 |
|
December 2, 2014
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon With its colorful cache of purples and oranges and reds, COLLARD GREEN SLAW is a marvelous mood booster --- not to mention just downright delish
April 18, 2014
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Clarifying one of the greatest philosophical conundrums in theology
John Ericson: Trying hard to be 'positive' but never succeeding? Blame Your Brain
The Kosher Gourmet by Julie Rothman Almondy, flourless torta del re (Italian king's cake), has royal roots, is simple to make, . . . but devour it because it's simply delicious
April 14, 2014
Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer: Passover frees us from the tyranny of time
Eric Schulzke: First degree: How America really recovered from a murder epidemic
Georgia Lee: When love is not enough: Teaching your kids about the realities of adult relationships
Gordon Pape: How you can tell if your financial adviser is setting you up for potential ruin
Dana Dovey: Up to 500,000 people die each year from hepatitis C-related liver disease. New Treatment Has Over 90% Success Rate
Justin Caba: Eating Watermelon Can Help Control High Blood Pressure
April 11, 2014
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Silence is much more than golden
Susan Swann: How to value a child for who he is, not just what he does
Susan Scutti: A Simple Blood Test Might Soon Diagnose Cancer
Chris Weller: Have A Slow Metabolism? Let Science Speed It Up For You
April 9, 2014
Jonathan Tobin: Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?
Samuel G. Freedman: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau
Jessica Ivins: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau
Matthew Mientka: How Beans, Peas, And Chickpeas Cleanse Bad Cholesterol and Lowers Risk of Heart Disease
April 8, 2014
Dana Dovey: Coffee Drinkers Rejoice! Your Cup Of Joe Can Prevent Death From Liver Disease
Chris Weller: Electric 'Thinking Cap' Puts Your Brain Power Into High Gear
April 4, 2014
Amy Peterson: A life of love: How to build lasting relationships with your children
John Ericson: Older Women: Save Your Heart, Prevent Stroke Don't Drink Diet
John Ericson: Why 50 million Americans will still have spring allergies after taking meds
Sarah Boesveld: Teacher keeps promise to mail thousands of former students letters written by their past selves
April 2, 2014
Dan Barry: Should South Carolina Jews be forced to maintain this chimney built by Germans serving the Nazis?
Frank Clayton: Get happy: 20 scientifically proven happiness activities
Susan Scutti: It's Genetic! Obesity and the 'Carb Breakdown' Gene
|
| |
Jewish World Review
May 15, 2013/ 6 Sivan 5773
The cover-up unravels
By
Paul Greenberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Now we know. Or at least we know more than we did about what happened at Benghazi, and, even more telling, what happened afterward. And there's doubtless more to come. With each congressional hearing, with each appearance by another whistleblower, the picture becomes more complete. And it's not pretty. It's more like that Portrait of Dorian Gray hidden away in the attic that, when it is finally uncovered, shows every dirty deception, every scabrous half-truth that is even worse than a lie, all of it detailed in those emails that are today's equivalent of the Nixon Tapes. It could be the 1970s again.
The Portrait of Benghazi painted by this administration now begins to reveal every crack and flaw, every rhetorical sleight-of-word used to cover, first, its feckless incompetence when it came to protecting our diplomats and then, much worse, its attempts to cover its tracks even as the true heroes of Benghazi were being brought home in coffins.
As was said during Watergate, it's not the original scandal that disgraces a politician, even on the presidential level, but the cover-up, the tissue of fabrications a president -- and in this case a secretary of state, too -- kept weaving. Only to see it unravel at an ever faster pace.
The truth about what happened at Benghazi -- and afterward -- continues to out. But we the (ever-gullible) people are supposed to believe that all last week's sworn testimony was just part of a Republican plot to smear our leaders. But that dog won't hunt, as we say in these latitudes. Because, to quote a Republican who in his time was also denounced as just troublemaker seeking only partisan advantage, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time. And time is running out for those still defending the administration's execrable handling of Benghazi -- before, during and after the slaughter there.
