It's a high-profile case, and the public wants to know if there was foul play. You give a press conference in which you say, "One thing's for sure: no act of murder will ever shake our resolve." By making that statement, have you announced that the person was definitely murdered?
October 17, 2012
A debate-inspired hypothetical.
"Say you're a police investigator, and you find a dead body with no clear cause of death."
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If he says it on CNN, yes it was murder.
yes.
but if your department explicitly states in pressers for the next 3 weeks that it was in response to a movie and not murder, there is a huge credibility issue.
That's a good analogy. Obamapologists will argue that he wasn't trying to say it definitely was terror--only that it might be.
In order for the parallel to work, the police investigator must have spent the majority of the press conference talking about a different cause of death that was still the result of an intentional act by someone else, such as the dangers of drunk driving. And then two weeks later admit that it wasn't a drunk who hit the victim at all, but a premeditated murder using the car as weapon.
This seems obviously a "no" to me.
Here's another hypothetical, though:
Imagine the controversy were reversed -- it wasn't a terror attack but actually was a spontaneous protest, and for some reason Romney was attacking Obama for having jumped to conclusions or whatever.
Is there any chance that any Democrat would look at Obama's rose garden speech and conclude that, yep, Obama obviously *had* called it an act of terror?
If the detective KNEW it was murder for at least 6 hours prior to arriving on scene and then obfuscated about it, and stonewalled his superiors for 2 weeks before saying he knew it was murder all along, I'd hope he'd get slapped with obstruction of justice. -CP
Here's another way to determine if President Obama said it was and act of terror during his Rose Garden speech:
Imagine if, during last night's debate, President Obama had found it in his best interest to deny that he had called it an act of terror. Would the people supporting him say that the transcript proves him wrong?
Of course not. They would easily claim that he was referring to acts of terror in general.
Darn, Ben beat me to it.
I would think it was weird that we were first of all concerned about the police department's resolve.
Were they feeling insecure about their resolve that they had to make in an issue?
Speaking of which, why haven't the results been published of the autopsy of Ambassador Stevens? I have not even seen anyone in media wondering about it.
To answer your question, I would say it would be vague enough to say they didn't know what it was.
But then if they arrested the wife for downloading illegal files, made that the premier issue at hand, I'd say they weren't showing a lot of concern that it was murder.
It all depends if the moderator has the transcript in front of her.
chckelit: Obamapologists
Well played!
Speaking of which, why haven't the results been published of the autopsy of Ambassador Stevens? I have not even seen anyone in media wondering about it.
Ambassador Stevens could not be reached for comment. -CP
It's not terror in any case, since it's a legitimate war target, and apparently successful, in shutting down US intelligence in the area.
Terror here means al Qaeda and denial of the Geneva convention, but it's in fact just a regular enemy in asymmetric war.
More often al Qaeda attacks non-legitimate targets, which pays thanks to the press, which takes its share of the profit in a quiet business arrangement; these are called terror attacks because of the press involvement. Terror is their headline. More at seven, what can you do to protect yourself, mostly under Bush, when Democrats were in on the profits. It's ineffective under Obama because the press won't amplify it for al Qaeda.
About the only actual terror these days is fatwas on purveyors of this or that blasphemy in the US.
America's Dumbassador-at-large (tm), on the other hand, comments on whatever the hell goes through his plug-addled brain. -CP
"RigelDog said...
Speaking of which, why haven't the results been published of the autopsy of Ambassador Stevens? I have not even seen anyone in media wondering about it."
I think the bloody hand prints/streaks are proof enough of murder in my estimation. I would dearly like to be spared those details, anyway. Adds nothing to the public's need to know, and only further anguishes those that loved him (them) the most.
You have to carry the analogy further. If the police department spends two weeks publicly condemning a violent movie for causing the death, and then hauls off the director in handcuffs ... and only later admits it's a case of murder for unrelated motives ...
This analogy fails IMO. In the Benghazi case, the dispute is over things like motive, premeditation, etc. There is no disputing that a murder took place.
Too out of context.
