November 6, 2012, the day on which Barack Obama was re-elected to the presidency of the United States, was a moment when the history of America was decisively changed. Some – and we are among them – think that the old America, the America founded in 1776, died on that day.

We have selected passages from several post mortems (see the whole articles).

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, who has lived under a communist regime, writes a lament:

Our Constitutional Republic died a peaceful death on November 6, 2012. Having reached the point of no return in a comatose state after years of progressive and illegal immigration assaults, the fabric of conservative society is now completely unraveled and Uncle Sam’s America is no more.The United States of America is now relegated to the dust bin of history as a “has been” empire. The Shining City on the Hill, the hope of so many millions since July 4, 1776, no longer exists. What rises from the ashes is a country that few of us will recognize, like, or learn to accept submissively. After 236 years of existence, a new country emerges today … The Supreme Court will be forever altered after its last conservative members will be replaced by the liberal academics who call themselves “progressives.” The rule of law will be implemented by Executive Orders, making Congress irrelevant. The communist motto “Forward” that resonated with so many ignorant Americans will plunge us into many years of darkness from which we will never be able to recover. We have proven our Founding Fathers right, they did give us a Constitutional Republic and we were unable to maintain it. … The welfare dependent Americans, unions, and illegal aliens have chosen for the rest of us the dark path of serfdom to big government and to socialist utopia. … Rallies in support of conservatism overwhelmed venues for Mitt Romney while rallies for our bumbling President became scarcer and scarcer. Yet, miraculously, at the ballot box, our President won all over the countrt. … Americans chose high unemployment, reduction of our military, communist indoctrination of their children, and loss of personal freedoms … I am saddened by the loss of millions and millions of American soldiers who have died to preserve freedom yet we lost it on November 6, 2012.

Ron Radosh gives some advice. He writes:

The president will argue that the nation has given him a mandate and endorsed the policies he sought to pursue, and that he will do all he can to move the United States to the “fundamental transformation” he said was his goal in the 2008 election campaign. That means the opposite of any attempt for serious compromise, and a hunkering down to try to move ahead with ObamaCare and other politically leftist programs. …  So what should conservatives do? … Those opposed to the direction Obama favors should provide serious and meaningful alternatives of their own, and present them to the nation. They should do everything possible to reveal to the nation that it is the White House, and not the defeated Republicans, that is failing to deal with the coming crisis of a growing entitlement state.  In foreign policy, which is the most dangerous of the coming crises that will face the Obama administration, conservatives should relentlessly forge ahead on issues like the failure of the White House in the murders of our diplomats at Benghazi, which candidate Romney foolishly failed to deal with in the last days of the campaign … It also means a continuing effort to raise the issue of the danger to the world of the growing radical Islamic movements abroad, to attack their ideology, and to make it clear that although Bin Laden is dead, his death did not put an end to a regrouped al-Qaeda.

J. Christian Adams sounds a note of optimism, looking to the individual states to preserve liberty. He  writes:

The Founders gave us a Constitutional architecture which was designed to delay the arrival of demagogues. And make no mistake about it, Obama is a demagogue. He has totalitarian tendencies which manifest over and over and over again. Whether attacking religious liberty, or secured Chrysler bondholders, this man comes from a worldview distinctly un-American. Thankfully the Constitution still is operative. Some of the liberties the Founders secured are still ours to treasure. The press remains free. We can still assemble. And I suspect after tonight, gun ownership will substantially increase. But another part of our Constitutional architecture provides solace tonight – the 10th Amendment. Sure, we’ve heard the 10th thrown about for years. But tonight it ripened. Whatever powers aren’t given to the federal government, it doesn’t have. And the states are empowered to push back against federal power. It’s funny how those wise architects 200 years ago anticipated things we couldn’t anticipate just a decade ago. It is providential that the document contains seeds that sprout over time. The 10th Amendment does not lend itself to the sort of corrupt interpretation that the Commerce Clause does. States retain power, period. …

Bryan Preston writes in a spirit of mea culpa but let’s-now-do-it-right encouragement:

We can blame the candidate, sure. Romney didn’t fully capitalize on his first-debate win, and apparently the Chris Christie/Barack Obama lovefest turned a lot of votes back to the president, too. But overall, Romney ran almost as competent a challenger’s campaign as I’ve seen. We can blame the press, sure. Benghazi alone would have sunk most presidents — most Republican presidents — in weeks if not days. The coverup by the Complicit Media was shameful in the extreme. But we’ve faced down the MSM before, and won. So, no, I don’t think we can just blame Romney and I don’t think we can just blame the press. Even combined, those two aren’t enough to explain what happened today. There is something deeply wrong with our country. We’ve been living on borrowed time — and trillions of borrowed dollars — for a decade already. We seem to think that we can keep on doing so. That more than anything else is “the new normal.” Thomas Jefferson famously said of the slavery issue, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” I tremble for my country when I think that the God of Compound Interestis a far more jealous God than Jahweh, Allah, and Zuul all wrapped up into a single, bloody package. Maybe that truth — the truth — doesn’t sell in a country that’s been suffering for four years now, and with no real end in sight. This election should have been something like a walkover for the challenger. But no. Our economic destiny is already written in stone, with four trillion in new debt run up by Bush and the GOP, and another six trillion by Obama and the Democrats. Our only hope is rapid and wrenching reform. The alternative is hyperinflation, Cloward-Piven [forcing the break-down of the system and then establishing communism], and all the rest of the Zimbabwe-like horror. And that means Mitt Romney didn’t fail us. That means people like me — people like you — failed our country. We had years to make the case, and we didn’t. We worked our bottoms off, but it wasn’t enough. So we must redouble our efforts. … Do not tire, do not flag, do not quit. … We will need to fight [Obama] at every turn. I’m not quitting. Don’t you quit now, either.