Like the layers of an onion, all the administration's misleading statements about Benghazi are now being peeled away one by one, perhaps not as fast as it can change them but fast enough so that anyone who still cares about the truth can go back and see what they were -- only cover stories. One after the other:
-
Even as she stood by as the remains of the four dead Americans as they were brought home, our secretary of state blamed the assault that killed them on a "mob" inflamed by a sacrilegious video that, we find out, had nothing to do with it.
- The next day, any and all evidence that might cast doubt on Hillary Clinton's official version of events at Benghazi were purged from the talking points distributed by the White House and State Department to their official flacks and hacks. Like the fact that the State Department had been repeatedly warned about threats to our diplomatic posts across North Africa but took no action to defend our people in Benghazi, despite their urgent requests. Any references to the terrorists who killed them having ties to al-Qaida went down the memory hole, too. (That terrorist network was supposed to be on the run, at least according to the president's re-election campaign.)
- The day after that, there came what may have been the most wretched excess of official falsifying since Tricky Dick himself was trying to explain away Watergate. Our distinguished ambassador to the United Nations, the Hon. Susan Rice, was all over television blaming the attacks at Benghazi on some fictive mob incensed by that amateur video and not on a premeditated, well-organized and brutally executed terrorist operation.
- Not just days but weeks after our diplomats and their defenders were slaughtered, the president of the United States was sticking with that story, repeating it again and again -- on "Late Night" with Dave Letterman, during television appearances with friendly interviewers (on Univision and "The View"), and, of course, before the United Nations, where falsehoods are always welcome.
- In his first statement on Benghazi, the president did tack on a line PR boilerplate about this country's not being daunted by any "act of terror," but both he and his administration studiously avoided blaming the attacks on any actual terrorists, let alone an offshoot of al-Qaida. We were all supposed to believe it was that amateurish video's fault.
How do justice to all this? How sum up this whole, carefully orchestrated series of false leads? Tom Bevan of the website RealClearPolitics did as well as anyone in his wrap-up of last week's testimony before the House Oversight Committee. He said that, though there was nothing there that a lot of us hadn't suspected, "a fair reading of the record leads to an obvious conclusion: The president and his administration clearly misled the public about what happened on Sept. 11, 2012."
To quote one congressman, South Carolina's Trey Gowdy, on Ambassador Rice's now embarrassing appearances on television network after television network, her comments "perpetuated a demonstrably false narrative." But she was just being used by the higher-ups covering their own trail. Or as the CIA's James Clapper said, "She was going on what we were giving her."
He felt no need to go into detail, like why Ms. Rice was being given this cover story and told to repeat it. You don't think it had anything to do with that presidential re-election campaign going on at the time, do you? If the truth had outed then instead of now, it would have blown apart Barack Obama's pose as the great terror-fighter who not only had killed Osama bin Laden but had pretty much destroyed al-Qaida itself -- even while that terrorist network was multiplying into branches, cells and agents all over the world, not excluding Benghazi, Libya and Boston, Massachusetts.
The real heroes, like the diplomats who were cut down at their post, and those who have now become whistleblowers, knew better from the first. To quote one of them, Gregory Hicks, his reaction to Ambassador Rice's televised and re-televised account of events was immediate: "I was stunned. My jaw dropped." For he knew "there was no report from the U.S. mission in Libya regarding a demonstration" and no spontaneous protest against that infamous video. As he told the committee, "The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya."
And what happened when Mr. Hicks questioned why such an obviously false story was being spread by the administration? What was the response from his superiors? Shut up, they explained. And when he didn't, he was effectively demoted. Now he's just a desk officer. Retribution is mine, saith this administration. And nothing seems to offend it like the truth.
Such is the way our secretary of state treats honest men and real patriots. Or as Our Lady of Benghazi shrieked when someone dared ask her a direct question about Benghazi: What difference at this point does it make?
None at all, except perhaps to those of us who care about a little detail known as the truth.
Paul Greenberg Archives
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
© 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|
Columnists
Toons
Lifestyles
|
