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[Shadowlord]

Romney is a 'moderate' Republican

He signed a permanent ban on assault weapons in Massachusetts, saying: "Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts. These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people." That sounds sensible until you consider the original reason for the right to bear arms: Rising up against the government if it becomes tyrannical.

Romney is more of a chameleon, able to hold any position at any time. I wouldn't expect bipartisanship from him either if he becomes president; The issue there is Congress, and the anti-science republicans don't help matters, especially the ones who've gotten positions in the House committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Essentially, Romney had three choices as governor:
1. Veto everything, get overridden, end up unpopular and with no accomplishments as Governor.
2. Propose something the Democrats want, and do whatever the democrats want! Might not look so good when running on a national level later.
3. Mix 1 and 2 and shake and bake: Do some things the Democrats want, and veto lots of other things (and get overridden).

He chose 3.

(To be clear, Massachusetts is so blue (and/or independent) that the legislature had (and has) so many Democrats that they could just override all his vetos)

[Montague]

Idk, I think people have this tendency to think boring explanations are unrealistic. Obviously the embassy being overrun by dirty commoners is not a good answer. Some elite squad of deadly Al-Qaeda assassins are the only people that could have done it.

The real world is like a hollywood movie in people's imaginations. High profile stuff doesn't happen without some spooky, interesting antagonist.

They think this is Hollywood paradigm is so normal that they don't question when people are killed inexplicably, it must have been CIA death squads or something, right?

Real world is pretty boring.

[Reelya]

The media tends to portray any foreign leader hostile to the United States as an insane comic book supervillain, just itching to get nukes or orbital lasers (give that a century) and blast half the world into ash just for "teh lulz".

The main difference from comic supervillains is that in reality your "evil henchmen" have families and aren't so keen to die in a nuclear inferno no matter how insane their boss is.

[Montague]

Romney is a 'moderate' Republican

He signed a permanent ban on assault weapons in Massachusetts, saying: "Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts. These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people." That sounds sensible until you consider the original reason for the right to bear arms: Rising up against the government if it becomes tyrannical.

Romney is more of a chameleon, able to hold any position at any time. I wouldn't expect bipartisanship from him either if he becomes president; The issue there is Congress, and the anti-science republicans don't help matters, especially the ones who've gotten positions in the House committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Essentially, Romney had three choices as governor:
1. Veto everything, get overridden, end up unpopular and with no accomplishments as Governor.
2. Propose something the Democrats want, and do whatever the democrats want! Might not look so good when running on a national level later.
3. Mix 1 and 2 and shake and bake: Do some things the Democrats want, and veto lots of other things (and get overridden).

He chose 3.

(To be clear, Massachusetts is so blue (and/or independent) that the legislature had (and has) so many Democrats that they could just override all his vetos)

Yep, looking into it a bit, Romney looks more anti-gun then Obama.

I'm thinking Romney is sort of a toolbag, doing whatever seems the most politically correct thing to say or do at the time. Obama has pretty much stuck to his guns, so to speak.

So there you go, a moderate republican that believes in gun control. That's about the worst type of 'moderate' there is in my book.

[Trollheiming]

The idea that the government used the quite complete coverage from the media while the CIA and DIA scrambled to figure out what happened is quite plausible, even probable.

No, it doesn't work that way. After Obama was informed of an ongoing attack, he went to a fundraiser in Las Vegas. By the time he finished his trip, the attack was over and the CIA had debriefed the survivors. It had access to the survivors, including the agent who was watching the cameras of the gates in the TOC room and actually hit the alarm button as the attack commenced. You say "probable," but the facts as known say "impossible." The White House knew much more than the media within 24 hours of the attack and kept telling people a false story.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/26/u-s-officials-knew-libya-attacks-were-work-of-al-qaeda-affiliates.html

To suppose that the CIA didn't know more than CNN about its own forward operating base from its own survivors of that attack is rather ridiculous. The state department had a press conference on the timeline and the CIA knew everything from the survivors within hours, including that there were no protestors before the well-prepared assault with heavy weaponry. The CIA also had known that al-Zawahiri recently called for vengeance in Libya over the death of al-Libi.

