The vice presidential debate opened with a question about the Libyan consulate attack. While that section of the evening probably didn’t figure heavily in forming opinions about whether Vice President Biden or Paul Ryan prevailed, it did provide an interesting twist in the unfolding tale of administration prevarications about the murders in Benghazi.
In response to a pointed question from moderator Martha Raddatz about what he and the president knew about the Benghazi attack, Biden threw the intelligence community and the State Department under the bus. The vice president claimed that the story the administration put out about the terrorist attack on the consulate and the murder of the U.S. ambassador being part of the fallout from a controversial anti-Muslim video was the fault of the intelligence they were given. But rather than put the issue to bed, it raises even more troubling questions not only about the security disaster but also about the lack of leadership shown by senior administration officials, including the president. It also contradicts State Department testimony and other comments from intelligence officials that they knew it was a terror attack within 24 hours of it happening.
For Biden to put all of the blame for the lies about the video and the denial of terrorism on intelligence officials says a lot about the complete breakdown of administration counter-terror policy. His denial that anyone in Washington knew that the story put forward by Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, wasn’t true seems implausible. Even if true, it speaks to administration incompetence. The narrative here is still confused and Biden’s contribution only furthers muddies the waters.
It also demonstrates how absurd and hypocritical Democratic attacks are on Mitt Romney for his criticism of the initial reactions from Washington to both the Libya attack and the assault on the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt. Efforts such as those of Biden to deflect blame for a disaster that unfolded without any leadership from the top onto the Republicans are clearly not going to work.
maybe someone wants Petraeus to be damaged. n nKudos to Ryan in starting with the original question. nToo bad Scott Brown did not do same last night, on the housing crisis question. Scott took the bait of first responding to Warren's serial attacks, when she decided not to answer the actual question.
Well, I caught about thirty minutes during my dinner break in The OR and read a bit more of transcript later.r n I thought Biden was absolutely ridiculous. His behavior was outrageous. If I were a true believer in this administration, I would be crushed. Fortunately I am neither. From what I saw, Paul Ryan did an excellent job of staying on subject and focusing on making his point. From what I saw, Ryan passed the test. he was poised, had a sense of humor, under the most wretched of circumstances. I will view the tape this weekend. r n Once again, I stand by my nearly one week old projection of The next president of the USA will be Mitt Romney with Paul Ryan by his side as his VP. If anything I am more confidant after what I saw and read of the debate today.r n Romney Team, just keep doing what you are doing.
Vice President Biden blames the intelligence community.
There is reason to believe Obama was heeding his preferred scenario and ignoring the experts. But let’s say Biden is right, that it was the CIA that guided Obama’s reaction. He acted on the information his spooks with their cameras and listening devices gave him. What else could he do responsibly?
So they were wrong. But that was not the fault of the administration. It did its job. It followed the best advice available.
Right. But why did that not apply to the Bush administration when it heeded the CIA on WMD in Iraq, and not just our spooks, all the intelligence agencies of our allies as well?
As it turned out, they were wrong. But it was not wrong for Bush/Cheney to believe them and to act on their unanimous advice. It would have been irresponsible to have ignored them.
Did anyone else find it incredible that Biden categorically stated that the U.S. would be out of Afghanistan in 2014, no matter what? He said it several times. This shocked me. What if the Afghan security forces are still a complete and utter disaster (such as they are now) in 2014? Still packing up and leaving them to the wolves? What if U.S. commanders on the ground say that there is no way all U.S. forces can safely exit from A-stan by the end of 2014? Too bad? What if, God forbid, there should be another attack against the U.S. and it can be traced back to one of the growing areas in A-stan where Islamists have re-constituted terror training camps? Biden says, no, that will have to be done by the Afghans, we're outta there. n nIt seems completely irresponsible for a sitting VP of the U.S. to state on national TV that the U.S. will absolutely, positively, no exceptions bug out of a theater of war 2 years in advance.
I think as far as the US public is concerned, this was one Biden's strongest moments last night IMO. n nNobody cares about the Afghans at this point, and for good reason. n nHe basically said 'We came, we degraded AQ, we killed Bin Laden, now its up to the Afghans to help themselves.' n nHard to disagree with that. Who wants to die or have their child die for a corrupted, extremist country that stabs its helpers in the back repeatedly? n nUnspoken, was the fact that if they cause trouble outside their borders, we go back, and bounce rubble till they no longer have that capacity. n nThe days of trying of trying to win hearts and minds are over, thank God. It led to nothing but dead American boys and appeasement. n n n n
I do think it is ridiculous to wait two years to leave, and stupid to telegraph the precise date. n nWho wants to be the last to die at 2:13PM for a war that is scheduled to end at 2:45PM? n nWhy not leave now, and warn we will be bank with a vengeance, from the air, if we hear a peep out of them?
Vice President Joe Biden shows the fecklessness of the Obama Administration. War is not a game, and you do not announce in advance when your side is going to stop fighting. Fortunately, such idiots as those in the Obama administration were not in power during World War II. They would have announced to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis that they would withdraw from battle in – 1943? 1944? 1945?
You can frequently tell when the tide has turned. The facts are: 1. undoubtedly, there are a lot of people in the Intel community who did not like being thrown under the bus – there will be blowback. 2. Obama put Hillary in the awkward position of defending the indefensible – Bill's original instincts about Obama were right – there is blowback and 3. if AQ is "back on their heels" then I'm the queen of England – there was blowback. n nAnd now there is word of cyber attacks and empty threats. It's like a burgler breaking into someone's house (or computer) and discovering someone's been there before. They then check their own house and discover it was broken into a long time ago. You don't need a great deal of imagination to figure out what's coming next.