r=0), but is that any reason to forget this Libyan brewhaha?

As observed today by Charles Krauthammer (yes, I know he's a neocon, but he's still pretty smart . . .) in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Redacted truth, subjunctive outrage" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-redacted-truth-subjunctive-outrage/2013/05/16/de28aee8-be64-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html#):

"Just hours into the Benghazi assault, Hicks reports, by phone to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself, on the attack with absolutely no mention of any demonstration or video, later to become the essence of the Susan Rice talking points that left him 'stunned' and 'embarrassed.'

. . . .

But Hicks is then ordered not to meet with an investigative congressional delegation — the first time in his 22-year career he had been so ordered. And when he speaks with them nonetheless, he gets a furious call from Clinton’s top aide for not having a State Department lawyer (and informant) present.

. . . .

Within 24 hours, the CIA station chief in Libya cabled that it was a terrorist attack and not a spontaneous mob. On Day Two, the acting assistant secretary of state for the Near East wrote an e-mail saying the attack was carried out by an al-Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al-Sharia.

What were the American people fed? Four days and 12 drafts later, a fiction about a demonstration that never was, provoked by a video that no one saw (Hicks: “a non-event in Libya”), about a movie that was never made."

But heck, maybe it can be argued that Americans, hooked on the adventures of the Kardashian Family, no longer desire the truth, so let's quickly move on to the second "thing" that's missing:

Brooks never once mentions Obama.

Let's ignore Benghazi and just relate to the IRS and AP scandals. Does anyone really want to claim that Obama has no responsibility for what happened? If nothing else, Holder, every bit as dumb as Kerry and Hagel, is his appointee.

What's that you say? I'm not paying attention to Obama's excuse regarding the the IRS that "I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this"?

Hey, man, I thought you're the president, and you're supposed to know better than "most" people. But I suppose this is a variant of the time honored excuse "I didn't know," and we need to cut Obama some "executive privilege." "I didn't know" is sure to play better than "I am not a crook":

"I didn't know" also probably works better than "I didn't do it!"

I'll say this for Obama, this constitutional lawyer sure has pretty damn smart criminal lawyers working for him . . . but not in the Justice Department.

What's that? You got both answers right in this JG Caesarea Challenge Round? Sorry, with the passage of time during this second term of the Obama administration, everyone - right, left and center - is a loser.

And so, keep clicking on this website until the next Challenge Round, which sadly will not be long in coming.

[By the way, I suppose this is as good a time as any to inform He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken, I didn't do it . . .]