Doing Enough

We’re very near the end of what has seemed like an endless presidential campaign. While I’m happy to see the campaign end, I have enjoyed the hope for change that the campaign has represented. I believe we have a one-time-only opportunity to stop the transformation from freedom to tyranny. (See Spherical Model for definitions, so you’ll understand I’m not using the terms as an exaggeration.)

I have a political friend on Facebook who has been very dedicated this last couple of years to doing all she could—even though she came around to Romney later than I did. I’ve thought seriously about her question: am I doing enough? I hope it’s enough. It’s more than I’ve done in any previous election cycle.

I’ve been active in a local tea party since well before the 2010 election, and used the odd year to get acquainted with state and local officials, working for legislation we favored in our state. I’ve worked several times as a poll watcher (and I’m scheduled to volunteer again this coming Tuesday). I started this blog, which, while not intended to be political in the sense of candidate support, does deal with the ideology of politics, and I have tried to be clear and honest in my opinions about candidates based on principles.

I have yard signs out. I’ve donated (what equates to approximately a widow’s mite) more than once—more than ever before. And I’ve been praying for our country and trusting in the Lord to give us a chance to recover the blessings of freedom our forefathers fought for.

So, with these few days left, what more should I do?

Here in Texas, there’s a strong sense that conservatives will win big. The Democrat sweep of Harris County in 2008 was partially corrected in 2010, and that is likely to be completed this election. If there were the fair and effective Democrat judge or elected servant in place, they will be swept out with the rest. My advice to them is, if they truly are fair and effective, why are they aligning themselves with a party essentially bankrupt of civilizing principles? But, to those few, I wish them well.

Experts on such things point out that by now everyone who will vote has decided their opinion of the president and the job he’s done. No amount of energy put into his background, his dishonesty—even his horrific failure followed by cover-up surrounding the Benghazi attack this past month—will sway anyone further.

I was watching for the jobs report to come out this morning. It is not surprising; the unemployment rate ticked up slightly, so unemployment is, as it has been all but following last month’s questionable report, above the rate when Obama took office. That coincides with a report that more jobs were created than predicted (171,000 jobs), so some people are saying, “See, the momentum is just getting underway,” apparently unaware that we ought to be seeing double that if we’re actually bouncing back. In reality, the report confirms that things are bad but not continuing to sink even further. If it is correct that the recession ended its downward drop in June 2009, then we should have bounced back up to where we started in about the same amount of time it took to fall—so, generously giving it till June 2010. Yet here we languish in 2012. So it’s clear this administration does not know how to get us out of a recession—or even how to get out of the way so that the bounce back happens on its own.

What people need to know, if they’re undecided (can anyone still be undecided?) is whether there’s an alternative to the doldrums we’re in. And is Romney that alternative? So, it there is something left to be done, it is to reiterate the reasons we can trust Romney to lead us out of the high unemployment, poor business climate, outrageous budget deficits, and crippling regulations.

I spent several posts last winter, during the primary race, focusing on Romney, “Measuring Mitt.” Part I just began mentioning Romney, so parts II-VII are most worth a re-read:

·         Part II: inaccuracies of media and opponents

·         Part III: exemplary character

·         Part IV: flip-flopping and other distortions

·         Part V: definition changes

·         Part VI: Massachusetts health care

·         Part VII: record as predictor of success

There are other days I’ve written about Romney, particularly after the debates. I hope they have been useful. Another good source is radio host Hugh Hewitt, who put together a list of 100 reasons to vote for Romney. (Listen here, read the first third here.)

Photo found here

Another last-minute assurance that you’re making the right choice with Romney is his speech in Wisconsin earlier today. If it’s true that the positive, forward looking, optimistic candidate wins, then he’s letting us know that’s who he is:

We are four days away from a fresh start. Four days away from the first day of a new beginning. My conviction that better days are ahead is not based on promises and hollow rhetoric but solid plans and proven results.

And an unshakeable faith in the American spirit.

If there is anyone worried the last four years are the best we can do, if there is anyone who fears that the American dream is fading away, if there is anyone who wonders whether better jobs and better paychecks are things of the past, I have a clear and unequivocal message: with the right leadership, America will come roaring back.

We are Americans. We can do anything.

The only thing that stands between us and some of the best years we have known is lack of leadership. And that’s why we have elections.

This Tuesday is a moment to look into the future and image what we can do…to put the past four years behind us and start building a new future.

