It happened and we were slow to react to it.

I'm sure both Hillary and Obama wishes they could do a , do over on this but they can't.

It is what it is......... what the hell are you going to do

because Libya still had a lot of insurgents of all kinds including left-over Ghaddafi supporters and others. Stevens may have feared for his life but been reluctant to invite still more trouble by bringing an obvious and heavy American military ground presence to the embassy and consulate.

We do not know the diplomatic considerations that figured in the decisions.

The Benghazi "scandal" is not one.

The Republicans are trying to make it one. But that doesn't change the reality.

Libya is not yet a stable country, and it certainly wasn't when the attack in Benghazi occurred. Such is the situation in a number of countries in the Middle East. In fact, I would guess that a Benghazi could occur at a diplomatic station almost anywhere in that area.

And I am certainly no Obama apologist.

Last edited Wed May 15, 2013, 07:31 AM - Edit history (1)

that is smarter than she is, which means a whole lot of people. She lied about Al Gore all through 2000 and helped to give us Bush as President. Reading one of her columns is like read the slam book of a spoiled teenager.

I thought I was the only person left on the planet who remembers 'slam books'.

And your assessment is dead-on. That is EXACTLY what a Dowd column is like.

I'm not seeing where she mentions that Ambassador Stevens had declined extra security twice in the months leading up to the attack. His reasons for this may never be clearly known since the CIA were in the mix, but it appears to be true.

There's a suggestion that State didn't want to send more security because it would undermine the appearance of a stable Libya, but I find it very difficult to believe that. Prominent Republicans including McCain pressed the WH to provide arms and support to the Libyan rebels back in March 2011; they couldn't have gotten away with a "told you so" if additional security were needed in Benghazi.

public statements to remove public references to AQ-linked groups in Libya:

when she refers to "hillaryland" it is possibly the strongest thing she has ever said about Hillary, especially because every other article talks about how Hillary will win in 2016 and make Obama look incompetent. My whole point in posting this is that when Dowd critiques Hillary, then you know something is off.

Hillary made herself scarce quickly and left it to subordinates, and the head of another department (UN Ambassador Rice) to take the public-facing role, and ultimately to fall on the sword.

What planet have you been living in? Being embarrassed into getting off someone's ass does not mean being into that person's 2016 bandwagon.

That said, Dowd is still pissed that Obama made a joke about her in an important gathering. Now she's a broken record on Obama. She hates him more than ever now.

subject themselves to this tripe is beyond me. I have plenty of issues with this administration. But this overrated hack is not the one to channel those frustrations.

Maureen absolutely despises Hillary. She has pilloried her for years. She was for Obama when he was running against her.

Oh, the things one reads over here. Go do some research and find her archived columns. See for yourself how much she loves Hillary.

But not every failure is a scandal, and in a less polarized system, it would be possible for the administration to make the changes that would prevent its recurrence.