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 Easy E wrote:
Yeah, and getting bad optics IS bad politics.

Well... to be fair, Sec of Defense IS a political position. I'd just rather the (R) keep their "filibuster powdah" dry for more important things... like, I dunno... a Supreme Court position? (Ginsberg and Breyer ain't getting younger).

What I find interesting is that Congress has asked to speak with the survivors of the Benghazi attack, but so far nobody has seen or heard from ANY of them since the attack....

Now... I wonder why?

Probably because they have no interest in being used as pawns in a McCarthyist witch hunt?

 Kanluwen wrote:
Probably because they have no interest in being used as pawns in a McCarthyist witch hunt?

So congress can call up baseball players during their steroid investigation... but, Federal employees can willingly not appear before Congress?

o.O

 whembly wrote:
Well... I'm not actually calling for any congressional inquiry as they rarely find anything anyways...

I'm calling for proper accountant from the administration. That's all.

Do you think having the other party give press statements about the issue and have their team's pundits call the issue bigger than Watergate increases or decreases the chances of a proper, non-politically motivated addressing of the issue?

Staw man much?

Those 128 US policemen's death were probably investigated with satisfactory results.

It isn't a straw man, in so far as you stated "So... you're saying that trying to steal information to help your re-election campaign is WORST than the lives of 4 americans?" Well, lots more than four people died. 32 times that number died as policemen just last year. So obviously there's a point where we accept death happens and that we don't need to investigate every instance of it at the highest levels of our government.

Also, do you think the proper investigation of each of those police killings was more or less likely to be achieved if a political party was trying to make a political show of the issue?

 whembly wrote:

No... I distinctly remember that during the campaign (prior to 9-11) that Obama's foreign policy was a great contrast to Romney's (who had none).

Yes, and the contrast was almost entirely established by the GOP attacking Obama's foreign policy, even prior to Benghazi (though Benghazi was an amplifier). As with many issues during the campaign "Romney has nothing." was a matter of illustrating the absence of positive GOP arguments...absent the crazy.

 whembly wrote:

So congress can call up baseball players during their steroid investigation... but, Federal employees can willingly not appear before Congress?

o.O

The baseball players were compelled to testify due to legislative purpose, there is no legislative purpose with respect to the Benghazi survivors.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Well... I'm not actually calling for any congressional inquiry as they rarely find anything anyways...

I'm calling for proper accountant from the administration. That's all.

Do you think having the other party give press statements about the issue and have their team's pundits call the issue bigger than Watergate increases or decreases the chances of a proper, non-politically motivated addressing of the issue?

Well... how else do we hold them accountable?

Staw man much?

Those 128 US policemen's death were probably investigated with satisfactory results.

It isn't a straw man, in so far as you stated "So... you're saying that trying to steal information to help your re-election campaign is WORST than the lives of 4 americans?" Well, lots more than four people died. 32 times that number died as policemen just last year. So obviously there's a point where we accept death happens and that we don't need to investigate every instance of it at the highest levels of our government.

Still... not a good comparison.

Local police deaths ARE investigated and the purpetrators are held responsible by LOCAL authorities.

The Ambassadors + staff are employees of the FEDERAL BRANCH. Their deaths should be investigated as to why it happened. Why is this so hard to understand?

Also, do you think the proper investigation of each of those police killings was more or less likely to be achieved if a political party was trying to make a political show of the issue?

Weaksauce man.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

No... I distinctly remember that during the campaign (prior to 9-11) that Obama's foreign policy was a great contrast to Romney's (who had none).

Yes, and the contrast was almost entirely established by the GOP attacking Obama's foreign policy, even prior to Benghazi (though Benghazi was an amplifier). As with many issues during the campaign "Romney has nothing." was a matter of illustrating the absence of positive GOP arguments...absent the crazy.

Did you forget already?...I'm just going to leave this here... FOUR days before Benghazi, the NY TIMES had this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/us/politics/obama-and-democrats-point-to-foreign-policy-strength.html?_r=0
Here's a snippet:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Obama and his allies made the case for him as commander in chief Thursday night, saying he was a steady hand in a dangerous world, while accusing Mitt Romney of outsourcing his policy to “neocon advisers” who would lead a return to the reckless adventurism of the Bush administration.

Mr. Obama framed the choice as being between “leadership that has been tested and proven” and a Republican team that is “new to foreign policy,” with a worldview he said was stuck in a “cold war time warp.”

 whembly wrote:

So congress can call up baseball players during their steroid investigation... but, Federal employees can willingly not appear before Congress?

o.O

The baseball players were compelled to testify due to legislative purpose, there is no legislative purpose with respect to the Benghazi survivors.

 whembly wrote:
Well... how else do we hold them accountable?

Your assumption that there is an issue here for which someone needs to be held to account is a big part of the problem.

