President Obama faces his own “9/11” today as Islamist crowds attacked both America’s Libyan and Egyptian embassies and killed our Ambassador in Libya and two other Americans with a rocket.
So what can we expect from Pres. Obama?
A strongly worded diplomatic communique? A demarche? An Arclight air strike across Libya?
What we seem to have gotten was a weakly worded diplomatic communique with a political back pedal, when criticized.
If this follows the usual Obama Administration script, expect to see multiple emails asking for campaign contributions based on Gov. Romney “not stopping criticism of the American government at the water’s edge“.
UPDATE:
Gatewaypundit now has photos of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’s body being paraded through the streets of Libya.
What I cannot believe is that both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are claiming those photos are of the Ambassador being taken to a hospital.
We should be getting a Pres. Theodore Roosevelt “America wants Pedicaris alive, or Raisuli dead!”.
Instead we are getting the ROTC Cadet from ANIMAL HOUSE screaming “REMAIN CALM. ALL IS WELL!” as the riot engulfs him.
Oh crud:
CBS: Libyan security team fingered US ambassador to be killed; Update: Libyan president issues apology
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/12/cbs-libyan-security-team-fingered-us-ambassador-to-be-killed/
Libyan President issues an Apology….an APOLOGY…..I can tell him where to stick his &^(*)&ing apology. An Ambassador, two Marine, and a consulate worker murdered at the hands of a baying mob, we should be bombing Benghazi right back to Jurassic period. I did 8 years of active duty in the United States Marines, so this has me IRATE like you wouldn’t believe.
Remember a few months ago these are the people Obama sent come carriers and special ops people to help because ya know, that Gaddafi was so b a d
Somewhere around Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter is smiling …
Sgt – I think “we” think so but Carter is so arrogant he thinks “we” were wrong to throw him out.
Imagine lobbying the Oslo Committee to give you the “peace prize”
“We should be bombing Benghazi.”
Wonderful. You have only yourself to blame. Both for the present government which is unable to control it’s crazies and for the instigation which incited them.
Oh sure Obama was onside for the regime change but so was most of the right wing too.
It’s very sad to see this, both for the ambassador and the two others but also for the response from the American crazies.
Pengun,
Please point out where I said “We should be bombing Benghazi” in my post.
stfu pengun.
I understand 50 marines are being sent to Libya now. WTF? Just a bit late IMO.
As someone said on another blog a minigun would have been nice.
9/11 2012 – It was no coincidence on that day!!! This will mean the end of the obama doctrine in middle east? The Obama adminstration has formed an alliance with Al Qaeda in Libya and Syria.
We now know what we get when we “lead from behind”.
NRO has this video up. It gives a human face to the body in the more graphic photos. What was Libya’s response to Bush? What is it to Obama? And, for this, we get Obama’s condescending comments about the cowboy guy before him and the “new” to foreign relations Romney/Ryan ticket? I’ve got to admit that if we saw humility, the policies would be as bad; but this makes them especially (like PenGun’s comments) hard to take. We’ve all been guilty of stupidity clothed with pride – but it is not the sign of a leader (other than perhaps of an adolescent street gang or an immature comment).
And a comment by Fergusson.
The US Government assisted and supported the creation of Islamist terrorist governments in Libya and Egypt, and is trying to do the same thing in Syria.
This is no surprise.
I know that embassy security is supposed to be provided by the host country, but why were the “protesters” not fired upon by our Marines? Whose idea was that? Two Marines were killed in Libya. I would hate to think they died with full magazines by some fool’s order.
I don’t think there were Marines in Libya. It wasn’t the embassy. Plus, of course, there was no threat on 9/11.
UPDATE: Violent Protests at the American Embassy in Tokyo on Dec 7th blamed on Hollywood Stereotypes of Japanese as nice nerds with too many cameras. It has nothing, repeat nothing to do with the date of Dec 7th.
Until we remember the monsters we used to be, this will be our Sept 11th from now on. Get used to it. Obscene taunts are part of their way of war. We called this the HUMMV dance in Iraq. You may file this under the Mosque at Ground Zero as well.
This Friday will be interesting as well I suspect.
What I don’t understand is why these idiots want to torpedo Obama on the eve of election. His ME policy is in ashes now.
Of course the Ambassador was betrayed. By the very people he helped raise up.
