Maureen Dowd, "An Irish Catholic Wake-Up": Sidestepping the Benghazi Cover-Up

This past Thursday, the Vice President of the United States told a bald-faced lie to the American electorate during his debate with Republican Congressman Paul Ryan. Note the following interchange concerning the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi between moderator Martha Raddatz and Joe Biden:

RADDATZ: What were you first told about the attack? Why were people talking about protests? When people in the consulate first saw armed men attacking with guns, there were no protesters. Why did that go on for weeks?

BIDEN: Because that was exactly what we were told by the intelligence community. The intelligence community told us that. As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.

Ah, yes, the intelligence community is to blame. Vice President Biden, however, knows that this is "not accurate." The intelligence community never changed its assessment. The White House was almost immediately informed of the exact nature of the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate. As reported by Reuters (http://mobile.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSBRE89201220121003):

"Within hours of last month's attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, President Barack Obama's administration received about a dozen intelligence reports suggesting militants connected to al Qaeda were involved, three government sources said."

A team player, Biden was willing to do his part to perpetuate the myth that the White House had not received accurate information at the expense of the US intelligence community, some of whom place their lives on the line every day to protect American lives and freedom. Biden would have us believe that this "inaccurate" information from the intelligence community was what caused US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and White House spokesman Jay Carney to label the attack on the Benghazi consulate as "spontaneous."

It should come as no surprise that The New York Times, the unofficial mouthpiece of the Obama administration, is also doing its utmost to avoid mention of the Benghazi cover-up.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "An Irish Catholic Wake-Up" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/an-irish-catholic-wake-up.html?pagewanted=all), Maureen Dowd, who knows almost nothing about foreign affairs, derides Paul Ryan and "the bankrupt neocon philosophy of going to war to prevent war." The Queen of Snark writes:

"Ronald Reagan knew how to bluster for peace. Neocons do not. When they run the show, threatening a war is followed by going to war and that is followed by bollixing up the war and that is followed by our troops’ dying at war and money-pit nation-building to end the war, and that is followed by economic disaster for America."

Well, I'm not a neocon. In fact, according to a PBS political party quiz (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2012/quiz/), my answers place me closest to being a "moderate Democrat." In any event, whatever I may or may not be, I have consistently opposed Obama's inane escalation of the ground war in Afghanistan, which has resulted in the tragic deaths of more than 2,000 American soldiers and which is costing the US $6 billion per month. Sorry, Maureen, but this is Obama's mess.

Near the end of her opinion piece, Dowd finally gets around to mentioning the Benghazi debacle:

"Biden’s weakest moment was on Libya, where he stumbled as he claimed that the White House didn’t know about requests for more security for diplomats there. It is likely true that such an appeal never made it through the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy to the West Wing. But the vice president should have been prepared to answer questions about a blunder that has scuffed the administration’s national security luster.

. . . .

The president’s advisers now realize they will need a much better explanation by Tuesday, when Romney is certain to press Obama on the issue."

Of course, Dowd is cleverly attempting to sidestep Biden's fib concerning when the Obama administration first became aware of the true nature of the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate and Obama's month-long effort to flummox the American electorate.

Shame on Biden for defaming the US intelligence community.

Shame on Dowd for her willingness to dodge the issue.