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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

2012 / Politics If Only Presidents Were Held Accountable for Their Security Failures

Posted by Goldy on Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 1:34 PM

Republicans Darrell Issa of California, and Jason Chaffetz of Utah, have issued a letter accusing the Obama administration of failing to adequately respond to known security threats in Libya:

Republicans on the House oversight committee charged on Tuesday that officials in Washington turned down repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi, Libya, before the fatal attack on the diplomatic compound there last month.

[...] “Put together, these events indicated a clear pattern of security threats that could only be reasonably interpreted to justify increased security for U.S. personnel and facilities in Benghazi,” the letter said.

The events in Benghazi have been seized upon by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, and by other critics of President Obama as evidence of weakness in his foreign policy.

You know what? I agree with Issa and Chaffetz. I think it's absolutely appropriate to hold administrations responsible for their own security lapses, instead of patriotically rallying around their abject failures:

Oops.

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Comments (10) RSS

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You're forgetting that the republicans are essentially denying that George W Bush was ever president.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on October 2, 2012 at 1:49 PM

George who?

Posted by Pope Peabrain on October 2, 2012 at 1:52 PM

Nice to see The Stranger calling out Bill Clinton for once.

Posted by Chali2Na on October 2, 2012 at 1:55 PM

Thank you for posting this Goldy. Two wrongs do not make a right.

Posted by Gay Dude for Romney

on October 2, 2012 at 1:59 PM

@4 And yet Bush was re-elected despite the worst security failure since Pearl Harbor.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on October 2, 2012 at 2:11 PM

According to esteemed political historian Mike Huckabee, Benghazi-gate is worse than Watergate because 4 people are dead. I look forward to hearing what he has to say about 9/11-gate now that this bombshell has been dropped 8 years ago.

Posted by blip on October 2, 2012 at 2:19 PM

The ultimate IOKIYAR.

Posted by N in Seattle

on October 2, 2012 at 2:53 PM

Am I the only one who would prefer my President and Secretary of State not be bogged down by minutia like security arrangements in a small consulate in a smaller country?

The death of an Ambassador and his security, should make it to that high level; we need to adequately respond to the raid, mourn the tragedy and fix any systemic issues.

I imagine that the Congressional funding of State, and the possibility of previous administration's appointees having a role in this will go without much mention or investigation.

Posted by Party Son Hack on October 2, 2012 at 3:13 PM

@4: Was that your point here?
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives…

How about these two posts indicating Gore wouldn't have cared about Bin Laden yet McCain would've somehow figured out how to pull all his ambassadors (you later corrected Kerry to Gore in the first one). Are you somehow indicating that some terror threats are inevitable while others can be identified in advance but only if you're a Republican? Too bad for all those people in New York, huh?
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives…
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives…

It would be great if we could live by the idea that two wrongs don't make a right - but that presupposes that a politician believes what he or she says and lives by their own stated moral compass. And that's a supposition that Goldy is demonstrating (as are you, albeit unwittingly) is total bullshit.

Posted by Ziggity on October 2, 2012 at 3:29 PM