We won’t be quitting.

The worst is yet to be, and for as long as we have the freedom to say what we think, we – and all our readers, we trust and hope – will continue to do so.

… And, on further thought, do so even after that freedom is denied us, because then it will be even more necessary. That’s our pledge.

The defeat of the United States by Muslim terrorists in Benghazi on 9/11/12 had been prepared as a defeat in Washington, D.C. over the last four years – the duration of this Obama presidency. It is not only unsurprising that it happened ( though it remains profoundly shocking), but something of the sort – a massacre of American diplomats and operatives in at least one Arab country – should even have been expected; because America’s Muslim enemies are at the wheel of the ship of state, guiding it on to the rocks.

The National Security apparatus of the United States is deeply penetrated and is being dangerously manipulated by a hostile foreign threat. This necessarily means that significant foreign policy decisions involving the Islamic world … will serve to advance the cause of our enemies.

This is from an article by John Guandolo at Breitbart:

Over the last several years, the presence of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) operatives working inside the federal government advising our senior leaders has been definitively documented …

See, for instance, our posts The State-whisperer, August 16, 2012, concerning Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closest adviser, Muslim Brotherhood associate Huma Abedin; and Obama gang submits to America’s enemy, June 14, 2012.

The success of the MB’s influence operation from within our government is now manifesting itself with national and global implications for the security of America and its citizens.

In July of this year, the CIA hosted a 2-day training program at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia entitled “Countering Violent Extremism Workshop for the National Capitol Region.”

Present at this conference were local, state, and federal officials from nearly every law enforcement, military, and intelligence organization around the Washington Metropolitan area. In addition to the senior CIA, FBI, and DHS officials conducting the training, members of the Muslim community moderated and led the training throughout the 2-day program. Notable among these was Imam Mohammed Magid who participated in speaking about “Building Communities of Trust: A Local Example of a Partnership between the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) and Law Enforcement.”

How was Imam Magid vetted to speak at CIA Headquarters? And who vetted him?

The ADAMS Center is a Muslim Brotherhood front organization …  Imam Magid is the Executive Director of the ADAMS Center. He is also the President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the largest Muslim Brotherhood organization in the U.S. which was found to be a financial support entity for Hamas in the largest terrorism financing and Hamas trial in U.S. history (US v Holy Land Foundation, Dallas, 2008).

Having Magid advise and teach U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials can only be aptly described as insane.

Insane, yes  – unless there is a terribly sane and sober plan by the administration itself to deliver the country to Islam.

According to officials at Langley who were willing to speak on the condition of anonymity, this is an outrage – but none of the leaders on the inside seem to understand the gravity of this threat.

To say the fox is in the hen house would be an understatement.

But the insanity does not end there. Imam Mohammed Magid continues to be a guest in the White House, works with the National Security Council, advises the Secretary of State, is on the DHS Homeland Security Advisory Working Group, and has received an award from the FBI. Magid continues to be treated by American leaders as if he is a friend, yet he is the leader of the largest MB front in the U.S. which financially supports the terrorist organization Hamas. …

When, over a long period of time, American leadership works side by side with and are advised by individuals and organizations who are proven to be hostile to the United States, it is no wonder the shooting at Ft Hood was called a “crime” by the FBI not an “act of terrorism” and why it was called “workplace violence” by Pentagon officials writing the after action reports. It is no wonder DHS and others in our government define the threat as “violent extremism” (which is actually a meaningless term) instead of calling it what it actually is – the Muslim Brotherhood’s jihadi movement in the United States which is a support network for terrorists.

And, it is no wonder that a military attack by Al Qaeda on an American consulate in Libya would be identified by the Obama Administration as the result of a YouTube video which was “offensive to Muslims” instead of what it truly was. Sadly, the amazing heroism of the men who battled over 200 Al Qaeda fighters for 6 hours is getting lost in the shuffle.

And it is no wonder that the attack took place, and no wonder that it was a victory for the Muslim Arab terrorist attackers.

Recently, Counter Terrorism Czar John Brennan scoffed at the idea the Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated the U.S. government. At what point will Mr. Brennan be held accountable for willfully failing to perform his duty and uphold his Oath to the Constitution. When will the other leaders such as the Secretary of State, the Director of Central Intelligence, the FBI Director, and the President be held to account for this egregious and treasonous behavior? …

One can only hope that a Romney Administration will take bold and decisive actions to purge the government of our enemies and those who willfully [or] unwittingly support them.

Right. And take measures to ensure that such penetration of government by an enemy can never happen again.

Why are we posting so much, so often, on the events of 9/11/12 in Benghazi, Libya?

