Americans used to wait a decent interval before they set
about re-writing history. An example of a recent re-write may be found in an
op-ed written by Mark Bowen, who writes for the New Republic. The piece is a
glowing review of Ben Affleck’s new film “Argo.”
In the course of his review, Mr. Bowen punctures what he understands to be two grave misunderstandings:
1) that former President Jimmy Carter
was too weak to foresee and prevent the Iranian hostage crisis; “in fact, he
prepared and launched one of the boldest covert military efforts in American
history,” and 2) that President Ronald Reagan “proved to be a lot more willing
to deal with the mullahs than Carter ever was.”
In other pieces written by Mr. Bowen,
the author of “"Guests of the Ayatollah" is constrained
to mention in passing some similarities between the Iranian crisis and recent difficulties
in Benghazi, the site of the murder by terrorists of American Ambassador Chris
Stevens and three other Americans.
Despite the head
fakes and feigns of the Obama administration, it is now apparent that the assault
on the consulate in Benghazi was 1) a terrorist attack, 2) well prepared beforehand
by salafists who 3) were likely connected with al-Qaida in the Maghreb to 4) remind
the Arab world that the attack on the World Trade Center Towers in New York was
but a beginning to a protracted war on Western institutions and the twin “Great
Satans” of Israel and the United States.
Most recently,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has bravely taken a howitzer shell for her team. For more than a week
after the initial attack on the consulate, the Obama administration put out to public view
a narrative of events in Benghazi that bore as little relationship to real
events as does Mr. Obama’s putative autobiography “Dreams from My Father” to an
authentic auto-biography. The president's understanding of the attack on the consulate
is a prime example of historical revisionism in real time. Fortunately, some
news outlets have corrected the record, also in real time.
The notion pedaled
by the Obama administration that the attack on the consulate was inspired by an
amateur film trailer that defamed the prophet Mohammed, blessings be upon him, is
a fiction that now may be put to rest – because there was no protest crowd
outside the embassy whipped into a murderous frenzy by the film (version 1), and
the non-existent protest crowd therefore could not have been used by terrorists
as a blind to cover their attack (version 2).
Not only was the attack on the consulate
well-prepared and organized, it was preceded by several disturbing incidents
that insufficiently disturbed the complacency of the Obama administration –
including a prior attack on the same embassy that blew a forty foot hole into a perimeter wall
and repeated attacks on a British embassy so severe that the Brits closed their embassy.
Documents recently released show that Mr. Stevens had repeatedly requested additional security.
On the very day of Mr. Stevens' murder, the ambassador had dispatched a
message, literally a cry for help, requesting additional protection for the
embassy. In a recent special investigation, Fox News developed a timeline of events that shows the Obama administration
had withdrawn security forces prior to the attack.
In biting a very large
bullet –Mrs. Clinton has said she alone is responsible for security at the
embassies – former President Clinton’s wife may have rescued part of a tattered
fictional narrative used by the president and his apologist so far to escape direct
responsibility for the murder of four Americans on what even the Ayatollah Khomeini
certainly recognized as American diplomatic territory in a foreign country.
Here is the open
question: When Mr. Clinton visits Connecticut sometime around the 28th
of October, will he be asked by Connecticut’s fearless media any questions that might incommode him or Mr. Obama's re-election effort? Or can we expect, as usual, the usual
fluff?
Comments