Obama's Debate Feint

Boxers know well the tactic of setting up their opponents with feints. If they can get them to try to counter a false move, it might open them up for a roundhouse punch that could knock them out and thus win the fight. Obama was already on the ropes when he came up with his attempt to take out his opponent with one big punch. The tactic failed.

Shortly after the topic of Libya came up 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".(He actually said "acts of terror," but the difference is slight.) Romney, then incredulous, questioned if he had in fact used those words. As it turned out, he had. And the left has been trying ever since to make this one blip into a great victory for Obama. Only one problem: Obama, after the Rose Garden speech, never used the words "terrorist attack" again. He doggedly avoided these terms to label the event, even when pressed to do so. Why? What would have been so bad if the president had admitted what every thinking person already knew? They were terrorists attacks. Why not just admit it? But he and his minions didn't. They went out of their way to tell a false story about video outrage.

While it is impossible to know for sure what the person who wrote this Rose Garden speech for the president really had in mind, the case can be made that he was referring to the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers that occurred in 2001 when he said acts of terror. He had been talking about those attacks just before. Obama's subsequent repeated statements give much credence to this opinion since after this Rose Garden speech, Obama and his surrogates universally referred to the Libya attacks as a spontaneous reaction of outrage engendered by a Youtube video. Obama himself referred to this video in the context of causing the embassy attack no fewer that 5 times at the United Nations. Ms Rice, his surrogate, went on several TV talk shows that Sunday and reiterated the administration's view that this murder was the result of a rag-tag group of demonstrators being upset by an obscure video and its portrayal of Mohamed. It wasn't until about two weeks later, when the evidence was insurmountable that the terrorist attack had nothing to do with a video, but rather was an organized, well-calculated and well-planned attack involving rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. At this point the Obama administration was finally forced to admit that it wasn't a spontaneous demonstration about a video but was in fact a terrorist attack.

But the question remains as to why the president first used the words "acts of terror" and then obstinately refused to characterize the attacks as terrorist attacks? What was to be gained by refusing to use the term "terrorist attack" to describe the murder of our ambassador and three other americans on American Soil? The Obama crowd were all-to-ready to label Mr. Romney's response to these same events as "politicizing" the death of Americans. Mr. Romney's well-reasoned, and presidential statement about these events was, in fact, a heart-felt effort to reach out to the families, followed by an understandable denunciation of the Embassy in Egypt apologizing to the terrorists for our national tradition of allowing our citizens to make videos, even when they might be offensive to some.... it's called free speech.

The fact is, Obama refused to admit this was a terrorist attack, and perpetuated the lie about the video for one reason and one reason only: politics. One can imagine the chagrin his handlers must have endured when they heard him utter the words "acts of terror" in the Rose Garden. They must have admonished him to never say those words again. The thinking must have gone along these lines: "We can't admit we have been attacked by terrorists. We have spent millions carefully cultivating the image that, due to your great leadership, you have throttled Al Qaeda, and killed Osama. We need the American people to think you are invincible and we are not susceptible to any terrorist attacks." Talk about politicizing the event! This is the king of politicizing! And the same people who encouraged the president to steadfastly hold on to his lie about the video accused Romney of playing politics with the terrorist attacks! Romney said what Obama should have said, and he said it first. It is sad really.

Of course Obama won't be able do duck Mr. Romney's recitation of his and his spokespersons's repeated parroting of their outrageous lie at every turn when they meet again next Monday. You almost have to feel sad for Obama. He can't hide from the path he has chosen.