Political correctness in Benghazi and Boston

Matthew Continetti:

Fitting that the House held hearings within 24 hours on both the Benghazi attack and the Boston marathon bombing. The two seemingly disparate events, separated by time and distance and sophistication, share much in common. By the close of each sorry episode, four people had died. The villains in each case considered themselves soldiers of Allah fighting a holy war against America. In both instances the political correctness of government officials prevented discovery of the truth. Benghazi and Boston are symptoms of the same disorder. They are twin studies in evasion.

On Wednesday the House Oversight Committee held its well-publicized hearing on the events in Libya on September 11, 2012. Do not get lost in the weeds of response times and autopens and security budgets and reports of weapons shipments. The issue here is simple. What makes Benghazi a scandal is the Obama administration’s concerted effort in the days and weeks after the attack to downplay the Qaeda connection.

After Gregory Hicks’ testimony there can be no doubt that the highest levels of the State Department were soon aware Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Sharia was responsible for the raid on the American consulate. This was the first time a U.S. ambassador had been killed since 1979—also in an act of Islamic violence—and the president and top officials refused to tell the public who was behind it. A spontaneous protest, they said. Outrage at a video. Keep calm and carry on.

Tom Bevan provides the damning details. “The president and his administration clearly misled the public about what happened on September 11, 2012,” he concludes. Of that there can be no doubt. Clinton blamed the video. Rice blamed the video. Carney blamed the video. Obama blamed the video. They all blamed the video even though State Department official Beth Jones had identified Ansar al-Sharia as the culprit within a day of the assault. Even though the initial timeline, revealed last week by Stephen F. Hayes, from the director of the national intelligence said the same thing.

The man who made the video is imprisoned. “The first person in this country jailed for violating Islamic anti-blasphemy laws,” observes Rich Lowry. Yet the terrorists who plotted and carried out the rampage are free. Indeed, for all we know some of them may have struck again, killing at least 39 people including 3 Americans, in the January attack on the In Amenas gas facility in Algeria.

Meanwhile the response by most on the left to the evaporation of the administration’s Benghazi story has been one giant, collective shrug. A chorus singing, so what? The situation was messy. It’s next to impossible for government officials, in the middle of 57 varieties of crisis at any given moment, to form a coherent and accurate picture of events. Mistakes, as they say, were made. You say well-coordinated terrorist effort; I say blowback from an amateurish anti-Mohammed flick. Stop politicizing a national tragedy already. “What difference at this point does it make?”

Only the most significant one: Determining the identity and motive of an assailant is essential for historical accuracy, for criminal investigation, for foreign policy, and for grand strategy. No doubt an honest appraisal of who is to blame and why would bring some small measure of relief to the families of those killed, and to the officials on the ground.

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There is much more.

The left does not care, because the lies worked to prevent the attacks from become a political disaster during the middle of an election.  That is how they roll and they will do anything to hold onto power.  Deceit comes easy to many in this administration and it has been on display from the beginning of the Benghazi saga.