Because what happened there is extremely grave. The US ambassador’s death was an enormity committed against the United States of America. The deliberate sacrifice of American soldiers was also deeply criminal. These were grave deeds, but gravest of all is the probability that these events were the result of treason.

Treason committed by whom? By the President of the United States of America.

Could any American in the history of the Union have believed such a thing to be possible? Or even thinkable?

We are not alone in thinking the unthinkable. See Roger L. Simon’s thoughts on the subject here at PJ Media.

He writes:

Our Constitution defines it [treason] this way: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Aid and comfort to the enemy — what is that? When you ascribe an action to the protest of a video when it is actuality a planned terror attack by Ansar al-Shariah, an established offshoot of al-Qaeda (if that’s not your “enemy,” then who) — and you knew that all along, you watched it live without doing anything, and then you told those who wanted to help to “stand down”? Meanwhile, our government may have been conspiring to arm another offshoot of al-Qaeda in Syria. How much more treasonous can you get? Benedict Arnold was a piker.

And Bob Owens considers the question of treason in the highest places also at PJ Media. Some of his conjectures as to what happened when the secret CIA center was attacked are even more shocking than the revelations that have been leaking out slowly over the last few weeks. If what he surmises is right, then a charge of treason against President Obama is fully justified.

He writes:

For starters, we now know that not a single American life should have been lost. Trucks with with the Islamist cell’s logo and with heavy machine guns mounted on them took up blocking positions around the consulate no later than 8:00 p.m., according to Libyan eyewitnesses. These so-called “technicals” did not let anyone in or out for one hour and 40 minutes, until the attack began at 9:40 p.m. local time.

In that time, air assets based in Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean Sea could have easily dispatched the forces preparing for an attack, using precision weapons to destroy these logo-identified blocking vehicles. There is every reason to believe that the timely launch of air assets would have destroyed the attacking force as they prepared for their assault, without the loss of a single American life. For reasons as yet unknown, these easily identifiable enemy assets massing for an attack on the U.S. consulate were met with indifference by U.S. forces.

Our CIA assets, which seem to have been composed of former SEALs and other special operations personnel, conducted an unsupported rescue mission under fire. They saved the lives of the remaining consulate staff and recovered the body of Sean Smith, whom they then escorted back to their safehouse a mile away.

Once there, they came under fire again — including fire from a terrorist team armed with mortars. Then something truly extraordinary and troubling took place:

“At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according to those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing, and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. special operations forces to provide support to special operation teams on the ground involved in intense firefights.”

After reading this, I was simply stunned. According to the article, an American CIA agent had a laser on a target and was attempting to call in close air support — and was denied. While this article never explicitly says so, some have suggested that the “security officer” in the article was Ty Woods, soon to be killed by that same mortar.

Let’s unpack this.

In this context, there are two ways to “lase” a target. One is simply using a visible laser designator/laser sight to point out the target’s location. The second is the use of a laser target designator (LTD), which is a far more sophisticated device. An LTD uses coded pulses of a band of light not visible to the human eye, and these pulses communicate and synchronize with an aircraft-mounted module to direct a finite and fairly exclusive family of air-launched guided weapons. 

If the CIA officer was lasing a target with the laser designator/laser sight on his weapon, one might argue (and some have) that this was an act of improvisation — a hope that the visible lasing would convince the mortar team to flee their position in fear of being bombed. This position is not without merit but overlooks two salient facts. The first is that these security officers lasing the target were manning a heavy machine gun, which presumably would have the reach and power to eliminate the mortar team, or at least suppress it, without air support. It also overlooks the fact that the article directly states that the target was being lased for a specific asset, a “Spectre.” 

Airborne gunships have been around since the Vietnam war, when C-47 transport planes were first equipped with port-side mounted miniguns for close air support missions, becoming AC-47s. By 1967, a desire to improve upon the concept involved replacing the aged twin-engine C-47 base aircraft with the four-engine C-130, which had greater speed, more fuel, and a greater capacity for weapons and ammunition. These AC130s carried various nicknames, including “Spooky” (inherited from the AC-47) and “Spectre,” the latter of which has been the most publicly recognizable name of these powerful ground support aircraft.

If the CIA operators were using an LTD, it additionally means that air assets were not in Italy or Sicily on the ground. It means that strike aircraft were overhead, and were denied permission to fire from someone in the chain of command. LTDs must sync with overhead aircraft; they have no deterrent effect since they use a spectrum of light we cannot see and can only communicate with craft overhead.

I will caution that this is highly speculative, but an LTD would presumably not be used for just any variant of the C-130-based gunships. While we did have AC-130 gunships based close to Benghazi, they would not make the best use of targets lit by an LTD. The AC-130 uses guns, not guided weapons. [But] the same cannot be be said of another “Spectre” variant, the MC-130W.

The MC-130W is built to use precision-guided weapons, including the GBU-44/B Viper Strike glide bomb and the AGM-175 Griffin missile. Both are laser-guided weapons that can be directed using a ground-based LTD. Both are weapons designed to be highly accurate, with small warheads to greatly reduce the danger of collateral damage. They are precisely the kind of weapon an experienced CIA operator would call in if they wanted to reduce the threat of collateral damage, like the kind of damage that might be caused by firing an HMG from a rooftop.

If this is what occurred, it seems that even in weapon selection, the primary concern of the HMG operator was saving innocent lives.

