President Barack Obama said this morning that he’s ‘offended’ by “suggestions” that the White House purposely kept Americans in the dark about the true nature of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and the events leading up to it.
The President made the comment as part of a pre-taped interview for hit MSNBC show “Morning Joe” with the show’s namesake former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.) and co-host Mika Brzezinski.
The President declined to name names with regards to who he was specifically upset with. However, he presumably meant Republicans and the Republican presidential ticket based on his campaign’s continued efforts to portray the GOP as unnecessarily politicizing the issue and his reference to the second presidential debate, in which he and Romney got a memorably heated discussion about the attack.
“But I do take offense, as I’ve said during one of the debates, that there’s some suggestion, you know, that we, in any way haven’t tried to make sure that the American people knew as information was coming in what we believed happened.”
During the President and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s argument about Libya at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. on Oct. 16, the President told Romney “the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, Governor, is offensive.”
Obama’s comment was in response to Romney’s point that “there were many days that passed before we knew whether this was a spontaneous demonstration or actually whether it was a terrorist attack.”
“It was a terrorist attack, and it took a long time for that to be told to the American people. Whether there was some misleading or instead whether we just didn’t know what happened, I think you have to ask yourself why didn’t we know five days later when the ambassador to the United Nations went on TV to say that this was a demonstration. How could of we not known?” Romney continued.
Obama’s comment that he was ‘offended’ by the valid attack was mostly ignored because of the ensuing back and forth about whether the President did or didn’t immediately acknowledge that the assault in Libya was a terrorist attack.
Ironically, the President told the Morning Joe hosts that “there’s all kinds of legitmate questions to ask” about the Libya incident, just before slamming people raising legitimate questions about the White House’s knowledge about the attack.
“Was it the intel community giving you bad information early on? Because the stories keep changing?” Scarborough said to the President, giving him an out.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Obama responded.
In other words, the President is still unable to say what went wrong a month and half after the attack, but yet he continues to be ‘offended’ by suggestions like Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) that his administration is engaged in a cover-up.
The President has no right to be offended that Americans like Kerry Ladka – the man who asked him the question about Libya at the Hofstra debate – still have questions about his administration’s poor handling of the crisis or that Romney is using the administration’s failure to correctly identify the cause of the attack for two weeks as a prime example of the President’s failed leadership at home and abroad.
What is truly offensive is that the President was reluctant to take responsibility for the mishandling of the attack until a month after it had occurred and that he had the nerve to say that the deaths of four Americans in Libya – which could have been avoided had his administration done their job – were “not optimal.”
This is the second time the Obama administration has been involved in an incident that resulted in the death of innocent Americans. Its handling of Fast and Furious and its refusal to cooperate with the Congressional investigation into the Department of Justice’s involvement resulted in a high profile contempt procedure against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in June.
At what point will Obama and his administration stop being ‘offended’ by questions about and investigations into their questionable activities and start giving the American people answers?
