This page was last updated on October 22, 2012.
I found what follows on the Facebook wall of Carl Davidson, webmaster and perhaps unofficial leader of Beaver County Reds.
Commenting on the second Obama-Romney debate, Mr. Davidson wrote:
“My instant analysis: Clear victory for Obama. Major screwup by Romney for being trapped in the alternate universe of Fox News on Libya, (which Fox is blusteringly trying to defend by inane parsing, saying Obama didn’t really say ‘terrorism,’ he just said ‘terror’--I kid you not.) Obama did well with women and Latinos, two key voter blocs. Romney’s anti-China tirade probably went over well, but that’s because no one, including Obama, made the point that Romney’s tariffs and other trade measures, if ever implemented, would immediately cause a huge rise in prices at Walmart and other big box stores. Obama was right to say let some of the low-skill jobs go, they’re not coming back, but take the high-road, high-tech green manufacturing path instead. Whether a Congress will back it is another matter.”
Carlos A. Rivera-Jones responded: “Binders full of women. No further analysis needed.”
Mr. Davidson responded: “Yes! Amazing how these guys think..”
Before I proceed, I don’t know if Mr. Davidson’s comments were really his own. A debate analysis presented by Mr. Davidson of another race was actually a candidate’s self-assessment of his performance.
The first part of Mr. Davidson’s comment has to do with the back-and-forth about the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate on September 11, 2012. President Obama said:
“The day after the attack, Governor, I stood in the Rose Garden, and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror. And I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime. And then a few days later, I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base and grieving with the families.”
Mitt Romney said, “I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.”
Debate moderator Cathy Crowley then chimed in, “It — [Mr. Obama] did in fact, sir. So let me — let me call it an act of terrorism. … He did call it an act of terror. It did as well take — it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea of there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.”
When Mr. Romney started to provide evidence refuting the claims by Ms. Crowley and Mr. Obama, Ms. Crowley decided it was time to change topics.
When you read the Rose Garden speech of September 12, 2012, to which Mr. Obama referred, you’ll find the word “terror” mentioned once in the 801-word speech. Here is the relevant section:
“Of course, yesterday was already a painful day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11 attacks. We mourned with the families who were lost on that day. I visited the graves of troops who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and had the opportunity to say thank you and visit some of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed. And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi.
“As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it. Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.
“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.”
You will find Obama supporters tend to use a much smaller excerpt because they don’t want us to have the context. The way I read it, the only time Mr. Obama mentioned “terror” was in the broader context of terror attacks in general, not to call the Benghazi attack itself an act of terror. For the sake of argument, though, let’s accept Mr. Obama’s claim. If early on Mr. Obama believed the attack on our embassy was an act of terror, why did the Obama administration subsequently keep telling us the attack was the result of demonstrations about a video that offended Muslims? The Sunday (9/16/12) following the attack, the White House sent Ambassador Susan Rice (a cabinet member and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations) on five different news shows. The following is what Ms. Rice said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“… based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that-- in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent. … We do not-- we do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned.”
Ms. Rice made the same comments on ABC, CNN, FNC, and NBC.
In a Univision interview of 9/20/12, Mr. Obama said, “We’re still doing an investigation. What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by the extremists to see if they could directly harm U.S. interests.”
In his UN speech of 9/25/12, Mr. Obama said, “And on this we must agree: There is no speech that justifies mindless violence. There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There’s no video that justifies an attack on an embassy. There’s no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction in Pakistan.” The only mention of “terror” in the speech was in an unrelated comment about Iran: “the Iranian government continues to prop up a dictator in Damascus and supports terrorist groups abroad.”
On 9/26/12, ABC reported, “White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed today that the president believes the deadly assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was a ‘terrorist attack,’ a term Obama has not yet used in his characterization of the violence.”
Let’s get back to Ms. Crowley. Shortly after the debate, Ms. Crowley said, “I knew the president had said ‘These acts of terror won’t stand,’ or whatever the whole quote was. Right after that, I did turn around and said [to Romney], ‘But you were totally correct that they spent two weeks telling us that this was about a tape, and that there was a riot outside the Benghazi complex, which there wasn’t.’ So [Romney] was right in the main. I just think he picked the wrong word.” Here’s the bottom line. In front of 66 million viewers, Ms. Crowley said Mr. Romney was wrong. In front of a handful of CNN viewers, Mr. Romney “was right in the main.”
That Mr. Davidson and the lefty world think they can make hay with the “binders full of women” comment is hysterical and indicative of their desperation. Everyone knows what Mr. Romney meant. The point of the faux outrage is to distract from the real story. It’s kind of tough to sell the “war on women” hooey when your target worked with “a non-partisan coalition of women’s groups whose purpose is to increase the number of women appointed by the … governor to senior-level cabinet positions, agency heads and selected authorities and commissions in the Commonwealth.” During his campaign for governor, Mr. Romney committed to increase female appointees and he followed through with the help of Massachusetts Government Appointments Project (MassGAP). In fairness, MassGAP claims the percent of women appointed decreased during the last two years of Mr. Romney’s governorship.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
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