But we do not know at this time which actually occurred. Based upon the information we can glean, we’re left with two most probable outcomes.

Either the Obama administration refused to launch close-air support aircraft from nearby bases that could have eliminated enemy forces attacking Americans trapped on the ground, or we had close air support aircraft overhead that could have taken out the terrorists that had Americans under fire with precision weapons — and the administration refused to let them fire.

The moral cowardice of both decisions is unconscionable. …

Retired Admiral James Lyons notes various sources claiming: ”One of Stevens’ main missions in Libya was to facilitate the transfer of much of Gadhafi’s military equipment, including the deadly SA-7 — portable SAMs — to Islamists and other al-Qaeda-affiliated groups fighting the Assad Regime in Syria.”

Barack Obama has long had a cozy relationship with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and their alliance with Islamists in Syria battling Bashir Assad has been criticized before. If Ambassador Stevens was facilitating weapons transfers from Libya to Syrian Islamist forces aligned with al-Qaeda, via his Turkish alliance, then we are at a troubling, perhaps catastrophic point in this republic’s history.

We have been at war with the Islamist hydra of al-Qaeda for more than a decade, and now sources are accusing a sitting president of arming this enemy.

18 USC § 2381 provides us with a legal threshold for treason: “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

Providing munitions to al-Qaeda-aligned Islamist forces would seem to meet that standard. The Obama administration has the most damaging charge of all to which it must answer, and can be offered no quarter.

*

Aggravating the frustration and fury of those who want the truth about what happened and punishment of those to blame for it, is the unbearable indifference that Obama and Hillary Clinton have displayed to the suffering of the murdered men and their families, as well as to the fact that America was attacked and the battle thrown away or gifted to the enemy.

Mark Steyn’s comments highlight their vicious, shallow, self-important, impenetrable insouciance – and their cruel, glib lies:

Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods fought all night against overwhelming odds, and died on a rooftop in a benighted jihadist hell hole while Obama retired early to rest up before his big Vegas campaign stop. …

Ty Woods, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Chris Stevens were left to die, and a decision taken to blame an entirely irrelevant video and, as Secretary Clinton threatened, “have that person arrested.” And, in the weeks that followed, the government of the United States lied to its own citizens as thoroughly and energetically as any totalitarian state, complete with the midnight knock-on-the-door from not-so-secret policemen sent to haul the designated fall guy into custody.

And “that person” – a horrid little anti-Semite who invented a Jewish film-maker for him in turn to accuse, but nonetheless one who is entirely innocent of the murder of Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith, of the sacrifice of Woods and Doherty – is sitting in a prison cell in California, having had these crimes heaped on his head by the great political messiah of the Democratic Party, Barack Hussein Obama. Even for such a victim of injustice and political persecution decent men and women must express outrage.

And for these grave, these monstrous wrongs in foreign lands, the real perpetrators  – be they the President of the United States and the most highly placed members of his administration – need to be punished with the full force of the law.

Postscript 10/31/12:  It now emerges that Glen Doherty was one of the 8 Marines sent from Tripoli, met by a (terrorist) escort, delayed by the escort for 45 minutes at the Benghazi airport, and eventually taken to the secret annex which soon after their arrival was pounded with mortars, one of which killed him.

Come let us mock at the great

That had such burdens on the mind

And toiled so hard and late

To leave some monument behind,

Nor thought of the levelling wind. …

Mock mockers after that

That would not lift a hand maybe

To help good, wise or great

To bar that foul storm out, for we

Traffic in mockery.

-W.B.Yeats

It seems that the murderers of Ambassador Stevens and four of his staff are protected from retribution by the lies the Obama administration has told about the tragic event.

How this is possible emerges from a round-up of reports in GlobalPost on the leader of a terrorist organization that attacked the US consulate in Benghazi:

Ahmed Abu Khattala, who was identified by a witness and officials as one of the Islamist militia commanders leading the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, has denied being involved.

Khattala told Reuters in an interview that he was present during the incident but wasn’t one of the ringleaders.

Present while his militiamen were violently attacking the consulate, but not “involved”? Just a bystander looking on, bemused – or amused – by the antics of the killers?

According to the Associated Press, Khattala describes himself as a founder and commander of the Abu Obaida Bin Jarrah.

He told the AP in a separate interview that he went to the site of the attack to rescue men he had been informed were trapped inside.

Ah, he was there to rescue the US ambassador, was he?

The New York Times noted that “just days after President Obama reasserted his vow to bring those responsible to justice, Mr. Abu Khattala spent two leisurely hours on Thursday evening at a crowded luxury hotel, sipping a strawberry frappe on a patio and scoffing at the threats coming from the American and Libyan governments.”

So that’s what America has been reduced to by Obama’s policy towards the Arab revolutionary states: a toothless old blusterer, like the Libyan “government”, whose threats need not be taken seriously. And are obviously not being carried out, or not with great dispatch anyway. Maybe sometime, one day, someone will be sent by the State Department to take some action against Khattala.

Indeed, Khattala said, “These reports say that no one knows where I am and that I am hiding,” according to Reuters. “But here I am in the open, sitting in a hotel with you. I’m even going to pick up my sister’s kids from school soon.” …

The Times classified Khattala’s manner as defiant. No authority has questioned him on the attack, he told The Times, and he has no plans to go into hiding.

