October 12, 2014 10:48 AM UTC

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."

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.