Before saying "One thing's for sure: no act of murder will ever shake our resolve" did you spend 5 minutes condemning a movie that inspires suicide?
It strikes me that the wording of the speech was deliberately ambiguous, leaving room for the president to do what he did in the debate; plausibly assert that he had called it a terror attack from the beginning. That way, if the "it-was-that-horrible-video-who-done-it" deception fell apart, all bases were covered. Ditto if the deception was successful until the election.
As for me, I find his assertion throughly implausible and too clever by half when you consider the charade the Administration played up to and through Obama's UN speech on September 25, two weeks to the day after the September 11th terror attack in Benghazi. Why roll out the Big Lie through Carney, Susan Rice and other Administration officials if what Obama said in the debate is true?
No sale. Not here.
If something similar happens under a Romney administration, you know the NY Times, WaPo and all the other liberal rags will have multiple front page stories on this from day 1. No matter if it was caused by a youtube video or Al-Qaeda.
Is it just me or could Romney have gotten some mileage out of the word bullshit somewhere in this part of the debate? I'd have called BO a stinking damned liar and said something about how sick and tired I am of plausible deniability. That might have only focused criticism on my choice of words if Romney used them but bullshit. I think it's time someone on state with this bastard calls bullshit in plain language. This might be the easiest issue of all right now about which to defend the charge.
Can I add to this hypothetical that the dead person was, say, of a distinctive race and class, and has been found dead in a neighborhood whose residents are of a distinctly different race/class. And lets just add there has been some racial tension and outbursts in the weeks before the body is found. Do the police trumpet the murder claim right off? Or do they wait until they know a lot more?
B McManus
Anyhow, this whole post is just a crazy game...
Yes, if that came right after the announcement of the death. If you talk about how this death happened on the anniversary of another murder, then no.
rhhardin:
Since when are diplomats and diplomatic missions legitimate targets in wartime? When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the Germans declared war on the U.S a day or two later, did FDR send armed soldiers to attack the Japanese and German embassies and consulates and kill everyone inside? Did he even kill the Japanese diplomats who came to declare war on the U.S. but didn't deliver their message until after the attack started because they didn't finish translating it in time? Apparently he didn't even lock them up. As Wikipedia reports: "On August 20, 1942, [Japanese ambassador to the U.S.] Nomura returned to Japan." I would like to know more about how he accomplished that: I would have thought that once he stepped outside the embassy fence he could be interned as an enemy alien.
We have always been at war with Eastasia!
Alternatively,
I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!
But, but, but!
The question to the President was: Just who rejected the embassy's call for more security back in August?
I think this is really getting out in the weeds and too much of what the meaning of the word "is" is... it all shouldn't be treated like a word game.
It's entirely possible that in all the events happening that night that, at first, the Obama administration really did think that a "video review" protest really WAS the cause of Steven's death. After about 24 hours, however, they HAD to have known, through intelligence and personnel reports, that it was a planned terrorist attack. They also knew they hadn't provided the security for Stevens and his staff that had obviously been needed. Oops! Oh no... the election! So, they doubled down on stupid and kept up with the video excuse hoping it would be accepted by the media and the American public, at least until after the election.
Didn't work out that way.
And the Professor's analogy is B.S.
A police officer was at the scene at the time, witnessed the shooting, and called for backup.
The problem is professor is that Obama anchored his statement of 'no act of terror will shake our resolve' to 9/11/2001 not 9/11/2012. The difference in your analogy is that there is no anchor to a time of the event occurring and it's only related to one instance. In the Obama scenario the implications are to two events occurring. The first is the attack on NY on 9/11/2001 which illicited his statement of 'no act of terror...' and the second event which prompted his speech to begin with, but his 'no act of terror...' wasn't attached to the events in Benghazi.
Otherwise he would have said that the events in Benghazi on 9/11/2012 were terrorist attacks. Either he knew they were and instead used the video as cover and lied to the American public about it or he didn't know that it was a terrorist attack and used the video as the excuse for the attack which makes him incompetent. Especially in the face of prior attacks on the embassy that went largely unreported in the media and to US citizens.
