American Disgrace

William Kristal:

Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.”

So who in the government did tell “anybody” not to help those in need? Someone decided not to send in military assets to help those Agency operators. Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No.

It would have been a presidential decision. There was presumably a rationale for such a decision. What was it? When and why—and based on whose counsel obtained in what meetings or conversations—did President Obama decide against sending in military assets to help the Americans in need?

I heard Rush Limbaugh saying that Obama may just have not been engaged. Like, he just didn't care enough about what was happening.

That doesn't ring true for me. I think he was hugely engaged. I think he was playing the possible outcomes in his head, and he was frozen with fear that the wrong decision could sink his reelection. This is a president who waits to see how world events unfold before he jumps on what he thinks is the popular bandwagon.

At some point the president decided he could divert blame to an obscure Coptic "filmmaker." He may even have expected a small boost in popularity as the media helped him blame the disaster on Islamaphobes.

Obama thought he could lead from behind while Americans were getting killed. We'll never know, but a regular front-wise leader may have been able to save those brave Americans in Benghazi.

picture found on the internet