You saw the differences when President Obama and I were side-by-side in our debates. He says it has to be this way. I say it can’t stay this way. He’s offering excuses; I’ve got a plan. He’s hoping we’ll settle. I can’t wait for us to get started.

Americans don’t settle. We build, we aspire, we listen to that voice inside that says, “We can do better.” A better job; a better life for our kids; a bigger, better country.

That better life is out there, waiting for us. Our destiny is in your hands.”

There’s more. It was powerful. I am so very much looking forward to beginning this better future with this much better leader. If we have done enough to turn to God, to rely on Him, and to do our part to show the depth of our dedication, it will be so.

Undead Government Intrusion

This post would have been most appropriate for a Halloween scare, rather than a day late. But better late than never.

Back in spring 2009 my son Political Sphere shared a video with me on his computer. It was the first Klavan on the Culture segment I’d seen; I have been an Andrew Klavan fan since. Back then I had too little technological savvy to know how to save a video for later viewing. So I made Political Sphere play it over and over while I typed up the transcript on my computer. It was just worth it.

Here’s the essential metaphor:

Ordinary people take shelter in a house, barring the doors and boarding the windows against zombies, who reach in through any opening they can find and devour the people’s flesh and turn the living into zombies like themselves. This is an almost perfect metaphor for your government at work. Zombies are dead creatures that don’t produce anything and must devour the lives of others even though once everyone has become a zombie there will be nothing left for anyone to eat. Government is exactly the same. It doesn’t start businesses; it doesn’t create wealth. It doesn’t invent anything. It just devours all the stuff that you make. You bar the door against property tax; they come in through a sales tax. You board the windows against income taxes; they come in with an energy tax.

The overall message is that government just keeps coming, so we need to bar the door and remain constantly vigilant—which I think is a good thing to remember right now, when I believe we’re about to deal a heavy blow to the growing zombie hordes of the past few years. They’re never really dead; they just keep coming back. So, just because we overcome some Obamazombies, it’s no time to rest easy; it’s time to build up stronger defenses against the next rising.

Since 2009 I have improved (very slightly) in the use of technology. So, for your viewing pleasure I have linked the original 4-minute Klavan video below.

 

On the Money

There are big things worth talking about this week. There’s a giant storm about to hit landfall on the east coast. There is more clarity coming out piecemeal on the Benghazi story (all of it looking bad for the President). So, in a way, talking about economic issues today is a bit of a break from more pressing issues. Still, I think most people are making decisions this election based on their personal economic issues than on any other reason. So, one week out from the election, the economy is probably worth a post.

There are technical indicators marking when a recession hits bottom and is about to bounce back up to the higher place it plunged from. Supposedly those indicators showed up in June 2009. If it is true that we’ve been “recovering” since that time, then the question remains, why haven’t we bounced back up?

I wrote about the expected bounce back up in March, in a piece called “The Trampoline Effect,” a description provided by my son Political Sphere. I also wrote about it in a piece last November called “Parabolas.” If a recession hits bottom and then lingers there, rather than bouncing back, it is because someone/something is interfering with the natural recovery process.

There’s a piece from Friday’s Wall Street Journal, called “Chronic Fatigue Economy,” spelling out what this bounceless recovery looks like. It shows that the 2% 3^rd quarter growth for 2012 pulls the year’s growth rate all the way up to 1.7% Last year’s growth was 1.8%. 2010’s growth was 2.4% So growth is not only sluggish; it’s slowing. In the entire 13 quarters of “recovery,” only two quarters (in separate years) have reached 3% growth. Typical cumulative growth at the 13-quarter mark of the past 9 recoveries averages 16.8%; this recovery is up to a cumulative 7.2%.

Then there’s the problem of how we got even the meager growth we got. Federal spending rose 9.6% in the 3^rd quarter of 2012; overall government outlays rose 3.7% (that means, I believe, state and local government outlays in addition to federal). Of the 2% 3^rd quarter growth increase, an estimated 0.7% can be chalked up to government growth, which means private growth was closer to 1.3%.

But maybe things are about to get better? Probably not. Business investment dropped, and business investment has to come before job and wage growth. So this is not the time to hope that Obamanomics is just moments away from bearing good fruits.

Here’s another way to think about it, from the WSJ story. If this recovery had been an actual recovery, as was Reagan’s,

That’s about $1/2 trillion in foregone output. The budget deficit would be half as large today if this were a normal expansion.

