David Brooks, "The Final Reckoning": No Mention of Benghazi

David Brooks latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Final Reckoning" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/opinion/brooks-the-final-reckoning.html?_r=0) is less than complimentary of Obama. Brooks observes that Obama's vision has contracted "politically," "managerially," and in terms of "mood" and "vision." However, Brooks concludes his opinion piece on a hopeful note:

"No one is fair to President Obama. People grade him against tougher standards than any other politician. But his innate ability justifies that high standard. These are the standards he properly set for himself. If re-elected, he’d be free from politics. It’d be interesting to see if he returns to his earlier largeness."

But more troublesome for me is David's claim that Obama's first term has been scandal-free:

"In office, he has generally behaved with integrity and in a way befitting a man with his admirable character. Sure, he has sometimes stooped to the cynical maneuver. Contemptuous of his opponents, he has given himself permission to do the nasty and negative thing. But politics is a rough business and nobody comes out unsullied.

In moral terms, he hasn’t let us down. If he’s re-elected, his administration would probably remain scandal-free. Given the history of second terms, that is no small thing."

Excuse me, but why is there no mention of Benghazi? Over the course of a month and a half, Obama, Jay Carney, Hillary and Susan Rice systematically lied to the American people concerning the nature of the attacks against the US consulate and the CIA annex, claiming that the violence amounted to a "spontaneous demonstration" stemming from an absurd Internet video.

Suddenly, on Thursday, a mere five days before the election, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius was allowed to speak with an anonymous "senior intelligence official," who provided Ignatius with a timeline of the attacks. From the title of the Ignatius opinion piece describing the interview, "In Benghazi timeline, CIA errors but no evidence of conspiracy" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-cias-benghazi-timeline-reveals-errors-but-no-evidence-of-conspiracy/2012/11/01/a84c4024-2471-11e2-9313-3c7f59038d93_story.html?hpid=z1), you might think that the issues surrounding the attack have been put to bed. Instead, there are now even more questions than answers.

An unarmed Predator drone provided real time footage of events as they unfolded at the consulate, there was no interruption of communication between the Americans on the ground in Benghazi and Washington, and the CIA reinforcements who arrived at 1:15 a.m. from Tripoli were fully aware of al-Qaeda's involvement in the attacks:

"The first idea is to go to a Benghazi hospital to recover Stevens, who they rightly suspect is already dead. . . . But the hospital is surrounded by the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia militia that mounted the consulate attack."

Sorry, but everyone in the Obama administration knew that the attacks on the consulate and CIA annex did not involve a "spontaneous demonstration," and they also knew of al-Qaeda's involvement, yet this did not prevent Obama and friends from perpetuating a lie as long as they could get away with it.

Obama's first term has been "scandal-free" and the president has "behaved with integrity and in a way befitting a man with his admirable character?" Road apples!