Romney Hammers Biden on Libya Lies

At the Wall Street Journal, "Romney Takes Aim at Biden Over Libya":

RICHMOND, Va.—Mitt Romney accused Vice President Joe Biden of "doubling down on denial" as the GOP hopeful escalated his criticism of the Obama administration's actions after the consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya.

"There were more questions that came out of last night," Mr. Romney told the crowd, referring to Thursday night's vice-presidential debate in Danville, Ky. "The vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of State Department officials. He's doubling down on denial."

At the debate, Vice President Joe Biden said the Obama administration didn't know American officials wanted additional security in Libya before the attack, which left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador.

"We weren't told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security again," Mr. Biden said in the debate Thursday evening. "We said exactly what the intelligence community told us that they knew. That was the assessment. And as the intelligence community changed their view, we made it clear they changed their view."

Prior to the attack in Libya, the State Department scaled back its security there, to the alarm of some officials. That decision was the subject of a contentious congressional hearing where former U.S. security officials testified that they requested additional personnel.

At Thursday's debate, GOP vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan said U.S. marines should have been guarding the U.S. ambassador before the attack and was critical of the way the Obama administration has handled the investigation. "This is becoming more troubling by the day," he said. "They first blamed the YouTube video; now they're trying to blame the Romney-Ryan ticket for making this an issue."

The attack and subsequent investigation have prompted additional scrutiny of the Obama administration and its intelligence agencies and have marred one of President Barack Obama's election-year strengths: national security.

"When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the testimony, sworn testimony, of State Department officials American citizens have a right to know just what's going on," Mr. Romney said at a rally here Friday. "We're going to find out."

Yeah, we're going to find out alright, and it's not going to be pretty. Even the left-leaning bloggers at Foreign Policy called out the blustery veep attack dog, "Biden contradicts State Department on Benghazi security":

Vice President Joe Biden claimed that the administration wasn't aware of requests for more security in Libya before the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi during Thursday night's debate, contradicting two State Department officials and the former head of diplomatic security in Libya.

"We weren't told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there," Biden said.

In fact, two security officials who worked for the State Department in Libya at the time testified Thursday that they repeatedly requested more security and two State Department officials admitted they had denied those requests.

"All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources," the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, testified. "In those conversations, I was specifically told [by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb] ‘You cannot request an SST extension.' I determined I was told that because there would be too much political cost. We went ahead and requested it anyway."

And here's the damage-control update at Foreign Policy, "White House: Obama and Biden were never aware of requests for more Benghazi security."

It turns out as well that Obama's now throwing Hillary under the bus. See the Daily Caller, "White House throws Hillary under the 2012 bus [VIDEO]," and "Author Ed Klein: As Benghazi blame nears Hillary, Clintons grow furious."

That's President Clusterf-k for you!

PHOTO CREDIT: The Astute Bloggers.