Ross Douthat, "The Mystery of Benghazi": Ask Valerie Jarrett

In his New York Times op-ed entitled "The Mystery of Benghazi" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-mystery-of-benghazi.html), Ross Douthat ponders why the Obama administration persisted in presenting a false narrative concerning the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate. Douthat writes:

"For days after the attack, as it became clearer that the Benghazi violence was a Qaeda operation rather than a protest, White House officials continued to stress the importance of the 'hateful' and 'disgusting' video, and its supposed role as a catalyst for what Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, insisted was a spontaneous attack.

This narrative was pushed on Sunday morning programs, on late-night talk shows and at news conferences, by everyone from Rice to Hillary Clinton to the president himself. When Obama spoke at the United Nations shortly after the attacks, the video was referenced six times in the text; Al Qaeda was referenced only once."

Douthat cites various theories for the failure of the Obama administration to embrace the truth:

• "[T]his White House can’t resist the urge to appease our enemies."
• "[T] his White House wants to be seen as tough on terrorism, it’s loath to acknowledge the possibility that it doesn’t have Al Qaeda completely on the run."
• This "was Al Qaeda striking in Libya, a country where the Obama White House launched a not-precisely-constitutional military intervention with a not-precisely-clear connection to the national interest."

In fact, the reason for the failure was far simpler than any of the above. This is an administration whose foreign policy has been characterized by procrastination, and in this particular instance, no one in particular assumed responsibility. Re-election for its own sake is the order of the day in the West Wing, and events took their own turn.

You don't believe me? Ask the Night Stalker, Valerie Jarrett, who is busy bucking up Obama, now preoccupied with fine-tuning sound bites for Tuesday concerning his rescue of the auto industry.

No mystery here at all.