The Libyan President, quoted out-of-context by Reelya above, actually says that he forwarded a report of impending attack three days before the assault.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/libya-we-gave-us-threeday-warning-of-benghazi-attack-8145242.html

how is what Obama said 2 weeks later relevant? There's a little thing called "causation" to take into account. "before" and "after".

You're at pains to nitpick at strawmen. The president was complicit in spreading an angle that he knew to be false, but that looked better for him. The point is that he was still peddling a false story two weeks later. It's not about causation. That's your strawman. It's about the continuation. Two weeks of false excuses for a planned and announced terrorist attack. Susan Rice went to the UN at first and confirmed the video angle, but at any point afterward, Obama could have informed people that he was receiving more accurate information. He actually repeated the false information, because it looks better.

EDIT: Oh, so because Obama once mentioned the video at the UN, that means he's claiming the Benghazi attacks were solely caused by the video? All he stated was that the video caused "outrage". No specific mention of the Libyan attack in that section.

It comes directly after Chris Stevens eulogy in the clear context of Libya. The violence over the video refers to Steven's death in the assault, but the remarks do not mention terrorism anywhere. Go look at a script. Zero terrorism in his remarks, because the narrative was spontaneous "protesters" with RPGs and heavy weaponry in their pockets caused this. You're carrying water if you can't see that. This is at the United Nations. Elsewhere he states it even more explicitly.

He does go on to justify something though ... why the video is legal under America's free speech laws.

Foreigners who see Sam Bacile in prison don't understand those little nuances, unfortunately. All they see is a man who spoke up and got imprisoned. Next time an American says something they don't like, they know exactly how to react now, don't they? Connecting this attack to a video and then trumping up a reason to imprison the maker actually undermined our free speech.

How is "A bunch of un-trained, un-led angry Libyans* managed to break into our secure embassy in a very recently hostile (and therefore a likely candidate for higher embassy security) country and kill 4 Americans over an incendiary video" better than "This attack was lead by known terrorist groups and was planned in advanced, from preliminary reports."

Edit: I don't exactly know what my point is. I don't think I have one. I'm just pointing out that your idea that they were trying to save face is laughable.

Showing Al-Qaeda to be "defeated" and "on the run" clearly helps Obama. Showing them to be organized and capable of going tit-for-tat hurts a President who spent four years hitting them with controversial drone warfare and who is now about to leave Afghanistan with a "Mission Accomplished" banner waving behind him. Showing Al-Qaeda strong enough kill an ambassador for the first time since 1979 is a huge blow against the Administration.

On the other hand, if it was caused by spontaneous outrage of a disorganized mob to a "hateful" video, then there's no way that Obama can be blamed for spontaneity and such righteous anger of just plain ordinary folks on the arab street. How is this not obvious to you?

[Shadowlord]

Pro-tip: Ansar al-Sharia of Libya isn't al-Qaida.

[Reelya]

You still don't have a source for Obama spreading the story, which is your key claim. The only thing you have is one statement 2 weeks later, where he says the video "spread outrage across the muslim world". No direct link, and no evidence that the white house created the story as it spread 2 week earlier.

All you need is 1 statement by a white house official saying the attack was caused by the video. you do not have that. Because 2 weeks before Obama even spoke to the United Nations, the BBC was clearly linking the attacks to the video. Not a vague link, a direct link.

An article showing that they were investigating Al-qaeda from the start doesn't mean anything since you have no evidence that the white house started the news articles about the video.

[tryrar]

Guys? Word of advice:

[Trollheiming]

As I stated in the post you ignored, he has to say something and try to get reigns on the situation almost immediately after an event this serious goes down. At least at first Obama was definitely working off of what he had.

At first? He has direct access to the CIA and they collected the survivors within 24 hours. On the other hand, even "we're still investigating" is perfectly acceptable until a good understanding emerges. You're saying that the president had to lie. No. It's not acceptable, and it wasn't necessary.

How does "Ansar al-Sharia is trying to trick us but we won't fall for it, freedom and liberty forever" make him look bad in an election? No politician could fail to spin this to their favor. Solidarity in the name of democracy is one of the most persuasive ideas in American culture. Bush had an approval rating in the 90s right after 9/11, he barely had to do anything to get it, and you're telling me that Obama couldn't get anything good out of a similarly-motivated attack that took place on the same fucking day?