Taunt, taunt the USA.

“All this talk is baseless,” Khattala told the AP. “I am in Benghazi, have a job and live my life normally. I have not been accused by any party with any allegations … I am not a fugitive or in hiding.”

Meanwhile, US government sources told Reuters that Khattala is being probed as a suspect in the attacks, though investigators are not clear what role he played.

Isn’t the – totally invisible – probing meant to find out what role he played?

A Libyan interior ministry official with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters that Khattala was photographed at the consulate on Sept. 11, but there was not enough evidence for an arrest. The official said, “Just because someone is there doesn’t mean they were behind it.”

But they were there. They were in it – a massive armed attack in which four Americans, including the representative of the United States, were murdered. Every one of the participants should be targeted for punishment.

Khattala’s account of the attack … alleged that the assault grew out of a spontaneous protest when Libyan or American guards inside the consulate’s compound fired on the protesters, provoking them.

Only there was no protest. Khattala is seizing on the lie that the Obama administration has been telling. If they now call him a liar, they accuse themselves.

Mock, mock the USA.

The mother of Sean Smith, one of the four Americans murdered by Arab Muslim terrorists in their attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on 9/11/12, pleads for the truth about the death of her son.

Last night, on Tuesday October 16, 2012, a woman named Candy Crowley “moderated” the debate between the two candidates for the presidency in the forthcoming elections, Mitt Romney (Republican) and Barack Obama (Democrat).

According to her Wiki entry, Candy Crowley practices Transcendental Meditation.

What is Transcendental Meditation? It’s inventor, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, explains:

That’s not someone satirizing the guru, it really is the man himself. Yes, it sounds silly to us too. We prefer to think – but let those meditate who will. What we gather is that if it works as it is intended to, “TM”  makes its practitioners happy.

Like all Far Eastern religions, its object is to affect the state of feeling of the devotee, and is not intended to be a guide to moral behavior. Its teachers do not claim that it can make you perceptive or just. No false descriptions. “Makes you happy” is all that’s promised, all that’s written on the bottle so to speak.

But a capacity to be just is surely more necessary in a moderator of a debate than his or her personal happiness. We don’t say it was for her happiness that the Commission on Presidential Debates chose Candy Crowley to moderate the presidential debate, but if they thought she was capable of being just, of presiding over a debate without taking sides, without giving more time to one side than the other, without endorsing the points either side made, they were mistaken.

Matthew Vadum writes at Front Page:

In an outrage destined for the history books, the moderator of last night’s hotly contested presidential debate uttered an untruth …

A lie. So call it a lie.

… about President Obama’s deadly bungling in Libya after Obama overtly asked her on live television to support his dishonest version of it.

His lie.

It was truly unprecedented and could only have happened in the Age of Obama.

During the town hall-format debate with an audience of undecided voters, Crowley provided an assist to Obama to help him perpetuate his administration’s ongoing cover-up about the murder of four Americans –including the U.S. ambassador — at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, this past Sept. 11. Reports indicate that Ambassador Chris Stevens and other officials were provided inadequate security in a particularly hostile part of Libya. …

GOP candidate Mitt Romney stated –correctly— that “it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.” Romney’s supporters have been saying for weeks that Obama didn’t want to label the assault on the U.S. mission a terrorist attack because to do so would be an admission that the administration’s foreign policy was in flames.

After Romney’s statement, Obama interjected, “Get the transcript,” like an eager contestant asking for a lifeline on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

At that cue, Crowley cut off Romney, claiming that Obama had in fact called the attack an “act of terror” around the time it took place. Buoyed by Crowley’s compliance, Obama boasted, “Can you say that a little louder, Candy?”

“He did call it an act of terror,” she said of the president. “It did as well take — it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea [of] there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You [Romney] are correct about that.” …

She had the transcript. She interpreted it in Obama’s favor. It was obviously arranged beforehand that she would do this. It is a scandal in itself.  

Crowley … happens to be wrong.

In the White House’s Rose Garden on Sept. 12, Obama … [made] a general statement that “no acts of terror would shake the resolve of this great nation.” Obama said what happened in Benghazi was “a terrible act” and promised that “justice will be done.” At no time [on that day] did he say the events in Benghazi were instigated by terrorists.

Over the following two weeks, the Obama administration continued to resist calling the events in Benghazi a terrorist attack. On five different Sunday morning TV talk shows, Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said the attack in that Libyan city stemmed from violent protests related to a “heinous and offensive” video.

On Sept. 25, Obama again refused to label the attack an act of terrorism during a softball appearance on TV’s “The View,” saying that an investigation was still ongoing. He said the same thing later the same day during an address at the United Nations, blaming the violence in Libya on the video and making the much-ridiculed assertion that “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

After the debate, an unapologetic Crowley jovially admitted on CNN that Romney was correct but blamed her victim, the former Massachusetts governor, for the sin of linguistic imprecision.

