WhatFinger


Only if his media stone wall of support holds can Mr. Obama hope for a tolerable second term

Benghazi: The biggest dog that didn’t bark



Washington – What do you call a national leader mired in three simultaneous scandals: A politician deep in do-do? And what if the scandal least talked about poses the most serious danger – that it is the biggest dog that didn’t bark.
Name the leader of your choice, but Barack Obama would do just fine. Here is why: America’s tax collectors have targeted his most dangerous political opponents for serious harassment just about a year before the November 2012 presidential elections that would keep or toss him out of the White House. In second place is the Justice Department. It has been caught monitoring phone calls of journalists and searching their email. As Mr. Obama, his secretary of Justice Eric Holder and their loyal troops would have it they were only trying to stop leaks endangering national security.

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The runner up is the terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. The visiting American ambassador, two officials and Marine who rushed to their rescue were killed and a number of others wounded in two disciplined attacks by Libyan and allied al Qaeda fighters. The Obama White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and assorted security agencies were warned about expected attacks by forces hostile to the post-Gaddafi government of Libya by British and American agents. The now-dead ambassador and the consul in Benghazi had begged for timely security reinforcements. Their requests were denied in Washington. In Benghazi, the trapped ambassador pleaded for help while under fire. In Washington, the top national security establishment watched the attacks as transmitted in real time from a spy drone. Moreover, many other lines of instant communication were available at the CIA base located not far from the consulate. In the White House, the president met with his top advisers, including the secretary of defence at five o’clock in the afternoon of September 11. It was an hour before midnight in Benghazi. Mr. Obama then retired to private quarters. As asserted in Washington, he had no further contact with the Pentagon or the State Department. He left early next morning for a fundraiser in California. It was 54 days before the presidential election. All along the reelection campaign’s theme was “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” The message couldn’t be clearer: Vote Obama – under his guidance things are normal or close to normal. No surprise, just hard politics that Benghazi had to be dragged past Election Day. Looking no-big-deal style was the expected. There was no way to cover up Benghazi but lots of ways to downplay it, divert attention. Most important in this deception was Mr. Obama’s hope, or maybe expectation that the American media would play his game even past victory, as evidenced by media tone setting New York Times and many TV network heavies. Only if his media stone wall of support holds can Mr. Obama hope for a tolerable second term. How it goes will depend, I think, on whether the game of downplaying the potentially explosive and up-playing the relatively less dangerous scandals succeeds. Sour notes in that music can bring him shrieks rather than the merely goes-with-the-territory pain in the ear. The media, history suggests, will see principled American journalists continuing their disdain for the IRS intervention in politics and outrage at the attack from on high on freedom of the press. On the flip-side, the hacks and true believers of all stripes will continue dishing up drivel and call it Democratic Delights or Republican Red Meat. From his point of interest, what is happening now is only half-bad. Sober expectation is that scandals come and scandals go and public attention span is what it is: Short and tenuous at best. That being so, Mr. Obama and Democrats in general can say Benghazi-Shmenghazi, it’s time to refocus on the mid-term elections. Republicans face the same choice. Do they keep up relentless fire or do they keep the keen knifes and heavy artillery until later next spring. Democrats, it can be argued, are in a better position. They can count on all the assets that got Mr. Obama to the White House twice and the Republicans’ enduring tendency to political blunder. The greatest danger in this category is self-destruction or the closest thing to it. When a dozen or more Republicans tear each other up competing for one chair well past the point of the suicidal mania. Damn the party, damn the chance of winning on Election Day they hang like addicts hooked on publicity. Time will tell, but as of now, hedge your bets.


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Bogdan Kipling -- Bio and Archives

Bogdan Kipling is veteran Canadian journalist in Washington.

Originally posted to the U.S. capital in the early 1970s by Financial Times of Canada, he is now commenting on his eighth presidency of the United States and on international affairs.

Bogdan Kipling is a member of the House and Senate Press Galleries.


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