Andrew McCarthy on Benghazi

Andrew McCarthy, 2 Reasons Why Obama Must Be Defeated (via VFR)

President Obama and his administration recklessly erected a diplomatic installation in a place too dangerous to have one even if there had been U.S. military security. It contracted out what passed for security to Libyans incapable of providing it—and, almost certainly, disinclined to provide it. It had mega-notice that jihadist terror attacks were not only in the offing but had recently occurred, and that September 11 was a day that screamed out for heightened protective measures. The commander-in-chief was aware of the attack as it was occurring — indeed, hours before it ended — had military assets a short distance away and capable of suppressing the enemy, yet failed to take actions that could easily have saved American lives.

Despite all this, the president and his administration outrageously blamed the attack on an obscure video that had nothing to do with what happened. They went so dishonorably far as to cite the video in the presence of the coffins of Americans killed in Benghazi. Not content with that, they launched a mendacious, vindictive prosecution against a man said to be responsible for the video — a man whose only apparent “crime” was to exercise his First Amendment rights in a manner disapproved of by our Islam-pandering president. And for want of a better explanation (gross incompetence doesn’t come close), all this was done in the service of a political agenda to portray Obama’s disastrous Libya policy as a success, the “Arab Spring” as an Obama-driven triumph of democracy rather than an Obama-enabled ascendancy of Islamic supremacism, and Obama counterterrorism as a bin Laden-slaying victory rather than an al-Qaeda surging failure.

What happened in Benghazi – the lead-up, the catastrophe of September 11, and the ongoing cover-up – is no longer just a debacle. It is an impeachable offense. Putting Americans in peril and grossly failing to take action to protect Americans under siege – in fact, under siege by an enemy with whom we were and are at war – is the most shocking form of dereliction of duty. Serially lying to the American people about the cause of the attack – in fact, covering up the fact that it was a coordinated terrorist attack in order to conceal the fact that the administration had been warned about the possibility and wages of a coordinated terrorist attack – is an inexcusable betrayal of the president’s oath of office. Benghazi makes Watergate and the Lewinsky scandal look like child’s play. Obama has shunned the highest responsibilities of his office, which are the security of Americans from hostile foreign threats and honesty in dealing with the citizens he serves...

File under: gross incompetence doesn’t come close.