Large deficits themselves contribute to stalled growth. According to Michael J. Boskin of the Hoover Institution,

[L]arge deficits potentially cause two separate but related problems—shifting the bill for financing the current generation’s consumption to future generations and crowding out of private investment. Thus, deficits are more problematic during economic expansions, if they reduce domestic investment and hence future income, when the national debt is high or rapidly rising relative to GDP, and when they finance consumption, not productive public investment.

The large deficits and expansion of the national debt since the end of 2008 are unprecedented since World War II. The debt-GDP ratio will have doubled, from 40.5 percent to almost 80 percent, by next year. Every year since 2008, the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP has been larger than the previous post-World War II record of 6.0 percent in 1983.

Obama’s economic plan is to “make the rich pay their fair share,” which, translated out of non-progressivist lingo, means “take more money from those who have made it and put it in government’s hands, so that it can’t be used to invest in business growth.” At some point the hidden borrowing, and associated hidden costs to consumers, from federal printing of money not connected to production of actual wealth, will hit a limit, what people are referring to as the fiscal cliff. Until that happens, what we have to look forward to is this new pathetic normal. As the WSJ put it, “We borrowed $5 trillion and all we got was this lousy 1.7% growth.”

Or, hopefully in the nick of time, we can turn to Romney’s plan to set more money free in the private sector: get rid of Obamacare, cut overall tax rates, reform and simplify the tax code to make it less worth avoiding, get rid of unnecessary regulation and do everything conceivable to encourage private sector business. It looks like a clear choice to me.

Look Who's Smiling

Last winter I came across a piece about predicting presidential campaign winners based on who smiled the most, or essentially who inspired optimism for a positive future. I wrote comparing the primary candidates in January. The comparison is becoming more obvious as we approach Election Day.

This cover showed up in the Des Moines Register yesterday, illustrating this very point.

 

It is becoming a theme here that I have been praying for clarity, for Americans to see clearly who the President is and who Mitt Romney is, so that their decision will be based on reality and not deceit. I think that is what we are seeing, more and more.

Peggy Noonan has a piece today describing what happened at (and since) the first debate as Americans finally see the real Obama:

People saw for the first time an Obama they may have heard about on radio or in a newspaper but had never seen.

They didn't see some odd version of the president. They saw the president.

And they didn't like what they saw, and that would linger.

What people now see is not some larger-than-life transformational figure representing all the positive hopes for change they can place on a blank slate. What people see now is a petty, narcissistic, self-absorbed, little man, who condescends to disdain America and Americans. At the same time this negatively real Obama was exposed, the real Romney also appeared—reasonable, cool, confident, capable, experienced, and caring.

Contrast is more evident in this election than in any I recall since Reagan/Carter—and maybe surpassing that as well. In the language of the Spherical Model, what we see now in Obama is uncivilized. And what we see in Romney is quintessential civilization.

Obama did an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, slated to his newsstands today, in which he is reported to have had this exchange, described by Douglas Brinkley:

"As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his 6-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. ... [S]he said, 'Tell him: You can do it.' Obama grinned," Brinkley wrote, according to Politico. "'You know, kids have good instincts,' Obama offered. 'They look at the other guy and say, 'Well, that's a bullsh**er, I can tell."

There is so much wrong with this. A positive, complimentary moment had just been passed along from a very young child. Obama doesn’t graciously say, “Thank you; the encouragement means so much to me.” He turns it into a vitriolic, anti-Romney moment, putting profanity in the mouths of children. Let me just say that, as a person dedicated to civilization, imperfect in my efforts, I not only never used such a word as a 6-year-old; I have never used that term at any age.

Lena Dunham from "Your First Time" ad

Yesterday I became aware of a new Obama campaign ad, unbelievably profane, called “Your First Time.” It has a 20-something actress describing her first vote, for Obama, to losing one’s virginity.  Ugly. Not funny. And not even original, but a copy of a Putin ad in Russia from last winter.

While Obama is out on the stump in Iowa, but apparently living in his own alternate universe, he says,

We joke about Romnesia, but all of this speaks to something that is really important and that the issue of trust. There is no more serious issue on a presidential campaign than trust. Trust matters. And here's the thing. Iowa, you know me. You know that I say what I mean. And I mean what I say….

And you can take and videotape things I said 10 years ago, 12 years ago, and you would say, man, this is the same guy. Has the same values. Cares about the same people. Doesn't forget where he came from. Knows who he is fighting for.

