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Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - Volume 4, Number 4 © Copyright 2013, The Ultrapolis Project. All Rights Reserved. The Riveting Return of
Benghazi Benghazi and Companion Scandals Pose Exponential Harm to
Obama, and Clinton 2016 ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: ·
Benghazi, IRS, and AP, Oh My! ·
The
New Heroism of the Vulgar and Indecent – by Mark Eastman - Page 2 (WARNING:
GRAPHIC LANGUAGE) ·
UWFR Reader Survey Results – Part 2 ·
Cartoon: Obama Visits Disaster Zone – by
Nate Beeler |
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Riveting Return of
Benghazi Drama Danger to Clinton in 2016 Change Not Hoped For In the wake of two new Obama administration
scandals erupting on top of the resurgence of interest in the
administration’s handling of the disastrous Benghazi episode, we find that
what happened in Benghazi remains the most important and likely to be the
most consequential story in the long term.
For overall assessment on the impact of all three scandals, please see
the companion article “Benghazi, IRS, and AP, Oh My!” in the following
columns. Regarding Benghazi, in last year’s November
21 issue of UWFR we said: …The Benghazi fiasco will be a thorn
at the president’s side that can become infected at anytime. We
predicted prior to the election that the public would not pay it attention in
any way as to affect the election. But, with the election over, the
eighty-five percent of reporters and pundits preferring an Obama presidency
to a Romney one will now be less inclined to pass on a story that may get
them notoriety. Americans will generally ignore a story about an
incident abroad, even a serious one, so long as it remains foggy in details,
seemingly complex, and without major media play. But, if the clear simple
facts of a smoking gun become available, that can quickly change. Things have changed. Previously we had also indicated that
Americans are not generally concerned with events broad, and even dislike
thinking about them, and adding that aspect to the story with unclear and
complex details made the story easy to ignore. The Congressional hearings in early May
before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where three State
Department career officials serving under Secretary Hillary Clinton (including
the number two official in Libya after the ambassador himself) essentially
contradicted their boss, have now made these dynamics less influential or
irrelevant. As one story in The
Washington Post posted on May 8
put it, “State Department officials on Wednesday provided a riveting,
emotional account…as they accused senior government officials of withholding
embarrassing facts and failing to take enough responsibility for security
lapses.” The
Washington Post
is no friend to Republicans, and the use of such words as “riveting” and
“emotional” by a growing number of media outlets presents a real problem for
the Democrats in their positioning of the Benghazi disaster; and a
not-insignificant danger to the President’s and Mrs. Clinton’s reputation for
competence, and by consequence Mrs. Clinton’s much-heralded presidential
coming in 2016. The hearings were dramatic and riveting, and even
an Obama-friendly media cannot resist an emotionally charged story with high
drama cast with seemingly caring and valiant underdogs pitted against the
apparently callous and self-serving powerful.
This opens the door for the story to be told and get more
exposure. When even a few Democrats
begin to admit on the air that some aspects of the story are disturbing, as
former Democratic strategist Kirstin Powers recently did on Fox News, or that
the investigation is “legitimate,” as Mark Shields said on the PBS Newshour,
the Democratic defensive charge that the investigation is simply political
and has no merits quickly loses its sting and even becomes a liability
against its employers. Politics Are Political A word or two about “playing” politics with
an issue. Politics is how decisions
are made in a democratic society. It
is the job of a truly independent opposition party to question and challenge
the party in power. That is the way
the system is designed. Of course, if
an opposition party over-states its case, it risks looking ridiculous, and
even undermining the legitimate part of its case. The Republicans are right to agitate and
bring attention to a legitimate issue, but they should be careful not to
overdo it. An Ugly Seven Hours Still, we don’t expect the facts of the
story to expose more than bad judgment, a cynical self-serving disregard for
truth, and a very unattractive display of apathy by the Secretary of State
and the President in the face of Americans in imminent mortal danger while in
the service of their country (gee, when you put it that way…). But, we do put it that way because while we
expect no laws were broken outright, honest people will be disturbed to
realize that the President, after being told that the Benghazi consulate was
under attack, checked out for seven hours.
This has been reported for some time, but we expect most Americans
still don’t know this unsettling bit of information. (President George Bush was excoriated for a
seven-minute pause after he was informed of the 9/11 attacks, which he
claimed he employed so as not to alarm the children to which he was
reading. Yes, the event was of a
completely different scale, but so was the pause). An American Video Did It! Even some liberal folks will get squeamish
when they hear that Secretary Clinton went so far as to pointedly talk about
‘getting the video maker’ to the families of the dead, while not even
mentioning those who actually did the killing, especially when she had to
know that it was almost certain the attackers were organized terror and had
not even seen the video in question (almost no one had). Worse, Secretary Clinton may have actually
caused the video to get attention and cause real violent anti-U.S. protests
that then followed in various parts of the Middle East, as she squarely
blamed a source in the U.S. inconveniently protected by U.S. laws on free
speech. Then of course, there is the mysterious
transformation of the ‘talking points’ from the more accurate truth they
originally contained to the falsehood so insistently presented, and the outright lies about them in which
the administration has now been caught. The Wizard and the Curtain As popular as Hillary Clinton is today
among Americans, people forget that not long ago she was a polarizing figure
disliked by even many Democrats - a politician with very high negatives. She became popular, in our view, precisely
because of her aura of competency and strength (ruthlessness?). What will happen if the curtain is pulled
just a bit, and people get a clear glimpse of what’s really behind this
political wizard that has for the last twenty years managed to overcome every
political scandal, debacle, and charge (“box cars of [incriminating] baggage”
as someone put it in 2008)? It depends
on how long that glimpse lasts. Once the more entertaining elements of this
story are exhausted, the likelihood of the media abandoning this story is
high, and as we explain above, not just for political reasons (compare the
Benghazi coverage with that of the Jodi Arias trial). Now, we have two new scandals that will
actually amplify each other (see our companion article). Either way, there are
Democrats in the Democratic Party who do fear her rise, and they will
be taking notes. Just as surely,
Clinton people will be working diligently to find Obama people to blame, and
if need be, Barack Obama himself.
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President Visits Disaster Zone
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Main Index of the Ultrapolis World Forecast & Review © Copyright 2013, The Ultrapolis
Project – All Rights Reserved.
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