Bush wasn't engaged in spiking the football and doing a victory dance just before an election. A major terrorist attack just before an election doesn't work the way you suppose. We rally behind presidents at the start of their first terms; we don't rally behind a president that has been tasked for the past four years with preventing these organized attacks. You can research the 3/11 attacks in Spain that toppled the right-leaning government three days before an election. Terrorism usually is not a boon to the current administration, particularly when it has been pushing a story that the wars are almost over due to its efforts.

Secondly that you look like you're trying to live up to your name.

Shooting the messenger, eh? I'm giving information. You can't deny that the president had this information almost as soon as it happened. You can't deny that he lied internationally but also in local venues to the American people. At most, you can posit that he did it for some undefined political benefit, same as me. You say that benefit was catching terrorists. I say that benefit was looking like an effective president in foreign policy during a close election.

Thirdly that if you wanted to catch members of Ansar al-Sharia the best way to go about it would be to feign falling for their stupid plan so they didn't think you were onto them and would let their guard down while you had the CIA double-time trying to capture as many of them as possible for about two weeks before talking about what really happened to the public.

The CIA wasn't doing that. That isn't the plan. The only suspects so far have been caught by Libyans themselves. You created that story just now to buttress your irrational need to support Obama. It's a nice story, but it simply didn't happen.

You've clearly got a pretty rabid dislike of Obama and you're letting it skew how you see all of this.

I left America years ago and don't plan to vote. I'm just asking how you convince yourself to vote for a man that lies to everyone. I mean, if you voted for Bush before, I can understand voting for Obama now. The lying, the drone-killings, the dead women and children collateral damage... If you love Bush, vote for his doppelganger.

[Trollheiming]

Guys? Word of advice:

My posts have approximately 100 times more linked info to mainstream sources than other posts here, and especially more than this juvenile picture post. My name is irrelevant to this matter and selected for irony long ago. I rarely post outside of Other Games.

Obviously, you'd rather put me beside Sam Bacile in some cell, but I'm not a troll just because you disagree with me and can't formulate a more robust response than accusations.

[Sheb]

As said before, you still don't have a source that Obama spread that "lie". Also, how would it help him to delay the announcement of the attack by two weeks? There seems to be no crime and no motive.

[Shadowlord]

Obviously, you'd rather put me beside Sam Bacile in some cell

Nobody said anything of the sort, and I think it would be best if you and everyone arguing with you moved on to something less contentious.

For example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-possibly-fatal-mistake.html?pagewanted=all

[Trollheiming]

You still don't have a source for Obama spreading the story, which is your key claim. The only thing you have is one statement 2 weeks later, where he says the video "spread outrage across the muslim world". No direct link, and no evidence that the white house created the story as it spread 2 week earlier.

All you need is 1 statement by a white house official saying the attack was caused by the video. you do not have that. Because 2 weeks before Obama even spoke to the United Nations, the BBC was clearly linking the attacks to the video. Not a vague link, a direct link.

An article showing that they were investigating Al-qaeda from the start doesn't mean anything since you have no evidence that the white house started the news articles about the video.

I gave a clip that's literally filled from one end to the other with video segments in which administration officials and the president are making these claims on various talk shows in the two weeks before they came clean. That you didn't watch the compilation is your failing, not mine.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/dorsey/brutal-ad-hits-white-house-on-libya-timeline-contr

Nobody said anything of the sort, and I think it would be best if you and everyone arguing with you moved on to something less contentious.

Heh, well, if Reelya is satisfied that there are plenty of instances of this claim, then I will leave off here.

[Montague]

Just for the record the guy who made the controversial 'film' was arrested for violating probation, not for making the film it'self.

[Sheb]

Your clip is filled of snippets of video, not a single one of whom mention "The attack in Benghazi was due to the video". It speak of outrage caused by the video yes. Of aggressions on US embassies, yes (And there was a lot of protests in front of US embassies all across the muslim world). But not a single one saying the attack was made by protesters enraged by the video.