Except, of course, people take his advice and put together montages of his contrasting statements, because they’re so easy to find. This one is 10 minutes. This one is 13 ½ minutes. This is an 8-minute list Glenn Beck put together.  This one is an entertaining montage of varying “top priorities.” 

This is while more condemning details come out daily about what actually happened in Benghazi. It looks like purposeful neglect before and during the attack, pointing directly to the President, with added cover-up. This man may be seen historically as the absolute worst decision ever made by American voters.

Meanwhile, stories about the real Romney keep leaking out. Deroy Murdock wrote a piece in yesterday’s National Review Online, listing some of the untold stories of Mitt Romney’s private acts of decency (including even some stories I hadn’t come across before). He ends with this explanation:

Why is the real Romney totally unlike the terrifying caricature that has haunted this campaign? Team Obama’s distortions and lies have conspired with Mitt Romney’s modesty to mask his good deeds. Instead, Romney fans should make these secrets famous.

There is a beautiful story told about the behind-the-scenes view during a beyond capacity (10,000, with probably 1,000 turned away) crowd at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado Wednesday, as told in The Ulsterman Report, passed along by a “longtime DC political operative.” You’ll want to read this entire piece, but here are a couple of essential moments, from the beginning, and then from the end:

You know, I’ve gone from just trying to defeat Obama to really trying to help Governor Romney be this country’s next president.  I’m really starting to believe there might be something very special about this man….

[after giving his speech to cheering crowds] The governor returns backstage and he is smiling and shaking hands, taking congratulations from everybody around him.  He’s saying how great it was.  Somebody yells out he’s going to win Colorado and the governor laughs and says he thinks so too.  And then something very interesting happens.  He moves away from the group of people just a bit.  Maybe ten or fifteen feet or so.  Just enough to have a little space to himself.  And enough people notice that the area gets a lot more quiet, and they are trying to watch the governor without looking like they are watching the governor.  They can all kind of tell something is happening right then.  It was described as something very peaceful and powerful that came over that backstage area for a moment.  And the governor, he lowers his head and his eyes shut tight and you could see him take a slow deep breath and then he lets it out and says quietly, but just loud enough for some to hear, “Lord, if this is your will, please help to make me worthy.  Please give me the strength Lord.”  And then his eyes open up, and he’s back to smiling and laughing and shaking hands and being the candidate once again.

I’m 100% convinced Mitt Romney was shaken to his soul right then and there.  I think at that moment it was sinking in he might really be the next American president, and it humbled him right to his core, in every nerve of his body.  And as he was saying that little prayer, you could hear the sound of thunder from all those thundersticks outside. Like this huge low rumble that just surrounded all of them at once.  A quiet little prayer, and the sound of thunder.

The sound of God.

Humility and love—for God, for America, and for individual people. This man is civilized. I think there will come a day when we express thanks to God for preparing him for us, for this time, when such a man is so very needed.

Let the Voting Begin

Early voting started Monday in Texas. Reports from a friend were that lines at our nearby early voting location (one of 37 or so in Harris County) had wait times over an hour by late morning through the rest of the day. People are excited to vote.

My State Senator Dan Patrick reported the probable first day voting record:

47,093 people voted today. If you combine that with the 40,566 who have returned ballots [absentee ballots], 87,659 votes are already in the can. There are still nearly 40,000 mail ballots that have not been returned—most will be.

He reported 1636 voters at the location near me, which was the third highest in his district. He totaled the locations in the district:

That’s a total of 10,812 votes or 22% of the total votes in Harris County. Senate District 7 is about 69% Republican.

Senate District 7 usually is ranked #1 or #2 for voter turnout in the state. Thanks to the voters who turned out today and special thanks to all of the volunteers who will work long hours at the polls over the next two and a half weeks.

One of my main sources of political food on Facebook is a friend named Shawn. (Shawn sometimes helps co-host on MittRomneyRadio.com on weekend evenings.) Shawn voted today, the second day of early voting, and then he posted this rather beautiful summary of what that meant:

So I'm voting today. It's obvious WHO I will vote for. But it's even more important to know WHAT I'm voting for:  

 (1) I'm voting to preserve the Supreme Court.

 (2) I'm voting to restore constitutional government.

 (3) I'm voting to eliminate governmental corruption.

 (4) I'm voting to preserve our patriotic heritage.

