By Arnold Ahlert ——Bio and Archives--January 30, 2013
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Kroft: "You said during the hearings, I mean, you've accepted responsibility. You've accepted the very critical findings of Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering. As the New York Times put it, you accepted responsibility, but not blame. Do you feel guilty in any way, in -- at a personal level? Do you blame yourself that you didn't know or that you should have known?Here's how both Clinton and Obama "answered" the question.
Clinton: "Well, Steve, obviously, I deeply regret what happened, as I've said many times. I knew Chris Stevens. I sent him there originally. It was a great personal loss to lose him and three other brave Americans. But I also have looked back and tried to figure out what we could do so that nobody, insofar is possible, would be in this position again. And as the Accountability Review Board pointed out, we did fix responsibility appropriately. And we're taking steps to implement that. But we also live in a dangerous world. And, you know, the people I'm proud to serve and work with in our diplomatic and development personnel ranks, they know it's a dangerous and risky world. We just have to do everything we can to try to make it as secure as possible for them." Obama: "I think, you know, one of the things that humbles you as president, I'm sure Hillary feels the same way as secretary of state, is that you realize that all you can do every single day is to figure out a direction, make sure that you are working as hard as you can to put people in place where they can succeed, ask the right questions, shape the right strategy. But it's going to be a team that both succeeds and fails. And it's a process of constant improvement, because the world is big and it is chaotic. You know, I remember Bob Gates, you know, first thing he said to me, I think maybe first week or two that I was there and we were meeting in the Oval Office and he, obviously, been through seven presidents or something. And he says, 'Mr. President, one thing I can guarantee you is that at this moment, somewhere, somehow, somebody in the federal government is screwing up.' And, you know you're -- and so part of what you're trying to do is to constantly improve systems and accountability and transparency to minimize those mistakes and ensure success. It is a dangerous world. And that's part of the reason why we have to continue to get better."The so-called investigation by the Accountability Review Board took 13 weeks. It concluded that no one was responsible for the security breakdown that left four Americans dead, even as it completely ignored finding out why administration officials peddled the "Muslim video" excuse for the attacks. As for Obama callously characterizing this scandal as little more than one of an expected series of government "screw-ups," perhaps the only thing worse was the president's previous description of the murders as "bumps in the road." An American Thinker column by Daren Jonescu explains how this stonewalling not only serves the administration's purposes regarding Benghazi, but the entire progressive agenda as well. After noting that Clinton could never have gotten away with saying, "what difference -- at this point -- does it make" in the days or even the first few weeks immediately following the attacks, Jonescu lays the progressive strategy bare:
"The key to the progressive 'ratchet,' as it is often, correctly, called, is that no step forward may ever be retraced. Each stage of degradation is to be rationalized after the fact, precisely by the means exemplified in Hillary Clinton's stark question...Was modern public education conceived as a tool for preventing the development of individualism and exceptional men, in favor of a morally and intellectually stunted 'workforce' of the compliant to support an entrenched oligarchy?...Would ObamaCare's individual mandate stand up to the judgment of the framers of the U.S. Constitution?...The key to the success of Western socialism's 'progress' is not the periodic lurches toward the abyss. It is the art of effective stalling. All of today's political and moral outrages will be rationalized with a shrug tomorrow: 'What difference -- at this point -- does it make?'"Before the November election, the Obama administration was embroiled in four major scandals: Fast and Furious gunrunning to Mexico, the leaking of top-secret intelligence information most likely from the White House, a string of "green" company bankruptcies tied to political donors, and Benghazi. In each case, this administration, abetted by fellow Democrats and see-no-evil media apparatchiks, has moved further and further away from the point where each one occurred, to the place where, at "this point" in time, this cavalcade of overt corruption can be characterized as an unnecessary or unseemly effort to "rehash" old news. Furthermore, if anyone dares to bring up Benghazi when Mrs. Clinton makes her inevitable run for presidency in 2016, this unholy alliance of protectors will undoubtedly accuse her detractors of misogyny for daring to bring up something that -- at this point -- no longer makes any difference. Four dead Americans and no remotely credible explanation as to who was responsible or why, ought to say otherwise. That it doesn't -- and won't -- is a testament to the level of corruption that the majority of the public and the media are willing to tolerate, as long as the progressive cause is served. For the American left, there will always be screw-ups and bumps along the road to utopia. When the ends justify the means...what difference do they make?
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Arnold Ahlert was an op-ed columist with the NY Post for eight years.