Week 9: Why the Benghazi terrorist attack still dogs Obama - CSMonitor.com - 3 views
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John West on 23 Oct 12This article highlights the significance of the Benghazi attacks for Obama as the foreign policy debate looms in his future. The author presents the developments to the story in manner sympathetic to Obama, pointing to the difference between "spontaneous" and "opportunistic" in the description of the attack and the "fog of war" Hilary Clinton has used to describe the evolution of the intelligence information. The author also selects the specific points that have become "politically petty": the vocabulary used in the initial attack, whether "terror" was meant in a general way by Obama or specifically geared toward the murder of the ambassador. A new development I hadn't heard about involves House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who endangered the lives of several Libyans by releasing information about their work for the US government at the Embassy. The Benghazi discussion is fascinating to me in a train-wreck sort of way: I agree with what Dan said in class about it basically being a non-issue, and has digressed into the candidates bashing each other on things that have nothing to do with the violence itself. In my opinion, one of two things should be happening: Romney and media outlets should either accuse Obama of deliberately covering up a terrorist attack if that's what they think happened, or they should drop the Benghazi issue if they recognize that extremely complicated events on the other side of the planet evolve over time instead of being obvious immediately. Topics like Obama's drone strike program and Romney's Iran prospects are really substantive and should be talked about at length, but rehashing Benghazi over and over again seems like a distraction from a broader foreign policy debate to me. In the end, I don't feel like the article really answered the question it set forth (why Obama is being attacked on what many consider to be a non-issue). In my opinion, Romney and eager media outlets are looking for a campaign game-changer where ther
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Jonah Schacter on 28 Oct 12I 100% agree with you. This whole thing has been blown out of proportion to try and put Obama in a bad place. There is not much more to say or do because Romney is trying to win an election and will do whatever he can to make himself look better than Obama. People jump on small things way to quickly and demand immediate explanation. Have they even considered that Obama has been looking into what really happened, can they really not accept that things simply take time?
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cody s on 30 Oct 12I agree that a lot of the criticism has been mis-directed. I think Romney could have just criticized Obama for letting it happen under his administration ("While he cuts back military spending, US ambassadors and citizens are getting killed in Libya") rather than criticizing him for his choice of words initially addressing the attack. I disagree with you though, John, that the thing has been blown out of proportion. I think that the death of a US ambassador in the Middle East is a very big deal regardless of how the administration addressed it, and that the Romney campaign has failed to capitalize on it.
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mabel taylor on 02 Nov 12That's a good point - Romney's attack from the start was just off-point. But I am uncomfortable with the whole idea of a tragedy being used for political gain, though I do understand it. Your comment Cody, that "the Romney campaign has failed to capitalize on it," just seems pretty disgusting in its most basic form.
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Anna Schutte on 09 Nov 12Watching all the different controversies that ebb and flow during the election, I wonder how much this affects the voters when they care most about the economy and jobs. I agree with Mabel. The loss of this amazing, brave diplomat shouldn't be used for political gain.
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Eli Melrod on 11 Nov 12Yeah, this was a huge non-issue that I think had no effect on the election whatsoever. Whether or not Romney did a good job of hitting Obama on it, after the debate in which Candy Crowley stepped in, the issue was over. I really didn't think this would be a big deal in the election, and sure enough, it wasn't.
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Cameron G on 12 Nov 12I know the election is over and all, but I just got back from a Speech and Debate Tournament where my debate topic was foreign policy. This subject came up a lot, as I was arguing against the current policy, and it was very effective so I can see why this topic is still dogging Obama. Overall I think the foreign policy is bad and think it should be changed.