So, in short, you statement cannot be analogous because it is missing two key components. The first is instance of time, the second is that it is a singular event with no time point anchored to it. Also, a third case can be made is that the differences between Benghazi and your death/murder analogy is that one was an attack and the other is indeterminate while trying to substitute both statements as interchangeable to two different events.
Tell me what grade I would get if you posited this question in your class. Very excited to know.
Hagar said...
And the Professor's analogy is B.S.
A police officer was at the scene at the time, witnessed the shooting, and called for backup.
It was the butler in the library with the candlestick.
By making that statement, have you announced that the person was definitely murdered?
If in your hypothetical I'm not dear leader Obama... the answer is no.
Evidently, Obama tried to cloak himself in exactly this kind of CSI scenario where he didn't want to "compromise the investigation" when speaking to the questioner after the debate.
Drudge: Libya questioner: 'After debate, Obama gave me more information about why he delayed calling it terorist attack'...
Presidential debate: Libya questioner says Obama didn’t answer
That was all by the way of not answering the question Ladka had placed before him. The president’s clear intent to sidestep Ladka’s inquiry might have prompted activist moderator Candy Crowley to say, Hey, how ‘bout an answer, Mr. President?
She didn’t, and the conversation careened toward a clash over whether the president had given the country a timely admission that Benghazi was a terrorist attack.
President Obama, though, wasn’t done with Kerry Ladka. “After the debate, the president came over to me and spent about two minutes with me privately,” says the 61-year-old Ladka, who works at Global Telecom Supply in Mineola, N.Y. According to Ladka, Obama gave him ”more information about why he delayed calling the attack a terorist attack.” For background, Obama did apparently lump Benghazi into a reference to “acts of terror” in a Sept. 12 Rose Garden address. However, he spent about two weeks holding off on using the full “terrorist” designation. The rationale for the delay, Obama explained to Ladka, was to make sure that the “intelligence he was acting on was real intelligence and not disinformation,” recalls Ladka.
As to Ladka’s question about who turned down the Benghazi security requests and why, Obama reportedly told him that “releasing the individual names of anyone in the State Department would really put them at risk,” Ladka says.
Obama’s retail politics left an impression on Ladka:”I appreciate his private answer more than his public answer,” he says. Spoken like a very genuine undecided voter, Ladka says he wasn’t impressed with Romney’s response to the Libya matter, either.
Ben Morris makes a good point.
It's vague enough to be interpreted in more than one way. It's a weaselly sort of statement that gives you an out in case you are wrong. "I never specifically said it was murder" or "Of course I thought it was murder. I said the word murder, didn't I?"
The bigger issue is if Obama knew right away that Libya was a terrorist attack, or an act of terror, whatever, why did he and his administration continue to push the idea that it was a spontaneous reaction to an offensive "film"? Why the talk about a rioting crowd that did not exist in Libya? At his UN speech, did Obama condemn the Libya attack as terrorism, or did he instead choose to focus on how the future should not belong to blasphemous people who say nasty things about Islam? Quick, someone get the transcript!
Obama can claim to have known all along that this was a terrorist attack; good for him for figuring out what all of us at Althouse already knew. But he can't believably deny that a lie was pushed- and it was indeed a lie if the people pushing it knew it to be false. We all heard the lie, we commented on it, we wondered why they were doing it, and shook our heads in amazement that they were pushing something so unbelievable.
Even if Obama personally did not mouth the story that the Libya deaths were due to reaction to a youtube video, he an his spokespeople never tried to refute it, even though they now claim to have known all along that it was false. They were willingly complicit in the lie. They still haven't told us why.
It happened just last month and this administration has the gall to try to rewrite history while it is still fresh in our memories. Lie- what lie? We said it was an act of terror all along- what are you talking about? Only an administration that can reliably count on an accommodating media to back them up would be so brazenly deceitful.
I would think it was weird that we were first of all concerned about the police department's resolve.
Were they feeling insecure about their resolve that they had to make in an issue?
These Rose Garden statements, after an attack, are like post game press conferences.
It certainly begs the follow-up question: "So are you saying it was murder"?