Well, you know, again, I’d heard the president’s speech at the time. I sort of re-read a lot of stuff about Libya because I knew we’d probably get a Libya question, so I kind of wanted to be up on it. So we knew that the president had, had said, you know, these acts of terrors [sic] won’t stand or whatever the whole quote was and I think actually, you know, because, right after that I did turn around and say but you are totally correct, that they spent two weeks telling us that this was about a tape and that there was a, you know, this riot right outside the Benghazi consulate, which there wasn’t. So he was right in the main but I just think he picked the wrong word.

No, Candy, Romney didn’t pick the wrong word. The Commission on Presidential Debates picked the wrong moderator.

But the damage, which may or may not be long-lasting, is now done and the debate is finished. Just another day in the mainstream media.

Former New Hampshire governor and Romney surrogate John Sununu excoriated Crowley on the Fox News Channel. “Candy Crowley had no business doing a real-time, if you will, fact check, because she was wrong,” he said. Crowley aided President Obama who “was absolutely deliberate in his dishonesty on this issue of whether it was terrorism.”

The Obama administration’s failure to provide security in Benghazi, an act that led to the death of four Americans, is “unconscionable,” Sununu said.

Commentator Charles Krauthammer skewered Obama for being “completely at sea,” and not even trying to answer the question about consulate security. Obama acted offended at suggestions he would mislead the American people, Krauthammer said, even though he put his U.N. ambassador on television to lie to the public about what transpired in Benghazi.

Romney missed “a huge opening” to pound Obama over consulate security, Krauthammer opined. Of course if there was a genuine opportunity Romney missed, it’s because he was too busy defending himself after Crowley effectively called him a liar.

There is to be one more presidential debate. We hope and anticipate that Romney will use the opportunity to expose the huge scandal of Obama’s pro-Islam policy and stress that what it led to – the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three of his staff – is an extreme affront to the United States and a national tragedy.

It is so a great a scandal that it alone should unseat Obama, even if all his other policies had not already proved him (as they have) to be the worst president in American history.

Let him go and be happy. He can use some of his China-invested pension to buy lessons in Transcendental Meditation.

Did someone inside the Obama Administration send Ambassador Stevens to his death at the hands of Arab Muslim terrorists? 

Was he lured to Benghazi to be captured or killed?

Why might the possibility that that is what happened be more than a conspiracy theory?

Michael Walsh, in his PJ Media column, surmises that “someone in State, or its Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or in the IC (and most likely the CIA) very likely burned Chris Stevens and sent him to his death.”

He writes:

Last month’s Benghazi fiasco saw four Americans — including our ambassador to Libya — murdered by elements of al Qaeda in a military-style assault timed to coincide with the 11th anniversary of 9/11.

The weeks afterward saw the administration blaming a video that, even the White House now admits, had nothing to do with it. And the months before the attack saw Washington adamantly reducing security in Benghazi — despite pleas for reinforcements from the folks on the ground.

Yet President Obama’s top spokesman — and Vice President Joe Biden, in last week’s debate — have been busy pointing fingers of blame at State and the Intelligence Community.

It won’t work. Neither Foggy Bottom nor the intel community’s legion of spooks, analysts and secret-keepers is likely to go quietly.

And that’s an understatement. Behind the scenes — in Langley, Fort Meade, Anacostia, and elsewhere in the Intelligence Community — spooks and analysts are sharpening their knives for the Obama administration, which, having chosen to pick a fight both with the IC and the Clintons, apparently has some sort of death wish.

The national media’s still doing its level best to keep Benghazi off the front pages, but its effort is doomed to failure.

It’s worth repeating: our ambassador to Libya was (it now seems) lured to Benghazi and assassinated.

[And] that night, Barack Hussein Obama, evincing not the slightest interest in or sympathy for Chris Stevens’ fate, flew off to Las Vegas for a fundraiser. Instead, his increasingly desperate administration issued a squid-ink fog of confusion, blaming an obscure YouTube video for what the IC knew almost immediately was a terrorist assault on American soil. And then, when that legend collapsed, blamed the State Department and the IC for letting it down.

They knew it because … there may have been double agents within State or the IC itself who lured Stevens back to Benghazi with a false sense of security, and thus to his death.

This shouldn’t surprise anybody; after all, in Afghanistan, trusted locals shoot our troops in the back on a near-weekly basis. And it certainly explains the comment, which went largely unremarked by incurious newspaper stenographers and DNC media flunkies, by a State Department regional security officer, Eric Nordstrom, that “the Taliban is on the inside of the building” — by which he meant Foggy Bottom. …

The real question is not political — what did the president know and when did he know it? — but geo-political. Someone in State, or its Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or in the IC (and most likely the CIA) very likely burned Chris Stevens and sent him to his death.

Considering that the Obama administration, including the State Department and the IC, are now thoroughly infiltrated by jihadists, his conjectures don’t seem to us to be too far-fetched or merely paranoid. (See our posts: Can it be treason, October 5, 2010; A man with a mission, February 9, 2011; National insecurity, November 16, 2011; Spreading darkness, November 19, 2011; Obama gang submits to America’s enemy, October 5, 2010; The State-whisperer, August 16, 2012; Whom the president praises, August 16, 2012; How Obama enormously assists the jihad, August 20, 2012.)

But even if there was no actual plot within the administration against Ambassador Stevens, it can be reasonably asserted that the story of his murder begins in Washington.

