Panetta said that, save their 5 o'clock prescheduled meeting with the president the day of September 11, Obama did not call or communicate in anyway with the defense secretary that day. There were no calls about the what was going on in Benghazi. He never called to check-in.
February 7, 2013
"Panetta: Obama Absent Night of Benghazi."
"Panetta said that Obama left operational details, including knowledge of what resources were available to help the Americans under seize, 'up to us.'"
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 237 of 237So these hearings -- is this the same as the one Hillary "testified" at a couple weeks back?
Who else has testified?
The fact that he didn't step up and run the show is why nothing happened.
Wow. I came here hoping to see what Obama defenders might have to offer up. Apparently not much. Garage chimes in with a weak tea attempt at something. But no Oop. No Ritmo. Sad, really.
They are all busy having gay sex on another thread.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Bob Ellison said...
AllenS, try Firefox. IE is buggy. Chrome is ok, but Firefox is sort of a testing standard, and it works very well.
I'm not going to disagree, but I had a bad experience with Firefox. If you want to try it, go ahead, but keep Chrome (or Safari) in the bullpen.
roesch/voltaire said...
Much a ado about nothing, a president has to trust his generals to run the war or an embassy attack, until proven wrong--should Obama be called to supervise every incident of enemy fire? Give me a break.
Give us a break.
It's his call, the generals and admirals are his advisors, not his masters or surrogates.
I wonder if we went back through 8 years of Dubya, how many times would we find roesch invoking "My Pet Goat"?
PS Where's the Disrespectful Jerk talking about how Darth, Dubya, Rummy, and Condi were caught with their pants down?
Of course, this is only 4 people, so who cares?
Maybe we could drop roesch, garage, Ritmo, and the She-wolf of the SS into Tahrir Square and see how unimportant they thought 4 lives were.
Jack said...
And, believe it or not, the President of the United States does not personally micromanage every conflict unfolding in every corner of the world. We have a thing called "the US military" for that. And a thing called "the Pentagon."
While Jack congratulates himself for knowing about the "thing" called "the Pentagon" (srsly, dude, that's some impressive knowledge you got there), he demonstrated that he knows absolutely nothing about the reality of the Obama White House.
From the unimpeachable New York Times:
Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical.
So, as a matter of fact, Jack, Obama does micromanage military actions in every corner of the world. That is, he does so when it fits his schedule. What seems to have happened in Benghazi is that the unfortunate timing of events conflicted with the president's essential preparations for his summit meeting w/ Jay-Z and Beyonce.
As for the fascinating question, "What could our dear leader have contributed to the defense of Benghazi by being in the Situation Room?" Baron Zemo has made the essential point--you all seem to think he contributed something critical to the killing of bin Laden. Or do you?
It doesn't require great faith in Obama's tactical chops to see how his presence could have mattered. Very simply, there were critical questions involving risk assessment that required a "buck-stops-here" Gutsy Call™. One plausible explanation for the lack of action was complete uncertainty about what the president would want done.
It was his job, after all. One that he campaigned so hard to keep that he was too busy to actually do it.
The defenses of this incompetent being offered here demonstrate previously unplumbed depths of sophistry among our house leftists.
He IS running the show, moron. He's the fucking President and CIC!
Logistically, there is no way in hell the CiC is capable of running every show 24/7. Other people are making decisions for POTUS around the clock. Obviously, right, moron?
One plausible explanation for the lack of action was complete uncertainty about what the president would want done.
I think anyone who has ever worked for a micromanager who refuses to take responsibility for results understands that this is more than plausible.
Logistically, there is no way in hell the CiC is capable of running every show 24/7. Other people are making decisions for POTUS around the clock. Obviously, right, moron?
And yet, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were totally responsible for Abu Grahib, right, garage?
Logistically, there is no way in hell the CiC is capable of running every show 24/7. Other people are making decisions for POTUS around the clock. Obviously, right, moron?
The buck stops ... somewhere over there.
Logistically, there is no way in hell the CiC is capable of running every show 24/7.
U.S. Ambassadors (appointed by the CIC) are not under attack 24/7. It's actually pretty rare. Either his staff are total incompetents (or totally disempowered, which is pretty much the same thing) or he's totally incompetent. (And if you're CIC and your hand-picked staff is a bunch of useless incompetents, guess what? Oh, never mind, what difference does it make anyway.)
Newsflash, Garage, when the smelly stuff hits the rotating mechanical mechanism the head guy ALWAYS steps up--or is supposed to. To take one example with which I have a personal nodding acquaintance: Do you think the night of the TET offensive the 3-Star Marine General @ III MAF in charge of all I-Corps
operations--or any other General in Vietnam, for that matter--SLEPT IN!!??
Logistically, there is no way in hell the CiC is capable of running every show 24/7. Other people are making decisions for POTUS around the clock.
Got it. Your claim is that an ambassador's life hanging in the balance is just the kind of routine shit that underlings handle all the damn time.
Right.
Tell me then, why didn't the WH say that at the time?
Why claim that the prez was on top of things, w/ directives flying hither and yon all over DC?
Why the misdirection about Bad Video Guy?
The reason is obvious. Obama's opponent was clearly a competent manager, whatever else people might think about him. Obama felt the need to maintain the illusion of his own competence through the election.
Now that the election's over, it's all just One of Those Things to be dealt w/ by underlings.
This is the weakest shit imaginable.
And Garage, et al, in case I've been too subtle, let me go on record as saying that I ABSOLUTELY DETEST Obama. I CANNOT imagine, let alone remember, a more loathsome base and recreant creature..
I seem to recall Obama referring to Ambassador Stevens as his "good friend" in his remarks immediately following Benghazi.
