Skip to main content

Blumenthal, Benghazi And The Difference It Makes


Dick Blumenthal, the nation’s first full time consumer protection senator, has now weighed in on merchants who “may be selling lower quality items produced specifically for outlet stores without properly informing consumers,” according to a Philadelphia television station.


The Senator has asked the Federal Trade Commission to examine claims that merchants have misled consumers in their ads. “There’s a lot of evidence,” Blumenthal breathlessly told the television consumer protection watchdog in Philadelphia, “that people shopping at outlet malls or at outlet establishments have no idea that goods and merchandise are made specifically for outlet malls.”
Naturally, preventive legislation is needed.

On foreign policy issues of national importance, Benghazi for instance, the senator has been less voluble. But that is because Mr. Blumenthal is not interested in regulating foreign affairs – just outlet malls. In fact, political consumers may be unaware that U.S. Congresspersons generally are uninterested in regulating foreign policy or budgets or administration officials who deprive Congress of the data the greatest deliberative body on earth needs to satisfy its Constitutional obligations or, of equal importance, its own ungovernable appetite for regulating everything that moves and breathes outside Congressional precincts. Mr. Blumenthal’s own Congressional site carries only a brief pro forma, seven line expression of “outrage and sadness” issued the day after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.


And you thought you sent your senator to Washington to hold responsible high administration officials who failed to protect or come to the aid of an ambassador to Libya murdered by – dare it be said? – Islamic terrorists.

Silly you.

In High School, your civics text – if you had the advantage of a civics text – mentioned a division of powers as a check on presidential presumption. The Constitution, an ancient but never-the-less useful document dating from 1787, invests the President with war powers and assigns to Congress auxiliary powers that also shape foreign policy. Constitutionally, Congress is the voice of conscience perched on the shoulder of any president who has Napoleonic ambitions.

Chris Stevens, the ambassador murdered in Libya by Islamic terrorists, was the personal representative of the President of the United States, as are all ambassadors.

Following the murder of the personal representative of President Barack Obama and the brave military personnel who came to his aid -- Sean Smith and two Navy Seals, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, all slaughtered by militant Al-Qaida connected terrorists -- members of the administration fanned out to spread the lie that those who led the assault on the annex in Benghazi were “protestors” agitated by a film that had insulted, peace be upon him, the prophet Muhammad.

Persistent investigations by oversight Congressional committees and a cache of e-mails  secured by Judicial Watch on a Freedom of Information demand has now shown that the Obama/Rice stage show was an elaborate pantomime designed to convey the message during a presidential campaign that Mr. Obama had dealt a death blow to Al-Qaida. As such, the deception was much more wicked – and deadly – than the ads that recently have excited the interest of Mr. Blumenthal.

Among the 41 documents pried loose from the Obama administration, is an e-mail from deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes that presents to then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice four goals that were to be accomplished during Ms. Rice’s numerous television appearances days after militant Islamic terrorists murdered the ambassador and other Americans in Benghazi.

According to the e-mail, Ms. Rice was to: “… convey that the United States is doing everything that we can to protect our people and facilities abroad; To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy; To show that we will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through these protests; To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”

Only the last goal had been accomplished – temporarily – in the weeks following the terrorist attack. The attack on the U.S. Consulate did not arise from a spontaneous protest; it was not rooted in an internet video; the successful assault did point to a broader policy failure; the United States was and remains irresolute in bringing to justice people who harm Americans, particularly if they are associated with the Obama administration; and Mr. Obama’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges – in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran and, most recently, Russia -- is very much in question.

Mr. Blumenthal, however, appears to be blithely unconcerned with the foreign policy mishaps of the Obama administration, preferring to focus his attention on misleading representations issued by Mall vendors. Unless he refocuses his attention pronto, history will hit him like a speeding passenger train. Mr. Blumenthal lately has devoted some of his attention to passenger trains.


Comments

peter brush said…
Would we want the faculty of Brandeis to determine and execute our national policy vis a vis the Muslim World, or, more importantly, vis a vis Islamism? Doesn't it view Sharia Law as diversity to celebrate? And, do we have any doubt whether, if he were on the faculty at Brandeis, "our" President would have signed the petition to stop Hirsi Ali from speaking?

We are assured by a former player for the Mets named Tommy Vietor, who was apparently in a position to know, that Baraq Hussein Obama was not in the situation room on the evening of September 11, 2012. The reason for this is that he believed, or, more likely wanted to believe that there was no situation in Benghazi. I know of no evidence presently available that would refute the theory that Obama went to bed, did nothing to help our guys, because to send military aid would be to validate a reality counter to his ideological fantasies, and counter to his own crass political interests.

Popular posts from this blog

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Obamagod!

My guess is that Barack Obama is a bit too modest to consider himself a Christ figure , but artist will be artists. And over at “ To Wit ,” a blog run by professional blogger, journalist, radio commentator and ex-Hartford Courant religious writer Colin McEnroe, chocolateers will be chocolateers. Nice to have all this attention paid to Christ so near to Easter.

Did Chris Murphy Engage in Private Diplomacy?

Murphy after Zarif blowup -- Getty Images Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, up for reelection this year, had “a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference” in February 2020, according to a posting written by Mollie Hemingway , the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. Was Murphy commissioned by proper authorities to participate in the meeting, or was he freelancing? If the former, there is no problem. If the latter, Murphy was courting political disaster. “Such a meeting,” Hemingway wrote at the time, “would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia. “’Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – e