Sunday Flashback: Cory Gardner and Benghazi

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by: Colorado Pols

The September 2012 attack by Islamist militants on the United States' consulate in Benghazi, Libya, has been absolutely milked by the Republican Party for every last ounce of political harm to inflict on President Barack Obama's administration. In the wake of the attacks, which killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, Republicans have convened multiple congressional investigations, and conservative media has followed every "new development" in the story with a presumptuous zeal that would make Kenneth Starr blush. From the outset, the GOP was desperate to prove what they already believed: that the Obama administration was somehow negligent (or even complicit, if you believe the crazier stuff)–either during the incident, or at least in explaining the facts of what had happened to the public afterwards.

The political need to pin the Benghazi attacks on political targets like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has outlasted the facts as they've come out. Today, after the House GOP's own investigation has cleared high-level officials, and even the tell-all book by operatives on the ground insists the decision not to send forces to save Ambassador Stevens was made on the ground in Libya, myths about the Benghazi attacks are a significant underpinning of the hatred–and that really is the proper word to employ–on the hard right of President Obama.

One of the central criticisms of the Obama administration in the days following the Benghazi attacks is the assertion, later discredited, that the attacks were in response to the release of a slanderously anti-Muslim short film called Innocence of Muslims. Some protest activity surrounding the release of this video clip at the time of the Benghazi attacks led to this mistaken impression, and since then, Republicans have seized on the administration's initial linking of the attack in Benghazi to the Innocence of Muslims movie as evidence of "incompetence at the highest levels."

Rep. Cory Gardner (R).

The problem with that theory? The Obama administration wasn't the only one blaming this movie. Here is Rep. Cory Gardner's original statement on the Benghazi attacks–you know, before it got all political:

Congressman Gardner released the following statement condemning the attacks at U.S. Embassies in Libya and Egypt:

"I am filled with sadness and outrage by the death of Ambassador Stevens and the three other embassy staff that were killed in Benghazi last night. This was a senseless act of terrorism and a disproportionate response by a terrorist mob that had taken offense to nothing more than an online movie trailer." [Pols emphasis]

Wait, what?

Now folks, there's two ways you can interpret this. One explanation is much more sensible in our minds, that in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attack the motives of the attackers were not known–and the protests against the movie clip in question had indeed been making news globally. Cory Gardner, like the Obama administration, was simply stating the consensus view at the time–a view that was found to be erroneous as the "fog of war" lifted.

It's either that, or Republican Cory Gardner was in on the "Benghazi coverup" from Day One. Right?

To be clear, we're certainly inclined to believe the former explanation, which doesn't really reflect all that badly on either Gardner or President Obama. The problem is, as soon as you accept that, a whole chapter of right wing Obama-hating apocrypha goes up in smoke. And it's safe to say that even a small reduction in intensity of the right's antipathy for the President would be bad for Gardner's Senate bid.

All told, this is a lesson in why foreign policy is best left to grownups.

14 thoughts on “Sunday Flashback: Cory Gardner and Benghazi”

Andrew Carnegie says:

October 12, 2014 at 11:38 am

If foreign policy is best left to grown ups, Obama, Hillary and Susan Rice should not have been involved. We now know that the blame it on the movie nonsense came from the politicos at the White House, the same clowns that Udall supports 99% of the time.

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1. denverco says:
  
  October 12, 2014 at 11:45 am
  
  Your clown the con man supported that theory – read his statement jackass. Anyone but you should be talking about foreign policy – have you enlisted yet to fight the ISIS bogeyman you chickenhawk troll?
  
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  1. Curmudgeon says:
    
    October 12, 2014 at 12:49 pm
    
    ACHole doesn't fight wars…he slaps a flag decal on his vehicle and lets other people (braver, younger, more patriotic) do the dirty work, and make him feel like something other than an impotent old white guy with nothing left to offer the world but hate.
    
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    1. dustpuppy says:
      
      October 12, 2014 at 3:59 pm
      
      Actually he's in the military.. The 101st Keyboardists.. Their mascot:
      
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      1. Curmudgeon says:
        
        October 12, 2014 at 5:16 pm
        
        I heard their unit patch has a sheep on it.
        