Benghazi is already in the stone age, they did it to themselves. Regardless of the stipulated responsibilities of the host country, who in their right mind would rely on that in a country where radial Islamofascists run free and are a major part of the government? Would we rely on host nation security for our embassy in Iran? Syria? Iraq? Wait don’t answer that, I’m afraid of the answer.
Our embassies and consulates are the sovereign soil of this country. To attack it or the people who are assigned there is an act of war. Given that, the executive branch has the obligation to ensure there is security adequate to the threat and if the threat is beyond our ability to adequately defend, to withdraw from that location. If our sovereign soil is violated or our diplomatic people are attacked, this is exactly the equivalent to an attack on our homeland, for that is what it is. To treat it as an incident of political protest is to invite repetition. Our Libyan and Egyptian embassies (and consulates) should be immediately closed and our diplomatic, contract and other official personnel should be withdrawn until the host nations take effective action to bring to justice those who carried out the attacks. None of it was a demonstration, they were attacks that violated our soverignty. All financial aid should be suspended. The Secretary of State should personally deliver to their ambassadors our written conditions for justice, compensation and security before any return of our diplomatic presence or assistance, or resumption of financial aid personally to their ambassadors will be considered.
Spare me the hand wringing about the source of the Islamofascists’ rage. I’ll make a wild guess: they hate infidels. Why can’t we get that? If you want to understand why they hate us, read what they say. Their values and ours are mutually exclusive.
I realize that this would be a break from recent practice (and I don’t mean just the last four years), but it is about time we recognize that these folks are our sworn enemies. I dispute McCain’s concerns about us losing our influence in these countries. That has already happened. The Muslim Brotherhood is calling the shots because we created or at least facilitated the power vacuum that allowed their ascendency. I’m not sure I believe there is any organized “moderate” Muslim groups capable or desirous of displacing the Islamofascists or meeting the minimum conditions required for engagement with civilized nations. We cannot buy their friendship, we have virtually no common values and in their ideal world, we do not exist. If there is any hope that they can move toward a minimally responsible political system, we need to put them under maximum pressure to respond. Covertly, we should help them act effectively, quickly and comprehensively. If there is no will to respond, we’re wasting our time and resources. Now is the time to find out. We’ll probably not like the answer.
Mike
I have a question. I ask ii on this thread because the tragic, horrific, infuriating events being discussed here are part of the context that has me baffled. My question has to do with the INTRADE numbers. From August 30 to September 9 BO’s stock had a modest net 3.5% increase. BO’s number went up then came down a little. This I can understandble as convention bounce then fade. From September 9 to now, however, BO’s number has had a 9.8% increase. This I cannot understand. Given what’s discussed in this thread, and what Dick Morris talks abouthere, and the horrible jobs situation discussed here, and the fact that, throwing out the outliers, BO’sReal Clear Politics average lead is only 1.75 (even with the outliers its still only 3.75), and the fact that the internals of the polls are really pretty bad for BO, given all that, will someone please explain to me what has the INTRADES suddenly so jazzed for BO. I can understand that the INTRADERS might, at some point, make a decisive move toward BO, but what I can’t understand is why they’ve picked right now to do it. Will somebody please it explain it to me?
-Poll results are quote in terms of relative % response. Intrade contract values are quoted in terms of relative probability.
-It could be that any event that distracts from Obama’s economic record boosts his electoral odds.
Jonathan,
I understand the difference between polls and INDTRADE. My assumption was that a big move in the polls toward BO might motivate the INTRADERS to move big in his direction too, but there has been no such move in the polls, nor anything else I can see that should have motivated this dramatic move toward BO by the INTRADERS; so, I remain baffled.
I don’t know. Markets don’t always appear to make sense but they usually tell the truth. If prices are much out of line from what we expect, the likely expectation is that we are overlooking something significant.
Jonathan,
I am sure you won’t mind my pointing out that the key words in your last comment are “usually” and “likely.” I am sure you are with me in hoping that, if the INDTRADE numbers hold, the 2012 election will be an unsual and unlikely case.
Scotus
Remember the Dow Industrials reached it’s all time high of 14,164 on October 9, 2007. This during the early days of the financial meltdown, after housing prices had already fallen and some key bankruptcies (New Century Financial, two Bear Stearns mutual funds)had occurred. Of course the Dow would crater soon thereafter. Let’s hope the recent rally in Obama futures is tantamount to that October rally.
It looks like the first reports on this movie that inflamed the rioters in Libya and Egypt were wrong.
The whole damned movie may have been enemy action with “Pastor Jones” in the role of useful idiot/Islamic con man victim.
