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Fact-checking the Benghazi fact-dreckers

Oct 17, 2012
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It was the highlight of the debate.

“I think (it’s) interesting the president just said something which — which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror,” said Gov. Romney.

“That’s what I said,” the president responded.

“You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror. It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying?”

“Please proceed, governor.”

“I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.”

This was the now-infamous exchange where Romney could not believe what he was hearing. Are you out of your mind, Mr. President? Everybody knows you said no such thing. And then the moderator, Candy Crowley, really shocked the Governor: “He did in fact, sir.” You could hear the conservative cause, the “scandal” of Benghazi, broadside a bridge abutment. Mitt Romney had no idea Barack Obama had called the attack an “act of terror” the very next day, September 12th.

“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.”

Well that’s embarrassing. How did this happen? Billion dollar campaigns loaded with high-salary political sharks are not supposed to get caught flat-footed and clueless. Something went wrong.

What happened? In the closing months of the campaign, with Romney lagging badly in the polls, Americans were killed in a militia attack on the Benghazi consulate in Libya. And the wingnuts lost their minds. This was the greatest gift of campaign 2012 — Americans attacked and killed by violent Muslims. Perhaps even terrorists. Thank You, Ronaldus.

Before he even knew who or how many people had died, Mitt immediately hammered the president: “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.” The allegation was laughably silly. This sort of craven political behavior was ridiculous, if it wasn’t appalling.

So the circus continues. Though the truth is easily available to everyone, the right wing’s calculated outrage remains. Conservatives are no more closer to recovering their sensibilities than they were while watching the coffins return from overseas. Here was Ann Althouse blogging tonight’s debate:

. . Crowley helps Obama by saying “He did in fact, sir… He did in fact call it an act of terror. It did as well take 2 weeks or so for the whole idea of there being a riot out there about this tape to come out, you’re correct about that.” Jeez, Crowley is way overparticipating! And the audience applauds her!

. . [ADDED: We're checking the transcript on the Rose Garden speech and the word "terror" (or "terrorist" or "terrorism") is not in it! Am I wrong? That really tripped up Romney, so if he wasn't wrong, I condemn Crowley.][AND: He said "outrageous attack," but certainly nothing like "act of terror."]

Partisan hysteria, the stupefaction. Ann can’t read or watch a video in this state, so by all means give her a blog and let her fact check reality. Instapundit:

CANDY CROWLEY INSERTED HERSELF INTO THE DEBATE, OUTRAGEOUSLY, to break up Romney’s most dramatic moment, when Romney was questioning what Obama said the day after the attack in Benghazi. Obama had said he’d called the attack an “act of terror” and Romney was staring him down about it. Crowley broke up the showdown, saying “He did in fact call it an act of terror,” which took the wind out of Romney’s sails. We were advised to check the transcript, but the dramatic moment was lost. The transcript shows Romney was right, and Crowley and Obama were wrong.

And then the update: “ADDED: The phrase “acts of terror” does appear in the remarks…” Aw jeez. The scoreboard will reflect that there are now two professors of law who can’t comprehend a transcript. But wait: it’s ANN ALTHOUSE AGAIN. She’s covering for Glenn. What a talent she is, humiliating two wingnut sites simultaneously. The astute bloggers:

HUGE BREAKING NEWS: OMFG: OBAMA LIED AND CROWLEY SWORE TO IT: OBAMA DID NOT UTTER THE WORD TERROR AT THE ROSE GARDEN SPEECH!

OBAMA SAID AT THE DEBATE, THAT HE “CALLED THE ATTACK ON BENGHAZI AN ACT OF TERROR THE DAY AFTER THE ATTACK DURING HIS STATEMENT IN THE ROSE GARDEN” AND THE TRUTH IS HE MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT.

SO OBAMA LIED IN THE DEBATE – AND CROWLEY SWORE TO IT!

IF OBAMA DIDN’T LIE THEN HE’D HAVE NOT A FREAKIN. THING TO SAY.
REPEAT: ROMNEY WAS RIGHT ON THE FACTS AND OBAMA WRONG. OBAMA LIED TONIGHT.

UPDATE: OMFG HE DID SAY ACTS OF TERROR. THAT’S NOT THE SAME AS TERRORISTS HE LIED. Here was Breitbart’s crack at it:

Crowley, quite incorrectly, took Obama’s side and the crowd exploded.