 (5) I'm voting to support our military.

 (6) I'm voting to preserve the family and marriage.

 (7) I'm voting to preserve the lives of innocents.

 (8) I'm voting for my children's future.

 (9) I'm voting against the redistribution of wealth and its accompanying socialistic      philosophies.

 (10) I'm voting for the Bill of Rights, especially Amendments 1 & 2.

 (11) I'm voting for the right to control my own healthcare.

 (12) I'm voting for the founding fathers.

 (13) I'm voting for the restoration of the rights of the individual states as outlined by the Constitution.

 (14) I'm voting for liberty. 

Any questions?

I prefer voting on Election Day, as kind of a celebration of American freedom. But I’ve been known to give in and show up early, and this year I haven’t been undecided in the presidential race for a very long time. And I’ve made final decisions on the local races, such as school board race, as well (see the comment I added to this post). So, we'll see whether I just can't wait.

I put up four candidate signs in my yard—the only candidate signs on my street. It feels kind of bold and loud, compared to putting my thoughts online for all to read. Now my neighbors, who see me walk to the mailbox in person, know my political leanings. But maybe they can use the information.

If I had a sign that could hold it, I think I’d post Shawn’s list on the front lawn as well.

A Good Feeling about This

At the Spherical Model we talk about the interrelationships of the political, economic, and social (civilization) spheres. It’s significant that freedom goes hand-in-hand with free enterprise, and these two are possible and maintainable in concert with the principles of civilization. These principles include having a religious people, because God is the grantor of our inalienable rights, not a person or man-made entity such as a government.

The Economic Sphere has free-enterprise north
and controlled economy south.
The Civilization Sphere has civilization north
and savagery south

So I believe God is interested in this unique nation established with the idea that a righteous people could govern themselves within limited laws meant to protect life, liberty and property. I think we’re at a critical historical moment in this country, deciding whether to continue in our efforts to actually abide by the freedom and civilization yielding Constitution, or to trash that in exchange for tyranny. I think the times merit asking for divine help, just as our founders did.

I’ve mentioned here before that my prayers lately have been that people will be given a clear choice, that deceit will be lifted and people will see the candidates and the situation as they really are. I believe we still have a critical mass of people who want to choose right but have made errors in not knowing how to recognize what is right.

But I also believe that, since 2008 there has been an awakening. Good people are tuning in, paying attention, and trying to learn what to do to prevent the bad and press for the good. I think what we’re seeing is a real movement northward on the sphere—in politics, free-enterprise principles, and particularly in turning to God and His principles.

I’ve been concerned, because the odds have seemed against us. But I have felt peace within my heart about it; I get the sense things are in God’s hands, and, while I should do my part as well as I can, I should not despair. So, it was with this faith that all would be well that I also asked, “Could I please have some hopeful evidence, so I don’t have to feel tense as things go down to the wire?”

In sports, I actually enjoy being far ahead, so the outcome is certain; I just set up secondary goals to make the game remain interesting. Plus, I’ve been concerned that a close ending in our election might allow the enemy to fraudulently claim a win (like in Washington State a few years ago when the Republican won the governorship until someone just happened to discover a few boxes of uncounted ballots in a garage somewhere that gave the win to the Democrat).

Then the first debate happened, and the trend has been undeniably in our direction since then. Just in answer to my prayers? I don’t know, but it feels that way.

I happened to be listening to Glenn Beck on radio the other day, and he was talking to a black pastor, E. W. Jackson, who has been encouraging Christians, and particularly black Christians, to end the mindless loyalty to the Democrat party and vote according to their actual values. It was during that interview that I got a sense that something being said here is very true. I enjoyed the whole interview, but it was just a few moments that really hit me.

Glenn had said, “I have firm reliance on the protection of divine providence. I don’t believe that God is neutral in the affairs of man or the freedom of man, and if America falls, the whole world falls. I mean, there’s nobody to stand for freedom.” And Pastor Jackson agreed. Glenn added, “I think we’re on the threshold of miracles and profound change. Do you feel that way?”

This isn’t normal radio. Glenn feels free to talk about religion as much as anything else, and does so pretty often. But here he was talking with someone who talks about God all the time too. So there was an extra freedom of religious expression. The pastor responded, “It is not just our Constitution or Declaration. It’s the sense that we are not a mere historical happenstance, but we are a providential nation, that the favor of God has been on us.”