Nakoula a Copt, Says ”¦ Nakoula?
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/09/12/nakoula-a-copt-says-nakoula/#comment-398456
The AP presents a portrait of a career criminal, one who additionally had an ethical blind spot large enough to lead some 80 actors and crew to believe they were involved in a generic dramatic film to avoid revealing its blasphemous-to-Islam intentions.
So ”” all we currently possess as evidence that Nakoula is a Copt: the doggedly dishonest Nakoula has proclaimed himself to be a Copt.
Prior to which, he proclaimed himself to be a Jew.
His Copt-ness is also the only point given that would possibly define a motive ”” he supposedly wanted to draw attention to the vileness of Muhammad’s life as recorded in the Koran ”¦ to draw support for Copts, which strikes me as unreasonable, bizarre behavior. An Egyptian Copt would certainly know that the actual effect of blaspheming Muhammad is murderous rage towards the perpetrators ”” Danish cartoons, etc. ”” and deliberately referring to himself as a Jew, and a rich one at that?
Then, of course, we have an issue with timing. The film was only promoted online in the days leading up to 9/11 by “Sam Bacile” ”” why would the Copts cause benefit from such timing?
Don’t accept that Nakoula is a Copt until further notice, there is certainly not any evidence for that assertion.
SCOTUS,
INTRADE is a small market that can be cornered by seriously large players with computer software ‘minder’ programs to throw in money to get whatever results the large players want.
There are enough Leftie moneybags like George Soros who have been throwing around tens of millions for programs to drive Rush Limbaugh off the air to make manipulating INTRADE something that will show up on that group’s political RADAR screen.
INTRADE is no more immune to such manipulations than the real markets and there is no real SEC regulatory oversight anywhere now.
Scotus, I don’t think anything is certain here. Intrade could be wrong and I hope that it is. If there were no prediction markets I would probably agree with the people who confidently predict an Obama defeat. As it is I don’t think Intrade can be safely ignored. Overall there are mixed signals which IMO indicate that the race is close with Obama having an edge. But everything could be different by election day.
Oh my. The Arabs and Persians – most devious and tricksy in war – have met the Intellect AHAD crowd.
Who cares what Sam Bacile was. He accomplished his mission. Don’t analyze this legally, factually or psychologically. LEARN.
For all your pedigrees ye cannot LEARN.
You may begin by listening to your instincts.
KILL THE BASTARDS.
Or..perchance…retire, be silent, and let our killers, deceivers, and yes torturers do their jobs.
The election is even because interest is evenly divided. Half the nation gets a check.
The half that gets, covets, or believes itself entitled to a govt check knows where their interests lie. There’s no reason to rock a sinking ship by attempting a reform of a blatantly bankrupt entitlement system. Vote Republican and preserve the welfare state that has ruined us for posterity? This is the choice? A huge maybe at that?
I’d think I’d want my money now, all I could get before the sinking ship slips beneath the waves. This is rational self interest. They’re not going to vote for the governments future solvency when the people can sense it doesn’t have one.
Trent, I have read speculations that Intrade is manipulated but I have never seen any evidence to support such conjectures. There are many prediction markets on US elections. These markets generally track each other closely. Manipulation in one market would create arbitrage opportunities that would quickly erode the price effects of an isolated manipulation attempt. To manipulate these markets would probably require a coordinated effort across many markets at many bookmakers (and across many markets at individual bookmakers, for example, the Intrade contracts on electoral vote counts by state). It would cost a lot of money because you would have to keep spending to prop up the markets until the election. You would have to open and maintain a large number of customer accounts, and it would be hard to do all of this without leaving clues as to what you were up to. Maybe somebody could pull it off with enough resources but I think it would require a conspiracy of significant size, maintained in secret over a period of many months. How likely is this? Given that Intrade seems to track poll results closely, it seems most likely to me that the market odds are correct. I think we should assume that they are correct — by which I do not mean that they foretell the election outcome but rather that they represent the best current guess as to what will happen — unless we have specific evidence that they are not.
I think Elf is probably correct.
The currency is electoral college votes, not popular votes. Perhaps there is solidification or at least movement in some, even just a few, contested states that is driving this. These movements are not always captured real time because they are not measured and reported continuously. Most of Obama’s convention bump showed up in those states he firmly held, but the fight is in the swing states.
Could there be insider information on a game changing October surprise? The longer Obama remains close, the greater the effective a late breaking game changer can be. This is the danger in running as the not-Obama choice and a being the challenger with tepid voter enthusiasm.