Here’s what Obama said that day:

“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”

Context matters and the context here is that Obama connected this “act of terror” to … a mob action over a YouTube video — not a deliberate terrorist attack. Obama was using the term generically and it would be almost two weeks before he used it again.

The context of the quote isn’t in your allegations, it’s in the quote. Just read it above. But for that “two weeks before he used it again” nonsense, wrong again:

On September 13, at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Obama vowed to bring the killers to justice. He then added, “No act of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world, and no act of violence will shake the resolve of the United States of America.”

G’night, god bless. The Daily Mauler does its best:

You could say that Obama was calling this attack an “act of terror.” Or you could say that Obama was using the phrase “act of terror” in the vicinity of discussing the “attack” to come close to labeling it an act of terror without actually, logically doing so, preserving his freedom to not do so in the future. He only used the phrase after talking about the original 2001 9/11 attacks, after all. Maybe those were the “acts of terror” that wouldn’t shake our resolve, etc. that Obama was talking about.

No. Not close. Let’s put the nonsense to rest. This was also Obama on the 13th, in Colorado. His message was crystal clear:

“So what I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice. I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America,” he said.

On September 12th and 13th, the President called the attack in Benghazi “acts of terror” three different times. So enough.

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8 Comments

  1. Russell C  •  Oct 19, 2012 @9:10 am
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    Attempt to spin it all you wish, it doesn’t make it so, particularly when a major news outlet refers to the President’s 9/12 remarks in its own analysis on the same day and attributes the attack to the anti-Muslim video:

    “PBS NewsHour’s “Fact-Checking Debate Claims on Libya Attacks” skips their own 9/12 facts” http://www.redstate.com/russellc/2012/10/18/pbs-newshours-fact-checking-debate-claims-on-libya-attacks-skips-their-own-912-facts/

  2. toma  •  Oct 19, 2012 @10:46 am
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    Obama: “I told the American people in the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. That this was an act of terror and I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime…”

    Me: “On September 12th and 13th, the President called the attack in Benghazi ‘acts of terror’ three different times.”

    You: “President Obama asserted in Tuesday’s debate that he’d called the attack a ‘terrorist attack’ on September 12th.”

    1. You can’t be a fact checker and a liar, Russell. Make up whatever you like, but that makes you the source of the misinformation. President Obama said no such thing. He said that he called it an “act of terror.” Romney responded: “I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the President 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.” So Mitt was wrong. Obama called the attack an “act of terror” three times in the 48 hours after the attack. The easiest fact check in the world.

    2. You cannot fact check the President by fact checking PBS. Or Honey Boo Boo. Or your pet iguana. Others’ assertions are their own.

    3. You’re a global warming denialist.

    We are done.

  3. SAm  •  Oct 21, 2012 @9:41 pm
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    Russell!!! Please .. tell me what’s the point here?

    Even if Obama hadn’t used the magic word “terror” .. what does that mean?

    I really need some help here, as I just can’t seem to relate to the wingnut mindset.

  4. toma  •  Oct 22, 2012 @7:11 am
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    You know the term “making a meal of something”? These guys would eat mud.

  5. Russell C  •  Oct 22, 2012 @3:59 pm
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    3. Prove exactly where I have ever said I deny the existence of global warming.

    2. And you are a better judge of what the President said and how it was interpreted than an entire professional news organization? What exactly do you suppose prompted them to analyze the attack as a result of a spontaneous protest despite the President’s 9/12 remarks, if you say all except liars would clearly understand he labeled it as an act of terror?

    1. Exactly what am I lying about? My entire point was that if a major news outlet interpreted the President’s remarks in such a way that those remarks did not telegraph it as an “act of terror”, then it follows that reasonable people would not interpret it to be so. Thus the surprise on my part, Romney’s part and plenty of other people when President Obama said as much, in light of about two solid weeks of general news reporting and speculation about the effects of a vile video.

    Certainly if the President had clearly labeled it as an act of terror, there would have been little or no focus in the subsequent days on the video as a cause of the attack. Certainly, the President could have placed the word “terrorist” in front of the word “attack” each time it occurred in the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th paragraphs of his remarks (“an attack”, “shocking attack”, and “this attack”), and he could have more properly used the word “terrorists” in the 4th paragraph rather than “killers” so that there was no ambiguity about his characterization of the event, would you not agree?

    Ironically the “making a meal of something” phrase ends up looking like a term of projection. Myself, I wouldn’t necessarily think “we are done” in this discussion but rather that it was toast from the start. Keep pursuing it if you wish, but I don’t see how it will fly, while those pushing it will only end up looking like Bill Clinton trying to define the word “is”.