Things screw up. It happens. Afterwards you look at it, figure out what happened and see if there's a way to make it much less likely to happen again. Generally that means identifying processes and practices that didn't work, and reforming them. Other times it's just a thing you couldn't really sensibly avoid, and you just move on.

Very rarely one person, or a collection of people, just plain fethed up. Normally when that's the case it's pretty clear early on. Here in Australia, the screw up who bungled the Victorian bushfires was known, and what they did to screw up was known by about the end of the second day.

A very public series of questions that is all about finding someone to be made accountable, when there's no evidence that anyone actually screwed anything up... that's called a witchhunt.

 whembly wrote:

Did you forget already?...I'm just going to leave this here... FOUR days before Benghazi, the NY TIMES had this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/us/politics/obama-and-democrats-point-to-foreign-policy-strength.html?_r=0
Here's a snippet:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Obama and his allies made the case for him as commander in chief Thursday night, saying he was a steady hand in a dangerous world, while accusing Mitt Romney of outsourcing his policy to “neocon advisers” who would lead a return to the reckless adventurism of the Bush administration.
Mr. Obama framed the choice as being between “leadership that has been tested and proven” and a Republican team that is “new to foreign policy,” with a worldview he said was stuck in a “cold war time warp.”

Romney had been talking about Obama's foreign policy since 2011. This isn't a thing Obama ran on, its a thing Republicans forced him (and Democrats) to address despite the fact that Romney was weak on it.

 whembly wrote:

Congress has congressional oversite over the Executive Branch... no? Couldn't they theoretically subpena them?

They could, but there would be a massive inter-branch fight.

In this particular case what legislative purpose would Congress have to underpin its subpoena (ie. Why should the Supreme Court grant additional strength to implied powers?)? Will it debate a law that the President can't let Ambassadors go to dangerous places?

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Well... how else do we hold them accountable?

Your assumption that there is an issue here for which someone needs to be held to account is a big part of the problem.

Things screw up. It happens. Afterwards you look at it, figure out what happened and see if there's a way to make it much less likely to happen again. Generally that means identifying processes and practices that didn't work, and reforming them. Other times it's just a thing you couldn't really sensibly avoid, and you just move on.

Very rarely one person, or a collection of people, just plain fethed up. Normally when that's the case it's pretty clear early on. Here in Australia, the screw up who bungled the Victorian bushfires was known, and what they did to screw up was known by about the end of the second day.

A very public series of questions that is all about finding someone to be made accountable, when there's no evidence that anyone actually screwed anything up... that's called a witchhunt.

And this "when there's no evidence that anyone actually screwed anything up"... is where I object your honor.

But obviously I'm not going to change your mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Congress has congressional oversite over the Executive Branch... no? Couldn't they theoretically subpena them?

They could, but there would be a massive inter-branch fight.

In this particular case what legislative purpose would Congress have to underpin its subpoena (ie. Why should the Supreme Court grant additional strength to implied powers?)? Will it debate a law that the President can't let Ambassadors go to dangerous places?

The Intelligence Committee for one...

Dogma, please... take a critical view of the whole event and the administration's responses. Keep in mind that this was during the re-election campaign.

Do you think it could be something like this: "well, crap... that didn't go well. Let's make sure that this doesn't make us look bad because we have an election to worry about". Do you think that crossed their mind... anywhere?

Step back and take a critical view of the event yourself, Whembly.

Do you know how many "threats" the intelligence community likely had regarding attacks on 9/11?
Do you know how many of those "threats" were likely idle chatter or from prospective informants looking for a payday?

Until we start having psychic intelligence gathering networks, there will be some attacks slipping through.
It's a simple fact of the matter that we will not catch wind of every single attack in a situation like this.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Step back and take a critical view of the event yourself, Whembly.

Do you know how many "threats" the intelligence community likely had regarding attacks on 9/11?
Do you know how many of those "threats" were likely idle chatter or from prospective informants looking for a payday?

Until we start having psychic intelligence gathering networks, there will be some attacks slipping through.
It's a simple fact of the matter that we will not catch wind of every single attack in a situation like this.

I understand that what happened may not have been prevented. It's just that the administration's behavior IMO was left wanting.

Look, I'm fustrated about this... so, I'm going to address this head-on since we seem to be dancing around this issue:

If you want to know why some of us have lost faith in the so-called mainstream media, you need to ask the following question: Where is the Benghazi feeding frenzy?

I think journalists tend to act on their instincts (as they should). Which, collectively, the mainstream media’s instincts run liberal, making groupthink inevitable.