And if you answer THAT direct follow-up question with "please continue, reporter", do you still have an out, or are you merely a greasy, weaselly, lying little f*ck? [Hypothetically speaking, of course.]
In the hypo, I don't know what else you could possibly be talking about.
It's an interesting hypo though. I thought the talking point was that the attacks were clearly terrorism but Obama lied about it. But here you're asking us to assume that the nature of the attacks wasn't clear prior to an investigation. That's a reasonable characterization of the facts but it completely undermines the criticism of the administration's approach.
If it truly was a denunciation of an act of terrorism, it was an extremely muted denunciation. The President whispered fire in a burning theater......That said, Romney was given a t-ball to hit and whiffed it. That's not so bad as Obama's response to the Benghazi attack, but it shows why Romney has more supporters than fans.
If the message was muddled and confusing or even contradictory then WHO IS A FAULT FOR IT but the administration? Don't screw up and then get upset and outraged when people complain about you screw up?
The real conspiracy is revealed in the debate transcript:
ROMNEY: I — I think interesting the president just said something which — which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.
OBAMA: That's what I said.
ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror.
It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you're saying?
OBAMA: Please proceed governor.
ROMNEY: 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.
OBAMA: Get the transcript.
CROWLEY: It — it — it — he did in fact, sir. So let me — let me call it an act of terror...
OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy?
CROWLEY: He — 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 there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.
ROMNEY: This — the administration — the administration indicated this was a reaction to a video and was a spontaneous reaction.
CROWLEY: It did.
ROMNEY: It took them a long time to say this was a terrorist act by a terrorist group. And to suggest — am I incorrect in that regard, on Sunday, the — your secretary —
OBAMA: Candy?
ROMNEY: Excuse me. The ambassador of the United Nations went on the Sunday television shows and spoke about how —
OBAMA: Candy, I'm —
ROMNEY: — this was a spontaneous —
CROWLEY: Mr. President, let me —
OBAMA: I'm happy to have a longer conversation —
CROWLEY: I know you —
OBAMA: — about foreign policy.
CROWLEY: Absolutely. But I want to — I want to move you on and also —
OBAMA: OK. I'm happy to do that, too.
CROWLEY: — the transcripts and —
OBAMA: I just want to make sure that —
CROWLEY: — figure out what we —
OBAMA: — all of these wonderful folks are going to have a chance to get some of their questions answered.
Obama seems to believe that Crowley had the Rose Garden transcript. Did she actually read information contained in a transcript? If so, she should be fired by the network. Fixing a debate is serious stuff when the viewers expect honesty.
The problem is professor is that Obama anchored his statement of 'no act of terror will shake our resolve' to 9/11/2001 not 9/11/2012. The difference in your analogy is that there is no anchor to a time of the event occurring and it's only related to one instance.
Thats another good point...
I doubt Obama wrote the Rose Garden statement anyway. It was carefully parsed, and someone probably insisted that SOME reference to terrorism be included, probably while being told that it was not to be included.
The way this guy lies, you have to wonder if he knew what was being planned... but down that road lies madness. He certainly isn't outraged. (Like he is at the mere presence of Romney)
Candy talked like she had the transcript.
EDH said...
President Obama, though, wasn’t done with Kerry Ladka. “After the debate, the president came over to me and spent about two minutes with me privately,” says the 61-year-old Ladka, who works at Global Telecom Supply in Mineola, N.Y. According to Ladka, Obama gave him ”more information about why he delayed calling the attack a terorist attack.” For background, Obama did apparently lump Benghazi into a reference to “acts of terror” in a Sept. 12 Rose Garden address. However, he spent about two weeks holding off on using the full “terrorist” designation. The rationale for the delay, Obama explained to Ladka, was to make sure that the “intelligence he was acting on was real intelligence and not disinformation,” recalls Ladka.
So, according to this guy, Urkel knew that it was a terror attack, chose not to divulge that it was and instigated his own campaign of disinformation against the american public instead until he could say it was a terror attack? Whisky Tango Foxtrot.