  6. toma  •  Oct 22, 2012 @5:36 pm
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    1. Exactly what am I lying about?

    This:

    President Obama asserted in Tuesday’s debate that he’d called the attack a “terrorist attack” on September 12th.

    The President did no such thing. Said no such thing. You lied. You made that completely up. And then you cleverly debunked the lie that you yourself told. But just so I can end the silliness, read this and tell me there’s a second or third way of parsing Obama’s meaning:

    “So what I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice. I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America.”

    It is crystal clear. There is no other meaning to take from those words. The Benghazi tragedy was an “act of terror.” Now to a more interesting point: Why bother, Russell? Why do sane people like you chase their own tails so absurdly? What do you get out of posting paragraph after paragraph trying to complicate or twist something so simple? It changes nothing of our national security, not a whit, if his words were slightly inflected this way or that. He’s been kicking Al Qaeda’s ass for years now, so why make a stink? He’s a strong anti-terrorist President. That’s as it should be. What good does all your hair-splitting do you? Or the nation? I’m serious. I’d like to know.

  7. Russell C  •  Oct 23, 2012 @11:10 am
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    My RedState article has a handy link to the NewsHour’s Oct 17 analysis of the debate and a transcript of what was said:

    MITT ROMNEY: I — I think interesting the president just said something which — which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.

    BARACK OBAMA: That’s what I said.

    MITT ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror? It was not a spontaneous demonstration? I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.

    BARACK OBAMA: Get the transcript.

    ‘Act of terror’ / ‘terrorist act’, phrase it as you wish, much like the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were described with no ambiguity when it became abundantly obvious. If it is your intent to say the President was implying that a spontaneous demonstration also happens to be an act of terror, then by default you’d be describing the violence of some Occupy events and a few of the post-professional game riots as acts of terror. I rather doubt you’d agree to that, though.

    From the debate transcript, it is quite clear Romney asked President Obama if, given that we all saw two weeks’ worth of White House portrayal of the attack as a spontaneous demonstration, it was not that, but instead was an act of terror… or using the shorthand of my RedState piece, a terrorist attack. By failing to say it was both, or saying it was not a spontaneous demonstration, a reasonable person would be led to believe President Obama was asserting he called it a terrorist act on Sept 12th. The President’s assertion then contradicts Romney’s impression of what was implied on that day, it contradicts what I took from his remarks, and the PBS NewsHour’s own same-day 9/12 news analysis of his remarks. This is not a matter of ‘word inflection’, Romney was asking a yes or no answer, prompted by what appeared to be an absolute contradiction at that point from the President.

    Thus there is no demonstrable lie on my part, I simply detailed why I interpreted the President’s remarks the way I did and supported my position using a like-minded interpretation on the part of a major news outlet. Nothing made up, it is there for all to see.

    Regarding your reproduction of the President’s 8th paragraph 9/12 remarks, I and many others, in light of the coincidental 9/11 anniversary, interpreted it to mean that America will find and punish those who kill Americans in terrorist attacks (the 9/11 attacks, which he mentioned only two paragraphs prior) or in spontaneous acts (Benghazi, or as he called it in the 4th paragraph, “this type of senseless violence”). Notice that one sentence prior to that description, he said “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.” Once again, astute readers here will understand he was talking about the anti-Muslim video.

    Perhaps you should turn your own question back on yourself. What do you get out of posting paragraph after paragraph trying to complicate or twist something so simple? The larger implication here, which you and others seemingly appear to be covering up, is the inexplicable failure to offer adequate protection to a US consulate when it was requested as a measure to counteract a likely terrorist act on the anniversary of 9/11 – turning a blind eye to bureaucratic incompetence, in other words. Since the narratives about it being a spontaneous demonstration is apparently being shredded to bits, this has direct implications for our national security if the current administration is shown to be less than adequate when it comes to listening to its people who are especially vulnerable to terrorist acts. Such weakness and bizarre backpedaling, if that’s what this proves to be, only invites more attacks.

    I don’t split hairs, that seems to be another of your projections. What I do is point out distinct instances of lapses of mainstream media integrity and I support my assertions with direct evidence. My goal is no more simple than to ask why such lapses are permitted to continue when they do not benefit the nation.

  8. toma  •  Oct 23, 2012 @8:21 pm
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    I feel sorry for you, Russell.