Case in point:
1) In 2000, a Democratic operative orchestrated an “October surprise” attack on George W. Bush, revealing that, 24 years earlier, he’d been arrested for drunk driving. The media went into a feeding frenzy.
2) In September 2004, Dan Rather pushed the story about Bush’s service in the National Guard. His instincts were so powerful, he/CBS didn’t thoroughly check the documents he relied on, which were proven to be forgeries.... but the general media ate it up.
3) Let's not forget In 2008, the media feeding frenzy over John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin. Yes, she was woefully inexperienced, but did she really deserve all that acrimony?
4) And really... the mainstream media have generally treated Occupy Wall Street as idealistic, the “tea parties” as racist and terrifying.
5) To be fair, the Right do it too... John Kerry's SwiftBoat ordeal comes to mind and Obama's associates like Ayers and his Pastor.

The point is, the Bengahzi situation is news... it hasn't been treated as such because Obama was trying to win the election and the administration reacted to Bengahzi with that in mind. THAT'S why I keep harping this and I believe some in the mainstream media are complicit.

Alright... I'm going to watch some Hockey now.

Sarah Palin was looked at not because she was "woefully inexperienced" but because she was ridiculously ill-informed and pants on head crazy.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Sarah Palin was looked at not because she was "woefully inexperienced" but because she was ridiculously ill-informed and pants on head crazy.

Well... that too.

 whembly wrote:
And this "when there's no evidence that anyone actually screwed anything up"... is where I object your honor.

But obviously I'm not going to change your mind.

Yeah, I think we're at something of a deadend here.

But just to clarify, because I don't think I worded very well in my last post, I'm not saying 'nothing to see here, move on, don't investigate this at all.' I am saying that first things first, you investigate the situation through internal processes, and get a real understanding of what happened. From there, you can assess what processes might stop this happening next time.

But when you ignore that and go straight to standing in front of cameras and talking about getting to the bottom of the issue, well I'm inclined to suspect that it has nothing to do with making sure it doesn't happen again, and everything to do with scoring a political win.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
And this "when there's no evidence that anyone actually screwed anything up"... is where I object your honor.

But obviously I'm not going to change your mind.

Yeah, I think we're at something of a deadend here.

But just to clarify, because I don't think I worded very well in my last post, I'm not saying 'nothing to see here, move on, don't investigate this at all.' I am saying that first things first, you investigate the situation through internal processes, and get a real understanding of what happened. From there, you can assess what processes might stop this happening next time.

But when you ignore that and go straight to standing in front of cameras and talking about getting to the bottom of the issue, well I'm inclined to suspect that it has nothing to do with making sure it doesn't happen again, and everything to do with scoring a political win.

Seb... that's reasonable. Any politician would use any excuse to claim "the king of the hill" for publicity. It's sickening (see Sandy Hook shooting)... but that shouldn't deter any hard questioning on the issue at hand.

This is one of the best timeline of the event I've seen so far... check it out.

I guess I wished we had leaders who would own up to things... you know... being a "leader". But alas, those days a long gone.

I guess I'm an old fogey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/us/politics/strategy-seeks-to-ensure-bid-of-brennan-for-cia.html?_r=0
Here's what jumped out at me:

Rather than agreeing to some Democratic senators’ demands for full access to the classified legal memos on the targeted killing program, Obama administration officials are negotiating with Republicans to provide more information on the lethal attack last year on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, according to three Congressional staff members.

The strategy is intended to produce a bipartisan majority vote for Mr. Brennan in the Senate Intelligence Committee without giving its members seven additional legal opinions on targeted killing sought by senators and while protecting what the White House views as the confidentiality of the Justice Department’s legal advice to the president.

Again...

Now, I'm curious as to what's in those Drone program memos...
Hmmm... maybe it'll be damaging to our allies in Pakistan?

 whembly wrote:

The Intelligence Committee for one...

You realize that the results of any subpoena issued by the SSCI would never be made public, right?

In any case, you're right. I forgot the meaning of "legislative purpose". However, the remainder of my point stands: what do you think will come of the investigation? There certainly aren't going to be any criminal indictments, and a change in actual law is not at all likely.

 whembly wrote:

Dogma, please... take a critical view of the whole event and the administration's responses. Keep in mind that this was during the re-election campaign.

Do you think it could be something like this: "well, crap... that didn't go well. Let's make sure that this doesn't make us look bad because we have an election to worry about". Do you think that crossed their mind... anywhere?

Of course it did, but why should that matter? The nature of democratic politics forces politicians to minimize the damage any particular event might cause to their campaigns because the opposition will certainly be attempting the opposite.

I mean, that's not even something worth trying to determine. It should merely be an assumption.

 whembly wrote:

The point is, the Bengahzi situation is news... it hasn't been treated as such because Obama was trying to win the election and the administration reacted to Bengahzi with that in mind.

How were the Benghazi attacks not treated as news? Or do you mean the following investigation? If the investigation, then the reason its been largely relegated to electronic media is that the event itself is old news, and the investigation is merely a political stunt.