The notion that anything that detracts from Obama’s record (especially his economic record) or makes this a “likeability” contest works to Barry’s favor is compelling. This current international mess does distract.
It has even opened up a new line of attack on Romney.
It appears to me that Romney missed a major opportunity to get out front on this situation and demonstrate his foreign policy leadership. He did act first, but the tone was accusatory and appeared political. His message should have been unifying while laying out the direction our initial response should have taken. As in, “I join with the all Americans in condemning these attacks on our diplomats, our sovereign soil and our flag. I join with all Americans as we mourn the loss of these Americans and stand with their families in this time of sorrow. I pledge full support to our government’s decisive actions to seek out and punish those responsible, to hold the host nations accountable for their failure to provide security to our diplomats and facilities, the suspending of our diplomatic presence and financial aid until security is adequate, compensation is made and justice is served. I pledge to support our government’s subsequent increases in security for our diplomatic missions in all countries where such threats may be present.” Essentially he could have laid out the steps that he would take as a presumption of what the administration would be doing, dictating to Obama what he should do and a measure by which the response would be measured. By being out front on this he would have shown a command of policy and leadership that Barry has always lacked. Instead he chose to include the shortcomings that contributed to the events as the notable thrust of his remarks. That should have been left to later, much later, and it came across as opportunistic. I agree with his assessment, but he didn’t accomplish anything positive at that moment by going down that path. It sounded like something Obama would have said had Bush been the incumbent.
Mike
The Washington Times blog is reporting unsubstantiated Libyan and Lebonese media claims that Amb. Stevens was sodomized before he was killled
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/sep/13/picket-report-murdered-us-ambassador-libya-reporte/
I hope this is untrue as it makes an ugly situation far worse.
Jonathan,
The Mainstream Media is openly coordinating with Democrats for anti-Romney questions on Libya, see:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/12/Mainstream-Media-Caught-Coordinating-Attack-on-Romney-Open-Mic-NBC-Time-New-York-Times
You don’t think that the same coordination is going on with MSM polling, if they are openly and publicly doing what the CBS reporter did?
And how hard would it be for a Soros type to do computer trading programs to monitor on-line trading across multiple small prediction markets, when the big financial trading houses do that world wide every day?
Well, if we want to get into conspiracy theories, then the idea of manipulating votes might be more worrisome than either polls or trades. Of course, if these back up manufactured votes, it does make them more plausible. Oh, well. I will be glad when that first week in Novemer means we can talk about policy and not horserace, when the airwaves will be cleansed of ads, and we can all decide to make choices that have to do with either a produtive, independent, and challenging society or whether we have led our nation to policies that infantilize us and leave our children with heavily mortgaged futures.
Trent,
It’s difficult to rig competitive markets and it’s more difficult to keep them rigged. There’s plenty of evidence of media/pollster/Democratic collaboration but so far I haven’t seen any evidence of successful attempts to manipulate prediction markets. It could be happening but without evidence I think it’s safer to take the market odds at face value. Also, if you were George Soros would you spend millions on an elaborate, uncertain scheme to mislead observers about the election odds or would you rather spend the money on TV ads or partisan journalism “projects” or other direct means of influencing voter opinion?
I’d love to find out that Intrade’s numbers were being manipulated and that Romney was really the landslide favorite but I don’t see evidence for either proposition. Obama has a lot of advantages for reasons that don’t resonate with ideologically minded conservatives and libertarians. This doesn’t mean that Obama will win, and I think it’s important not to allow ourselves to be demoralized, but it’s also important to recognize what we’re up against. Could someone like Obama or even Bill Clinton have gotten elected in 1980? IMO the fact that Obama got elected in 2008 against a moderate Republican indicates that the country has changed significantly. The 1980 electorate would not have tolerated a great deal of what Obama has done, including his feckless response to the recent embassy attacks. You and I look at these events and see a replay of Jimmy Carter. Many other voters don’t care because they’re on the take, or because they’re ignorant of history and accept the tendentious media framing of the events as Romney’s gaffe.
I would add that Obama’s odds increased today on Intrade after the Fed announced its latest QE/bond-buying/inflationary scheme. They’re going to buy more mortgage-backed securities. This makes sense. The Fed is acting as though its mandate were to get Obama reelected. Printing money to buy up residential mortgages — politically, what’s not to like?