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        Diogenesdemar says:
        
        October 12, 2014 at 6:32 pm
        
        Oh, it's there — you just can't see it from that angle . . .
        
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2. FrankUnderwood says:
  
  October 12, 2014 at 11:50 am
  
  Because we really need Cheney, Rummy and Wolfie to be brought back?
  
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  1. ct says:
    
    October 12, 2014 at 12:37 pm
    
    A Republican administration would never miss a looming threat.
    
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3. MichaelBowman says:
  
  October 12, 2014 at 12:09 pm
  
  Here's my Sunday morning drive-by. I've enjoyed my 24-hour stench-free experience of our WIF. You can smell his desperation from the moment the webpage opens.
  
  Here's a great read: Ronald Reagan's Benghazi
  
  It's worthy to note that more children have died from epilepsy seizures in the last hour than died in the unfortunate attacks on the Libyan outpost. One child every 10 minutes; 50,000 each year. Yet, Mitch McConnell, a man who has the plausibility of becoming Senate Majority leader if we send Gardner to the US Senate, had come out with the position that he is against all forms of marijuana legalization, even in the case of medical marijuana.
  
  Why is this important? Because right under Gardner's nose, in his home Yuma County, a crop of industrial hemp, a crop grown for the purposes of giving children relief from epilepsy, will provide relief for thousands of children on a waiting list for the oil. (deemed a nutric-eutical under CO state law, marijuana under Schedule 1)
  
  Yet, Gardner offers his absolute silence in this first of many battles in our failed War on Drugs. And under a McConnell-controlled Senate caucus, good people like the Stanley Bros. would be jailed under federal law.
  
  If you think perpetuating our trillion-dollar War on Drugs is a fresh idea, you'll love the man from Yuma as a US Senator.
  
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  1. Duke Cox says:
    
    October 12, 2014 at 12:57 pm
    
    Very well said, Michael.
    
    It is only a coward that will not admit being wrong, only a coward that exploits the pain and misfortune of others, and the ultimate coward whose worship of money and power leads him to be Mitch McConnell. Yertle has announced that he will do everything he can to institute Sam Brownbacks' economic model on a nationwide basis…If the Kansas model sounds good to you, Cory Gardner is your man.
    
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bullshit! says:

October 12, 2014 at 12:54 pm

All told, this is a lesson in why foreign policy is best left to grownups.

God damn right. Gardner himself is not a grownup, even when he pretends to be one. And either way, he does not play for the grownup team. Can you imagine what the right would do if Gardner were to say, "hey, don't blame Obama, I thought the same thing at the time?"

Yeah right. Fuck this con man.

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BlueCat says:

October 12, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Benghazi is just another excuse for the right's irrational racist hatred of Obama. I think they hate him even more when he agrees with them because then they have to do an about face to avoid being for anything Obama is for. When you have Dick Cheney, VP during 9/11 which happened after they ignored all the warnings that Bin Laden planned to attack us, claiming that Benghazi is one of the worst incidents he can recall from his entire career, you know that even they don't believe the crap coming out of their mouths.

They know they've lost on ACA and they probably know they've lost on Benghazi but they're sticking with it so as not to have to admit they just hate having a black president. Also because the fact that he handily won two elections, no matter what they did, no matter how hard they tried to suppress the vote, scares them to death. If they couldn't scare people away from a back guy with a Muslim name what's it going to take to scare people away from the next Dem presidential nominee? They hoped, for HRC, it would be Benghazi.

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1. Davie says:
  
  October 12, 2014 at 9:41 pm
  
  If Hillary gets the nomination, they'll have the impeachment articles ready before the inauguration.
  
  BTW, did you know that ACHole is Bi-Anus? He spews crap from both ends.
  
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denverco says:

October 12, 2014 at 9:11 pm

As the worm turns ac troll won't like this – it will happen here too :http://www.politicususa.com/2014/10/12/koch-brothers-supports-negative-joni-ernst-republicans.html

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