This next part is the moment, from Pastor Jackson, when it hit me, this is true:

I think it’s God moving. I don’t think it’s attributable to me as a person but rather to God moving on people’s hearts and saying, "Okay, there are enough of you standing up; I’m going to move in your behalf." And I agree with you, Glenn. I think God is going to do some marvelous things to help bring this nation back to Him.

So this was on my mind, this idea that, not only is this a critical moment in history, but this is what it looks like when God moves people toward Him on a large scale. It has come after hardship, but not just hardship—after the tribulations convince people to turn to God for help, rather than to government or some other worldly idol.

With this on my mind, a couple of other media moments have also caught my interest. One was an endorsement of Romney by Dennis Miller. I don’t know this man’s religion; I know he considers himself conservative but more rationally so than many. He’s a comedian and radio host, so there’s a bit of an edginess there. But he said of Romney, “This is an eminently decent man.... If we are going to start demonizing good men like Mitt Romney..., we've fallen through some kind of cosmic wormhole that we cannot recover from... This is a good man....” At last we’re again at a point where decency is neither dismissed nor derided, but lauded as it ought to be.

On Friday, the day after the radio interview with Pastor Jackson, Glenn Beck’s TV show was a Q&A session, “Ask Glenn Anything.” In this episode there was another moment that reminded me something big is happening, something God is handling for us. An audience member, Tony Brown, asked, “God forbid we lose the election, how do we save our nation going forward?”

Glenn joked a little for a moment, and then he got more serious. This is how that went:

Glenn: Uh, who wants to carpool to Canada? [laughter] Um, I haven’t thought of that one, because…. I’ll be real honest with you, I was down on my knees this morning, and I was praying, “Help us out here, Lord. Please help us out. Recognize how many people there are.… And I, again, this happens to me all the time, almost every day whenever I’m praying. And you guys have watched the show long enough, do you think I’m an optimist? And, um, I was overwhelmed again. And this time it was almost like, “Dude, I got this. I got it.”

Stu: God calls you Dude?

Glenn: [nods] He almost did today, He almost did. It was like, “Dude, stop calling me. I got it.” I just, I just feel that we are going to be fine. Unfortunately I am seasoned enough to know that doesn’t necessarily mean the kind of “fine” I’m looking for, but the kind of “fine” He’s looking for.

That’s what I think too—all of it. God has been telling me, “Don’t worry; it’s in My hands.” And also, that will be true regardless of how the election turns out. I do predict a Romney win, and with that a chance to put the brakes on the free fall toward tyranny, with a chance to pull the nation back up into the northern hemisphere where we can thrive. But, while a lot of good things can change direction right away, there is probably still a period of pain between now and actual recovery.

It took at least a couple of years for the Reagan recovery to kick into gear following the Carter years. Things in many ways are worse this time. I think we’ll get better business conditions almost right away. But there’s still the massive debt of the last few years. It’s like a spendthrift getting near bankruptcy, finally stopping the profligate spending and getting a good paying job—all is well and headed in the right direction, but there are still some years ahead of careful, humble living to overcome the debt. Add onto that more dire conditions in the world, financially, politically, and spiritually.

During the recovery time, we must not get dispirited. And we especially need to keep faith that we’ve turned in a better direction, and never give in to complaints from those who think we can get north by going south.

Benghazi Boondoggle

I’m trying to make sense of this chain of confusion surrounding the attack on our ambassador in Libya on September 11, 2012. You’d think after more than a month we could get a basic story. Instead we get obfuscation.

The President's Rose Garden Speech 9-12-2012
photo found here

In the debate on Tuesday, Romney got the President to go on record as saying he knew within 24 hours of the event that it was a terrorist attack—the President even claimed he had said so at the time in his speech in the White House Rose Garden and suggested checking the transcript. As if moderator Candy Crowley was keeping a spare copy in a capacious handbag (she did step in and incorrectly support the President, which she had to walk back later).

Finding both a transcript and the 5-minute speech on video of the Rose Garden speech was no problem. I missed the word “terror” the first two times I listened. Finally I found it with a careful reading. It is, as the conservatives have been pointing out since, in reference to the original 9/11 attack and terror attacks in general, which he brings up in the previous paragraph, near the end of the speech, not, by my reading, in reference to the Benghazi attack. What a silly thing to be arguing about. Even when he calls something terrorism, he talks of it as simply a more heinous crime than most crimes, and refers to bringing the specific perpetrators to justice; he doesn’t recognize terrorism as an act of war perpetrated by our nation’s enemies. So, even if he called it terrorism, which he didn’t, he didn’t use the term the way the rest of us use it. But there’s still the obfuscation.

