Now that the spin-room arguments about debate winners and losers has died down, the most enduring part of last night’s debate may be Vice President Biden’s comments on Libya. Because the administration has been so tight-lipped on the issue, Biden’s remarks are important in piecing together the puzzle of exactly what the White House knew and when.
As Jonathan noted earlier, Biden specifically contradicted the senior State Department officials and whistle blowers who just testified under oath before the House Oversight Committee earlier this week, and also took a direct swipe at the intelligence community. Josh Rogin reports on more:
Vice President Joe Biden claimed that the administration wasn’t aware of requests for more security in Libya before the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi during Thursday night’s debate, contradicting two State Department officials and the former head of diplomatic security in Libya.
“We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there,” Biden said.
In fact, two security officials who worked for the State Department in Libya at the time testified Thursday that they repeatedly requested more security and two State Department officials admitted they had denied those requests.
This, along with Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter’s bombshell gaffe about politicizing Benghazi yesterday, means that last night’s debate probably won’t help shift the news cycle away from Libya, as the Obama campaign may have hoped. Instead, it raises even more questions for them, including: who’s telling the truth on security requests, the State Department and the security personnel on the ground or Vice President Biden?
You're right in this sense: the Libya statement ought to be the most enduring aspect of the debate. But it won't be. The debate will be remembered for Biden's antics.
I was pleased that the moderator opened with a question on Libya,putting Biden on the defensive immediately, which necessitated his immediate resort to the diversionary minstrelsy histrionics which were a visceral demonstration of his profound intolerance and utter inability to treat his opponent's ideas with the intellectual seriousness that they merit.The fact checker at the AP has already pointed out that Biden was wrong in his response i.e. lying.
That was a strong question–and, for sure, absolute, judging from the minstrelsy jive to tub thumping denials of reality we've seen from Joe, Cutler, Wasserman Schultz and the sorry sad sack second-string team of press flacks, this mess can't be swept under the carpet.
Last night, one of the television commentators made a most damning observation. n nBiden, in defense of the administration's Libya fiasco, repeated several times that they did not have the most recent intelligence information. n nLater, when discussing Iran's quest of a nuclear bomb, he assured us that the intelligence community will know immediately if Iran seeks to use its enriched material to create a bomb. For my Jewish friends "Kal Vchomer". If the intelligence community can not even report correctly on a public demonstration or attack how can we trust them to report correctly on a secret nuclear program.
The $5 trillion lie. Romney corrected it after Obama said it twice. Ryan correct it again. n"Last night, the Obama campaign blasted out another email claiming that Mitt Romney's tax plan would either require raising taxes on the middle class or blowing a hole in the deficit. "Even the studies that Romney has cited to claim his plan adds up still show he would need to raise middle-class taxes," said the Obama campaign press release. "In fact, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein and Princeton economist Harvey Rosen both concede that paying for Romney’s tax cuts would require large tax increases on families making between $100,000 and $200,000." nBut that's not true. Princeton professor Harvey Rosen tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD in an email that the Obama campaign is misrepresenting his paper on Romney's tax plan: n nI can’t tell exactly how the Obama campaign reached that characterization of my work. It might be that they assume that Governor Romney wants to keep the taxes from the Affordable Care Act in place, despite the fact that the Governor has called for its complete repeal. The main conclusion of my study is that under plausible assumptions, a proposal along the lines suggested by Governor Romney can both be revenue neutral and keep the net tax burden on taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 about the same. That is, an increase in the tax burden on lower and middle income individuals is not required in order to make the overall plan revenue neutral. n n• Wall Street Journal: Princeton Economist Harvey Rosen on How the Romney Tax Plan Can be Revenue Neutral Without Increasing Taxes on Lower or Middle Income Americans.
Maybe Good Ol' Joe didn't know that more security had been requested because he, like Obama, doesn't go to the briefings. Even if he does, it's not at all clear that he'd understand what's going on.