To work, the analogy has to include that the police chief is up for election, and the victim was his employee and under his protection.
If the message was muddled and confusing or even contradictory then WHO IS A FAULT FOR IT but the administration that propagated the message for two weeks? Don't screw up and then get upset and outraged when people complain about how you screwed up.
There was a written statement by the White House on Benghazi which said: "While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants." Then there was video of Obama and Clinton in the Rose Garden. In the video Obama says: "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." But it isn't clear that this means that the Benghazi attack was another al-Qaeda attack. It could mean the same thing as the written statement - that no attacks like 9-11, the shoebomber, the Times Square bomber, the underwear bomber will ever make us so angry that we no longer reject efforts to denigrate the religion of others. After all, it makes sense to say that two statements from the White House on the same day, would say about the same thing though in different words. I believe it is the White House custom to separate its changing narratives from each other by an interval of a few days.
I really want to know how Crowley pulled that quote up so fast, and instantly when Obama asked her to. Mommy!
To work, the analogy has to include that the police chief is up for election, and the victim was his employee and under his protection.
And who is Candy?... sweetening the plot.
Press Conference? I thought this had something to do with Obama.
BTW - it appears that Axelrod was out pushing the Tose Garden transcript - to cover Obama's ass - 9.30.2012 - "Now that the Obama administration’s initial narrative that the Benghazi assault was a spontaneous response to an anti-Islam film has collapsed, the new spin from the White House is that President Obama has actually called it a terrorist attack all along.
“Well, first of all, Candy, as you know, the President called it an act of terror the day after it happened,” David Axelrod told CNN’s Candy Crowley this morning, referring to a speech Obama made in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12.
Axelrod’s claim has been pushed by journalists over the past few days, most notably Josh Gerstein at Politico, in a blog post headlined “Obama talked of Libya attack as ‘terror’ 2 weeks ago”
No, Obama Didn’t Call Benghazi “Act of Terror” in Speech - Alana Goodman/Commentary
erggh, typos... Tose = Rose Garden
Being the consummate con man- I mean, politician that he is, Obama probably purposely worded the statement to be vague, so that he could have some flexibility with the truth later on.
bagoh20 said...
I really want to know how Crowley pulled that quote up so fast, and instantly when Obama asked her to. Mommy!
It was heavy-handed. But she ain't heavy, she's his mother.
edutcher and gadfly,
There is no evidence that she had the transcript at the debate. EW reported that, while on The View, she claimed to have the transcript during the debate but I watched her appearance on Hulu and she did not say that. She said she remembered it.
William said...
If it truly was a denunciation of an act of terrorism, it was an extremely muted denunciation. The President whispered fire in a burning theater......That said, Romney was given a t-ball to hit and whiffed it. That's not so bad as Obama's response to the Benghazi attack, but it shows why Romney has more supporters than fans.
10/17/12 8:42 PM
If by "whiffed" you mean tried to go back to his point (which he made in the prior exchange) about Susan Rice going on all the shows that Sunday saying it was a spontaneous protest of video, etc. while Obama & Candy talked over him with Obama instructing Candy that it was time to move on (as much as he would be "happy" to debate foreign policy) and Candy called on the next questioner? Then yeah, Romney "whiffed" it because while he might have expected bias, he didn't expect Candy to actually *lie* to help Obama & the momentary doubt in himself allowed the double-teaming to run over him.
Oh, and it is obvious in the hypothetical that the answer is "no" -- "no clear cause of death" doesn't automatically equate to murder --but it is interesting how many posters jumped to the conclusion that dead body automatically equates to murder.
Since when are diplomats and diplomatic missions legitimate targets in wartime?
They are in an asymmetric war. Al Qaeda wants the US out of the region, and in particular wants to shut down US intelligence.
They pay the price for not following the Geneva conventions, leaders being consistently killed by drones.
So those are the rules in this case.
I don't see the terror.
What Obama was saying was it's some protest drummed up by al Qaeda types, of no significance except that people are stirred up, but above all al Qaeda doesn't any longer exist, and is warning al Qaeda that it had better not exist.