Throughout the Rose Garden speech he talks about the anti-Muslim video that supposedly set off the spontaneous protest, a video that logged only 17 YouTube views between being uploaded July 2^nd and September 10^th, the day before the attack. Except—now we know there was no spontaneous protest. We also know that Charlene Lamb, National Security agent under Hillary Clinton, was able to see video surveillance of the attack in real time, so it was instantly known that there was no protest springing up from a video. Unlike the same day in Egypt, there was only a pre-planned thoroughly executed targeted attack—on the anniversary of 9/11. There are reports that the administration had been warned of a possible attack 2-3 days ahead. And there are arguments about who had failed to provide additional security, which may have been directly requested. So, no video-related protest. Nor did intel ever suggest the obscure video was related in any way; someone in the administration put that out without any supporting evidence.

Hillary Clinton denounces the video on September 13^th, and repeats the claim September 14^th. White House Spokesman Jay Carney puts forward the video-protest story in a press briefing also on September 14^th. UN Ambassador Susan Rice (an odd choice of spokesperson, since she wasn’t in any chain of command in intelligence or national security) is sent out to do the rounds of Sunday talk shows on September 16^th, with the instruction that she should insist the Benghazi attack was the result of this obscure video. September 18^th the President repeats the claim on David Letterman’s show.

On September 19^th, finally someone in the administration admits they know it was an act of terrorism: National Counterterrorism Director Matthew Olsen, to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, says, “I would say yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.”

But then, on September 25^th, yet another six days later, a full two weeks after the event, Obama makes the claim six times in his speech to the UN.

If he knew it was a planned terrorist attack (as we all knew within 24 hours, so presumably the President was aware as well), why did he insist on bringing up the irrelevant video at all, and why cling to that story so relentlessly for so long?

More speculation and stories come out daily, so we don’t really know the answer yet, but here are some of the speculations I’ve seen:

·         The President has a stake in putting forth the idea that Islam ought to be protected (with many sub-speculations on why he would take it upon himself to do that).

·         “Being hit with the worst terror attack since 9/11—in a city we saved—would have exposed Obama's boasting about his Libya triumph and al-Qaida being "on the run" and "on the path to defeat" as absurd propaganda.  Al-Qaida is now in Libya, Mali, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan….But we can't let folks find that out until after Nov. 6.” (Pat Buchanan’s theory)

·         There was no security leak about Ambassador Stevens’s location, his travel to Benghazi and a safe house; President Obama himself had arranged for Stevens to meet with Libyan rebels to negotiate for the recovery of weapons the US had provided to them (during the Arab Spring uprising?), and these rebels turned out to be his attackers.

·         Obama arranged with the Muslim Brotherhood to kidnap Ambassador Stevens, with the idea that, because of Obama’s warm relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, he would save the day by arranging for the Ambassador’s release—in exchange for secretly releasing the Blind Sheik. But the Muslim Brotherhood didn’t go along with the original plan.

Some of these seem more suited for action-thriller fiction than news. We don’t yet know the background of what happened. But I can guarantee that there is no non-nefarious reason for the President of the United States to make up as scapegoat an irrelevant video, telling and re-telling this falsehood to the American people, and failing even yet to explain why.

I would like this question to come up at Monday’s foreign policy debate:

Mr. President, since it is now known that the Benghazi attack was a planned terrorist attack, and that this fact was known by the State Department even as the attack was underway, why did the White House assert and persist in the fiction that this was a spontaneous protest reacting to an obscure, almost unviewed amateur video? It appears there was purposeful disinformation given to the American people. Where did the claim of the video as cause come from (the agency, position or rank, if you’d rather not reveal a name), and why was this claim continued against all evidence for so long?

I would accept this alternative question (inspired by BryanPreston in reference to Obama’s book):

Mr. President, on page 261 of your book The Audacity of Hope, you declare that if the post-9/11 political winds were to shift in an ugly direction against Muslims, you would stand with them. In the Middle East on September 11, 2012, following a terrorist attack in which our Ambassador was murdered along with three other American defenders, you stepped forward to defend the Muslim World against an obscure anti-Muslim video. How do we interpret your allegiance to America based on your words and actions?