Couldn't be bothered to take an interest in his good friend while said friend was under fire. For hours.
Garage, for your sake I hope Obama never thinks of you as a "good friend."
"He [POTUS] never called to check-in."
But Panetta never called him to fill him in?
When was the President of the United States notified that Ambassador Stevens, a man he appointed to represent him and the United States, murdered?
@JAL/
At the Invasion of Normandy Hitler's Generals were afraid to wake him up--tyrants are funny that way..
@ GM, reaching a new low:
Logistically, there is no way in hell the CiC is capable of running every show 24/7.
This of course, was just another "show." One of many. Have one or two like this a week. No big whoop.
GM is trying to earn his stipend.
GM,
My point, as I said before was:
He says he gave the orders.
They say they didnt carry them out.
He doesn't seem to care.
He has stated that he was "running this show". That's what it's called when you say:
I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe."
Panetta's quote:
"(The) basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having some real-time information about what's taking place. And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, Gen. Ham, Gen. Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation."
I haven't worked for a POTUS, but I have worked for Colonels and Generals and if one said to me, "number one priority making sure that people were safe", and he woke up and found out we had done nothing and people died? Well he'd go all Brimley on me...
24/7 my ass. Panetta said he never heard from the guy that night.
Most people who aspire to be President want the responsibilty. And the Constitution is very clear that it resides with them. This is pathetic.
Brave Sir Barry ran away, away
He bravely ran away.
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled...
"I guess psychopathic wingnuts, who never once imagined Obama was qualified to be Commander in Chief, now imagine that he could have magically done something that would have changed the outcome had he been directly involved in this crisis.
You nuts have no idea how transparently foolish you are.
Here's a lesson for you sit-on-your-ass-whining-all-the-time zealots: We have this thing in the military called "chain of command." And, believe it or not, the President of the United States does not personally micromanage every conflict unfolding in every corner of the world. We have a thing called "the US military" for that. And a thing called "the Pentagon."
And you all know this. But these sober facts are of no use to you in demonizing the president, so you ignore them."
You think so, Jack?
But you've hit on exactly the problem. Obama seems to have thought that no one had to follow any sort of chain of command or protocol or plan and he could say something like "take care of it" and everyone would just break all the rules and get it done.
Some particular things do take someone in authority actually, you know, *authorizing* them. Authority - Authorizing. The similarity is not a coincidence!
At the very very VERY least the man needed to get hold of *someone* and say "Is there anything you need ME to do right now?"
And then someone with a clue could have said... "Why yes, Mr. President, it would be helpful if you *authorized* the activation of your terrorist response group. It would also be helpful if you *authorized* someone to invite the military to send help, since YOU are the point at which civilian and military leadership chains intersect. Thank you."
Maybe someone should have destroyed his or her career and just got the job done, but why is hoping for forgiveness after the fact the "go to" liberal emergency response policy?
Obama's Del Shannon moment.
<I.24/7 my ass. Panetta said he never heard from the guy that night.,/I.
So Obama wasn't returning calls? He was off drinking beer with the boyz?
Here's my guess about what he was doing.
Let's face it, Obama is just an incompetent lazy entitled black man, a poseur. Sleep and recreation is more important than responsibility.
The Benghazi attack started a 4:00 PM DC time, an hour before Pennetta met with Obama at 5:00 PM DC time. Obama ate dinner and went to bed. Who could possibly blame him, he had to be rested for his campaigning in Las Vegas and Denver the next day. A President has to have his priorities right?
Oh! that most historically successful Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was AWOL on Benghazi, nada, zip, seems sleep is important to democrats. Of course what did we expect of a woman that went from Bill Clinton's beard to Obama's beard. If I hated this country with all my being I would pray she is the next President of the USA.
So you want to say Obama is spectacularly terrible at being commander and chief. Fine. That is pathetic but that's all the left has. You can be a bad leader and not be a bad person.
But for Obama to make up a lie afterward, then throw and American citizen in jail to support that lie despite the obvious first amendment issues with such an action? Only a despicable person would do this. And you are either stupid or complicit to vote for them.
garage mahal said...
<I.24/7 my ass. Panetta said he never heard from the guy that night.,/I.
So Obama wasn't returning calls? He was off drinking beer with the boyz?
Lame ass shit, garage.
The Stolypin cars were full of guys full of lame ass shit.
America is one step away from presenting legislative testimonies and news in speech balloons and thought bubbles.
"Cartoon Network Smashes Rating Records Four Years Running. No Sign of Slowdown."
Who cares about Americans getting killed in Benghazi while there is still some wealth left to redistribute?
garage mahal said...
Logistically, there is no way in hell the CiC is capable of running every show 24/7.
Nobody said he should be, is, and wants to, stupid shit.
So why don't you address the fact that Obama said he was running this fiasco?
Or is that too uncomfortable for your silly little brain?
Wow
Lindsay was pretty good in this hearing. I learned not a single plane or troop was moved toward Benghazi in the 7+ hours that they were under fire (yeah, it wasn't continous)
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/08/panetta-obama-never-called-back-to-check-on-benghazi/
Maybe Obama was busy shooting skeets.
So funny, and so true!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/things-democrats-would-have-freaked-out-about-if-bush-had-do
I don't know which I like more. Te reaction shots of the hyperventilating liberals or the deadpan shrugging ones.
I particularly like Jenses Eckles chewing and the guy playing Harry Potter shrugging.
Own it libs.
Garage Mahal wrote:
"Logistically, there is no way in hell the CiC is capable of running every show 24/7."
And yet every mistake made by one of Bush's underlings during Katrina was Bush's fault. As was every mistake made during Iraq.
So, live by your own sides standard.
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