Robert Spencer explains how. He writes at PJ Media:

The Obama administration is approaching full meltdown over the steady stream of revelations concerning its inaction and lies over the massacre of Ambassador Chris Stevens and other U.S. personnel in Libya. Obama and Biden are lining up against Hillary Clinton and the State Department, claiming that they weren’t told about Stevens’ requests for additional security.

Meanwhile, administration officials are denying that they ever linked the attack on the consulate to the Muhammad video that has been blamed for worldwide Muslim riots, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. One fact, however, is as clear as it is little noted: the entire incident demonstrates the abject failure of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy, and its analysis of the jihad threat in general.

Speaking about the Libyan revolution in March 2011, Obama warmly praised the dawning in Libya of “the rights of peaceful assembly, free speech, and the ability of the Libyan people to determine their own destiny.” After providing military aid to the anti-Gaddafi rebels despite evidence of their al-Qaeda links, the administration – whether the call really came from the White House or the State Department or both –had every reason to ignore the request from Benghazi for more security, and to pretend that the whole thing was just a spontaneous uprising over a video, not the carefully planned September 11 jihad attack that it proved to be.

To have acknowledged what was really happening would have been to admit that the Allahu-akbaring mob besieging the Benghazi consulate was nothing remotely close to a responsible citizenry enjoying their rights of peaceful assembly, free speech, and self-determination. It would have been to admit that the jihad against the United States would not be turned away from its goal by hearts-and-minds gestures, even if those gestures included the removal of a brutal dictator. The people of Benghazi were no more inclined to welcome the Americans as liberators – and Ambassador Stevens had attempted to play exactly that role, sneaking into Libya during the most difficult days of the uprising and doing everything he could to aid the rebels – than were the people of Iraq when Saddam Hussein was toppled.

The reason in both cases was the same: the rebels against both Saddam and Gaddafi were largely Islamic supremacists who wanted a Sharia state, disdained democracy, and considered the United States to be their enemy not primarily because of various aspects of its foreign policy, but because it is the world’s foremost infidel polity, against whom the mujahedin believe they have a sacred duty to wage war  …

But the White House and State Department not only do not acknowledge this fact – they have done all they can to deny and obfuscate it. The one cardinal proposition that accepted analysts must repeat is that the present conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims have absolutely nothing to do with Islam; indeed, Obama administration officials are expressly forbidden to link Islam with terrorism, as if Islamic terrorists weren’t busy linking the two on a daily basis.

The errors of analysis and wrong decisions that cost lives all follow from this initial false premise. …

This was the willful blindness that killed Chris Stevens, and is the real scandal of Benghazi.

The politically correct fantasies that characterize the Washington establishment’s views on Islam and jihad not only make for bad policy; they also kill.

Members of a terrorist organization called the February 17 Martyrs Brigade were employed by the State Department to guard its legation in Libya.

Who are they ? What happened to make martyrs on some February 17?

Following Friday prayers on Feb. 17, 2006, thousands of Benghazians attacked the Italian Consulate to punish the temerity of an Italian minister, Roberto Calderoli, who several days earlier had publicly defended free speech in the West. The world was then experiencing another cycle of Islamic violence, this one orchestrated to punish a tiny Danish newspaper for publishing a sheet of Muhammad cartoons and, in turn, Denmark itself for refusing to punish the journalist-transgressors of Islamic law, which outlaws any critiques and all depictions of Muhammad.

Calderoli didn’t merely defend free speech. During his TV interview, he dramatically unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a T-shirt featuring a cartoon of Muhammad. Referring to Islamic rioters worldwide, he added: “When they recognize our rights, I’ll take off this shirt.”

He was forced to resign from his post the next day, a sacrifice on the altar of Shariah (Islamic law) by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It wasn’t enough.

“We feared for our lives,” the wife of the Italian consul later told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, describing the attack in which the consulate was set on fire. All personnel were safely evacuated. Libyan police used tear gas to try to disperse the rioters, later opening fire and killing 11 attackers.

Those are the “martyrs” for whom the February 17 Martyrs Brigade named themselves. When Arab brigades name themselves in honor of dead terrorists, they are announcing that they are sworn to avenge their heroes. They are terrorist groups, every one of them.

So the State Department, under the inspired leadership of Hillary Clinton, employed vengeance-thirsty members of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade to guard its legation in Libya.  

We found that information in a column by Diana West at Townhall. (She also tells us in passing that Benghazi literally means “city of holy warriors“.)

Next we learn from Mark Steyn that the terrorists paid for by the State Department were acquired through the agency of a British company based in Wales:

The State Department outsourced security for the Benghazi consulate to Blue Mountain, a Welsh firm that hires ex-British and Commonwealth Special Forces, among the toughest hombres on the planet. …

That should be okay then: tough hombres defending US representatives in foreign lands.

But –

The one-year contract for consulate security was only $387,413 – or less than the cost of deploying a single U.S. soldier overseas. On that budget, you can’t really afford to fly in a lot of crack SAS killing machines, and have to make do with the neighborhood talent pool. So who’s available? Blue Mountain hired five members of the Benghazi branch of the February 17th Martyrs’ Brigade and equipped them with handcuffs and batons. A baton is very useful when someone is firing an RPG at you, at least if you play a little baseball. There were supposed to be four men heavily armed with handcuffs on duty that night, but, the date of Sept. 11 having no particular significance in the Muslim world, only two guards were actually on shift.

