In Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 3 a.m. television ad in the 2008 primary campaign, we heard the sound of a ringing phone and saw sleeping children. In ominous tones, a narrator warned that “something is happening in the world” and asked, “Who do you want answering the phone?”
Well, it’s 2012, and — the phone is still ringing. Please, somebody answer the damn thing!
The story of the terror attack in Benghazi is that neither Clinton nor the president who made her secretary of state responded to the real emergency when it came. The biggest foreign-policy crisis of the last four years is revealing an astonishing lack of competence and character at the center of the Obama administration.
That’s not to say the Democratic duo did nothing in response to the worst terror attack on American civilians since 9/11. After eulogizing our dead ambassador and three others, Obama and Clinton got to work spinning a web of deceit that would make Richard Nixon blush.
They sent out a wave of aides to mislead and torture the truth. Even now, nearly three weeks later, they have yet to come clean.
In the process, they are demonstrating how to turn a disaster into a scandal.
The attack in Libya, on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, killed one of our ambassadors for the first time since 1979. Christopher Stevens’ diary was recovered by CNN, and it shows he feared he was an al Qaeda target. Yet he had almost no security.
Because of their deception, you don’t have to be a cynic to ask what Obama and Clinton knew, and when they knew it. As Fox News has shown, intelligence officials concluded within 24 hours that the attack was carried out by Islamic terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda. Also, a terror group claimed credit for the attack.
But it wasn’t until this past Wednesday that Clinton hinted of an al Qaeda link. Even then, she made only a single reference and was far from definitive.
The next day, Obama’s flack said he, too, thinks it was terrorism, though the president has not deigned to say so himself or explain what happened.
This is not an isolated example. When it comes to terrorism, this White House has a bad habit of starting with a lie.
In 2009, after the underwear bomber’s Christmas Day plot was stopped, Obama called him an “isolated extremist.” That wasn’t true — he was sent on the mission by an al Qaeda affiliate, a fact interrogators knew before Obama spoke.
In May 2010, when a Pakistani national tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano claimed it was a “one-off,” a tale that police knew was false.
Those deceptions were all part of a relentless public-relations campaign to make Obama look good. The death of a colleague does not deter their spin.
But it should wake up the rest of us. The lack of integrity about something so fundamental as a terror attack suggests there is no line this White House will not cross to protect Obama.
The choice to mislead the public dishonors the sacrifice of Stevens and those who died with him. But it does something else, too. It shows a willingness to put Obama’s reputation and re-election ahead of America’s national security.
That’s a real emergency.
Obama’s foes come a-courtin’ for Koch
The battle for Ed Koch’s soul, or at least his support, rages on. My report that he is again furious with President Obama has stoked a lobbying campaign.
Koch tells me fellow Dems have argued to him that Obama can be trusted. On the other side, people have asked how he could possibly support Obama given the president’s failure to settle the Iran issue and his chilly attitude toward Israel.
Jeffrey Wiesenfeld is especially passionate about getting Koch to switch horses. A principal at Bernstein Global Wealth Management and a City University trustee who worked for Koch, Wiesenfeld thinks the former mayor’s defection could tip the election.
Here are excerpts of his latest letter to Koch:
“Ed — there is a real chance that Israel will be destroyed. And that will be the end of the Jewish people, because we are disappearing in every country — including America. Zabar’s, Seinfeld and kitsch will not sustain us. This is not like after the 1st and 2nd temples. If Israel is gone, we are all gone.
“The president will never, ever pre-empt Iran. It is not in him. A man who blames a film for world jihad will never save Israel in time — not to mention America.
“We are on the line and this is FDR watching the Jews dispassionately (I’m being kind) once again. You do not disagree, you are simply ‘charmed’ by the president and don’t want to flip.
“I tell you once again — Edward I. Koch in his remaining years can move enough confused Jews in a state or two to give us a president who will see the world for what it is. You simply have to gather the courage you’ve always summoned to once again do what is right.”
Bloomy aces this test
One of the tests of political leadership is the willingness to stand up and fight back against an assault on core values. Mayor Bloomberg did just that by resisting a dopey lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other so-called civil-rights groups against New York’s top public high schools.
Their complaint is that because few black and Latino students get accepted on the basis of a single test, the schools are guilty of racial discrimination.
The stats are indeed lopsided: Although blacks and Latinos made up 45 percent of last year’s test takers, they were only 14 percent of those accepted to Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and six others. Whites and Asians made up 41 percent of the test takers, and 70 percent of those accepted.
The test results aren’t massaged to achieve politically correct outcomes, so the bellyachers insist that a new admittance path be found. In effect, they demand quotas.
“Life isn’t always fair,” Bloomberg said, shooting down the idea. “We’re not here about equal results. We’re here about equal opportunity.”
He added that “these schools are designed for the best and the brightest. There’s nothing subjective. You pass the test, you get the highest score, you get in.”
What a sweet sound — the sound of somebody defending standards and those who meet them. Bravo.
A duty to pay tribute
In an article on the growth of lower Manhattan, The Wall Street Journal has an amazing statistic: The 9/11 Memorial drew over 4.7 million visitors in its first year, more than the Statue of Liberty. Tourists say going there is akin to a patriotic duty.
They’re right. If you haven’t visited, you must.
Miscarriage of ‘Justice’
My, my, the Justice Department sure moved fast to find a pretext for locking up the maker of that anti-Islam film. And Jon Corzine, who actually harmed Americans, still walks free.
Amazing.