The ugly truth about Benghazi and Team Obama

By Michael Good­win, New York Post columnist –

Until Fri­day, there were two pos­si­ble expla­na­tions for why the White House failed to imme­di­ately call the Beng­hazi attack an act of ter­ror­ism. One was incom­pe­tence, the other was worse.

Now there is only one, and it is the worse one. Based on the per­sua­sive tes­ti­mony of ex-CIA boss David Petraeus, it is clear the Obama admin­is­tra­tion made a delib­er­ate deci­sion to mis­lead Con­gress and the Amer­i­can people.

The repeated claim that the attack was spon­ta­neous and grew out of a demon­stra­tion against an anti-Islam video — a claim made by the pres­i­dent and sec­re­tary of State as they stood next to the bod­ies of four dead Amer­i­cans — was a mon­strous lie. It was vile and done for the basest of reasons.

Because we now know the truth of what hap­pened — CIA reports were edited to remove the names of al Qaeda groups involved in the attack, Petraeus said under oath — we also know the motive. It was polit­i­cal self-preservation, mean­ing the pres­i­dent and his team put pol­i­tics first.

The tim­ing helps tell the tale. Just days removed from his Char­lotte con­ven­tion, where he danced on the grave of Osama bin Laden and boasted that al Qaeda was dec­i­mated, Obama couldn’t bear to admit that affil­i­ated groups were thriv­ing in North Africa. And he cer­tainly couldn’t admit they had car­ried out a mur­der­ous attack on our con­sulate on the 11th anniver­sary of the most awful day in Amer­i­can history.

To do so would be to acknowl­edge the fail­ure of his deci­sion to ignore hard-line Islamists and that his team had erred egre­giously in reject­ing pleas for more secu­rity from Libya Ambas­sador Chris Stevens.

So the pres­i­dent lied, includ­ing in a speech to the United Nations, where he cited the video as the rea­son for the attack. He sent out reams of flunkies to do the same, includ­ing his snide press sec­re­tary, Jay Carney.

Most notably, UN Ambas­sador Susan Rice went on five Sun­day tele­vi­sion shows to spin the non­sense about the hijack­ing of a demon­stra­tion — a demon­stra­tion that never existed. Rice made a fool of her­self, and now, she, too is dam­aged goods.

Oddly, Petraeus, brought down by the reck­less affair with his biog­ra­pher, nonethe­less looks like the only hon­est man in the drama.

A brief­ing he gave soon after the attack is now more sus­pect because it adhered to the party line, despite his belief that it was always a ter­ror­ist attack.

But Fri­day in his tes­ti­mony behind closed doors, Petraeus told the truth as he knew it, even though the admin­is­tra­tion announced the day before that it was inves­ti­gat­ing his con­duct at the CIA.

If that was meant to pres­sure him to pro­tect the pres­i­dent, it failed spec­tac­u­larly. What­ever his per­sonal fail­ings, Petraeus rein­forced his rep­u­ta­tion for pro­fes­sional integrity.

The next move is up to Con­gress. While Democ­rats are pre­dictably and shame­fully try­ing to deny the sig­nif­i­cance of Petraeus’ rev­e­la­tion, Repub­li­cans say they are deter­mined to get the full truth, wher­ever the hunt takes them.

Espe­cially as the pres­i­dent begins a new term, and huge eco­nomic and tax dif­fer­ence must be resolved, the coun­try would be bet­ter served if the admin­is­tra­tion co-operates. But their behav­ior up to now does not make that seem likely. Hav­ing built their web of lies, it would be hard to sud­denly come clean.

The first tests will come with the next round of hear­ings. Any attempt by the White House to block the appear­ance of any offi­cial who played a role in shap­ing the false nar­ra­tive should be seen as proof that the stonewalling continues.

In that case, the full power of the con­sti­tu­tion must be brought to bear. Nobody is above the law, even the president.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Nov 27 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.