Four Americans dead in Benghazi in a 9/11-anniversary al Qaeda attack — and President Obama’s new take is: “Move along, Mitt. Nothing to see here.”
Shameful. Utterly shameful.
“The entire reason that this has become the political topic it is, is because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan” — or so said Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter yesterday.
The Republicans, she said, have been “reckless and irresponsible” for raising questions about the attack that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.
The attack the president’s team insisted was carried out by a pickup mob enraged by a sophomoric anti-Muslim video — when they knew otherwise. A sordid lie, that is.
The one Obama himself termed a mere “bump in the road” in the Mideast.
Some bump.
But in that spirit, Cutter promptly doubled down on stupid, elaborating, in writing: “Our nation’s security and how we handle the transitions in the Middle East and North Africa are critical issues.”
Indeed they are.
But Romney and Ryan aren’t allowed to discuss them — is that it, Stephanie?
This wouldn’t be a deflection from the political and public-policy disaster generated by being caught out in multiple Benghazi-related lies, would it, Stephanie?
In point of fact, both Romney and Ryan have been surprisingly restrained in their comments — perhaps understanding that reckless rhetoric can make matters worse, and certainly out of respect for the dead.
(Would that Team Obama showed such sensitivity and restraint.)
But that doesn’t mean Romney has been silent — nor should he have been.
“Bumps in the road? We had an ambassador assassinated. We had a Muslim Brotherhood member elected to the presidency of Egypt. Twenty thousand people have been killed in Syria. We have tumult in Pakistan, and Iran is that much closer to having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon.”
Spot on.
And that doesn’t mention lie after lie on the Benghazi attack — and a mountain of convincing evidence that the Obama administration flat out, perhaps willfully, failed to provide security at the site.
Indeed, State Department official Charlene Lamb continues to insist that “we had the correct number of [security] assets in Benghazi on the night of 9/11.”
Tell that to Chris Stevens’ family — and those of al Qaeda’s other victims.
No wonder Team Obama has spent the past week focused not on the Benghazi catastrophe — but on Big Bird.
Yesterday, Stephanie Cutter made matters worse.
For shame. For shame.