Elf provides a not unreasonable explanation for why the INTRADE numbers have moved BO’s way. Still, the government assistance numbers have been known for some time; so, why did the INTRADERS pick now to move, if that’s why they moved? (Of course, if the American people have reached the point Elf suggests they might have, then the country is dooomed no matter who is elected president. While I still can, I choose to have a higher opinion of the American people.)
About INTRADE’s accuracy: It was accurate in 2008, but, it wasn’t hard to be accurate in 2008. Also, INTRADE’s numbers tracked both the polls and any reasonable person’s sense of the race. In 2010, however, INTRADE’s record was more mixed. INTRADE predicted the Republicans would pick up eight seats in the Senate. They actually picked up six. Six out of eight ain’t bad, but the thing is five of the six races INTRADE got right were ones any monkey’s uncle would have gotten right. In the three races the polls showed close, INTRADE was only one out of three. What’s more INTRADE got the two races they missed spectacularly wrong. INTRADE said there was a 72.5% chance Harry Reid (Nevada) would lose and a 71.70% Michael Bennett (Colorado) would lose. Also, in the one close race INTRADE got right, Illinois, they had Mark Kirk’s probability of winning at 69.85. One might, therefore, get the impression that, in close elections, an INTRADE number of even around 70% isn’t worth very much.
It’s easy to be right when it’s easy to be right. What’s impressive is being right when it’s hard to be right. When it comes to the latter, I remain dubious about INTRADE.
Scotus, you make reasonable points about Intrade and close races. I hope that you are right about the 2012 presidential race.
It’s also true, if I recall, that Intrade greatly underestimated the number of House seats the Republicans would gain in 2010.
We will know soon enough.
The country is not doomed.
The government is doomed.
The country however shall indeed suffer.
America is too blessed with geography internal and external, natural resources, and yet still it’s people to be “doomed”. The closest was the USSR pointing 10,000 H-Bombs at us.
Will there be suffering as this government dies, not well as they did not live well?
Yes.
>>The half that gets, covets, or believes itself entitled to a govt check knows where their interests lie.
ELF,
Gov’t Money is at best a neutral issue in Obama’s re-election, because Obama is raping Republican interests to pay for Democratic ones.
I get a Gov’t check. I am a Federal Civil Servant in the Department of Defense.
My mother, father and one of my brothers get government checks.
None of us are voting for Obama.
In terms of interest, DoD sequester is a direct threat to me.
My mother and father are on Medicare and Obamacare is a direct threat to their health & well being.
By brother gets SSI due to a childhood closed head injury that makes him unemployable and the huge number of new SSI recipients makes his further checks questionable.
The taking of money from elderly white baby boomers for younger non-whites in the Democratic coalition is a “Clinton’s Gun control for the NRA in 1994” event in terms of “Greedy Geezer” voter turn out. And the Romney campaign is in the process of turning Medicare into the “Social Security Third Rail” for Democrats to take advantage of that.
On the other hand, we all (friends & family) get state checks backed by government grants. The number of people in my husband’s department voting for Romney will be miniscule (I’m pretty sure more voted for Nader than Bush, etc. etc.) I wouldn’t say they are bought; I would say that, like everything else, it is a weight on that side of a decision. My friend’s brother tells her she will be out of a job because Romney will cut out Pell grants. Her attitude is pretty much that Romney’s right to do so – we’ve enough ill-motivated students as it is. But she and I are close to retirement; our children, some trained to be academics, are beginning their lives. We keep sending them the WSJ and leave broad hints, but if they aren’t scared about their futures, they should be. That makes a difference. Personally, I think they should be afraid for their futures if Romney isn’t elected, but fear is a factor whatever they do. (Of course, as one put it, they can always put up a yurt in our back yard – but I’m not sure that’s a great solution.)
I have no idea what voters will do. As I get older I see increasingly that most people go through life believing what they want to believe, rarely changing their minds except on the basis of hard experience and sometimes not even then. I know a number of people in the little-old-lady demographic, older than Boomers, who think that Obamacare is a grand idea based simply on the fact that at some point in their lives they learned that medical care is an entitlement and govt-run medicine is a good thing. They think in generalities and do not pay close attention to the details or, as far as I can tell, wonder if perhaps frail old people with many medical issues might not be particularly vulnerable to the caprices of a cash-strapped bureaucratic monopoly.
And of course there are the “independent” and undecided voters. What kind of person, other than those who are lying to pollsters, still hasn’t made up his mind about Obama?