"And who is Candy?... sweetening the plot."
Jack Ruby
"One thing's for sure: no act of murder will ever shake our resolve." By making that statement, have you announced that the person was definitely murdered?
Depends.
Did your statement first allude to the health issues that cause heart attacks?
Jack Ruby is a guy...
I had Mama Cass in mind.
How did Candy pull the Rose Garden quote?
She dreamt it.
Gallup Tracking 10/10 - 10/16 2700 LV 51/45 Romney +6
Up 2 points overnight. Yep, Obama won that sucker. He's back!
If Obama had said ONLY THAT and left it there, I would have say that 'Yeah, he called it terrorism'.
But that's not happened.
He then spend almost two weeks denying itis. was terrorism and blaming it on a video and that, to me, negates his efforts to BS his way out of this.
"Speaking of which, why haven't the results been published of the autopsy of Ambassador Stevens? I have not even seen anyone in media wondering about it."
I don't think they should publish that. We know he was murdered. Some information may be important but we don't need to know the medically explicit details. There is no dignity in death but what we attach to it through shear force of will. His murderers don't need that particular victory if we can deny it.
Following J's link at the link, I get to his excellent use of the word "implication." That's the crux. Did the President imply or did he luck into allowing his allies to infer?
Here's Dennis Quaid on the subject:
"When I say something, that's implying; the way you take it, that's inferring." - Dennis Quaid, D.O.A.
"Jack Ruby is a guy..."
And Candy is...?
Like Ruby, Candy went after the guy who went after her guy.
To follow-up, in almost all of these discussions about Obama and Romney and what they said and what they meant, the only thing that matters is what they did.
Benghazi: Obama did nothing. Doesn't matter what he said. Multiple stories came out of his administration and he did nothing.
Women in Binders: Romney hired some. Doesn't matter how he phrased it. He followed through.
When you start looking at what politicians do, instead of what they say, and then start looking at the difference between what they do and what they say, all the confusion drops away.
Exactly, Henry. But if we judged them like that, nobody would be undecided and Obama wouldn't be President in the first place. Then what would we talk about?
You're probably one of those nuts that says stop looking at porn and go get a real woman.
To be fair - Candy, like Anderson Cooper, has been pushing back HARD on Obama spin-meisters lately - it's been rather surprising. I am not sure she is in Obama's camp, or wasn't, so much, until about halfway through that debate - she argued with Romney, and ran interference for Obama. So, maybe she likes HIM, but they hate the Debbie-Wasserman-Schultz bullshitter types.
You got me there...
Obama was for the terror designation before he voted against it.
Or vice versa.
Those will be his last words on the matter. The science is settled.
Obama called that the Republicans were conducting a war on women immediately, without waiting to see if it was disinformation.
He can make the immediate calls on the important stuff.
Benghazi victim Sean Smith's mother has appeared on CNN and Fox claiming Obama, Biden, Hillary, Susan Rice, and Panetta lied to her the day the coffins of the murdered four arrived at Andrews Air Force Base. Obama et al assured the mother they would find out what happened and keep her informed. Sean Smith's mother claims that to this day she has no idea how her son died.
SMITH: Right. Officially, yes. I told them don't give me any bologna; you can keep your political stuff, just tell me the truth. And I still don't know. In fact, today I heard that he died of smoke inhalation.
COOPER: You don't know the cause of death?
SMITH: No, I don't. I look at TV and I see bloody hand prints on walls thinking is that my son's? I don't know. They haven't told me anything. They are still studying it. And the thing that is they are telling me are outright lies. That Susan Rice, she talked to me personally and she said this is the way it was. It was -- it was because of this film that came out.
COOPER: So she told you personally that she thought it was a result of the video of the protest.
SMITH: Oh, absolutely. In fact all of them did. All of them did. Leon Panetta actually took my face in his hands like this and he said trust me. I will tell you what happened. and so far, he's told me nothing. Nothing at all. And I want to know.
.http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/10/11/video_griefstricken_mother_of_benghazi_massacre_victim_rips_wh_for_outright_lies
Yes we can
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