Let’s pause right there … Liberals are always going on about the evils of “outsourcing” and “offshoring” – selfish vulture capitalists like Mitt Romney shipping jobs to cheap labor overseas just to save a few bucks. How unpatriotic can you get! So now the United States government is outsourcing embassy security to cheap Welshmen who, in turn, outsource it to cheaper Libyans. Diplomatic facilities are U.S. sovereign territory – no different de jure from Fifth Avenue or Mount Rushmore. So defending them is one of the core responsibilities of the state. But that’s the funny thing about Big Government: the bigger it gets, the more of life it swallows up, the worse it gets at those very few things it’s supposed to be doing. So, on the first anniversary of 9/11 in a post-revolutionary city in which Western diplomats had been steadily targeted over the previous six months, the government of the supposedly most powerful nation on Earth entrusted its security to Abdulaziz Majbari, 29, and his pal, who report to some bloke back in Carmarthen, Wales.

Was there a connection between the guards and the attackers? Yes. A very close one according to Diana West:

Ansar al Sharia (“Supporters of Islamic Law”), the al-Qaida-linked militia believed to have led the consulate assault in September, is a spinoff of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade.

Which explains how the attackers knew where Ambassador Stevens would be on the night of 9/11/12,  the lay-out of the campus, and the location of the “safe-house”.

What says the State Department to that?

Diana West tells us:

The State Department reminds us not to forget the service of two brigade members who were beaten and two who were shot defending the compound. “But there were some bad apples in there as well” …

Was the whole tragedy a result of the State Department being granted too little money to pay for  proper security ? Joe “the Clown” Biden alleged as much in his “debate” with Paul Ryan recently.

According to this article by Daniel Greenfield, there was no shortage of money, but Obama and Hillary Clinton had what they considered better uses for it than squandering it on protecting US personnel and property:

The last, generally disavowed, excuse is that the Benghazi consulate lacked proper security because of budget cuts. This has already been disproven, but let’s take that excuse at face value. The State Department has a 50 billion dollar budget. Within that 50 billion dollar budget there was no money for reasonable consulate security in a city rife with Islamist militias who had already attacked the consulate and other diplomats in the city. But here’s what there was money for…

The 770 million dollar Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund for the Arab Spring.

7.9 billion dollars for Obama’s Global Health Initiative.

2.9 billion for international debt relief.

2.2 billion to strengthen democratic institutions in Pakistan.

469 million for global climate change.

587 million for student exchange programs.

And of course there is the always popular Mosque renovation program …

Which raises questions connected with the First Amendment, as this report in the Washington Times points out:

The mosques being rebuilt by the United States are used for religious worship, which raises important First Amendment questions. U.S. taxpayer money should not be used to preserve and promote Islam, even abroad. …

Section 205.1(d) of title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations prohibits USAID funds from being used for the rehabilitation of structures to the extent that those structures are used for “inherently religious activities.” It is impossible to separate religion from a mosque; any such projects will necessarily support Islam.

So would not Obama be shocked, shocked to learn that his State Department is supporting Islam?

Just as the bankrupt EU (with any luck) is about to self-destruct, some thick Norwegians decide to give it a Nobel Prize.

There’s nothing unusual about the Prize being awarded to the Least Deserving. They gave it to the Grandfather of Contemporary Political Terrorism, Yasser Arafat. They gave it (instead of a more suitable Chicken Little prize not yet instituted) to the climate-threat hoaxster, Al Gore. They gave it to Barack Obama for doing nothing at all.

This is from an editorial in the IBD:

This year’s Peace Prize goes to the EU for its “successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights.” This isn’t the committee’s worst choice. But it’s one of them.

Barack Obama, Al Gore, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Yasser Arafat and Mikhail Gorbachev were all worse choices.

So picking the EU, which is having a hard time holding itself together, isn’t the most asinine decision the committee has made. But it could have done better.

If transforming most of Europe “from a continent of wars to a continent of peace” is the standard, the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize should have gone to the United States. This country has been more effective at keeping peace in Europe than any other entity.

America has had a strong military presence in Europe since World War II. The U.S. has subsidized European security with troops on the ground, jets in the air and trillions spent.

With money that would have otherwise been used for defense freed up for other purposes, Western European nations set about building their now-bankrupt welfare states. While America bought guns for Europe, Europe bought butter for itself. …

The five-member Nobel Peace Prize Committee, based in Oslo, has itself become a joke. Maybe it’s time to give the Nobel Peace Prize responsibilities to a less frivolous group.

These pictures illustrating the fatuous, rude, jeering behavior of Vice-President Joe Biden during the October 11, 2012, vice-presidential debate between him and Paul Ryan, come from PowerLine:

Not only did Biden lie about the administration’s attempted cover-up of the 9/11/12 murders at the US legation in Libya, but he put on a clown’s performance with grinning, grimacing, and shouting his opponent down, while smugly defending the indefensible, apparently impervious to the fact that a national tragedy has recently occurred.

It wasn’t a debate – only one side arguing his points – but a bullying session. And as Joe Biden, the bully, was under the orders of his Party, he personified the Democrats in all their collective nastiness – the bullying Party.