Where was the president? This is a simple question, one to which the American people might reasonably expect an answer, but more than nine months after that deadly night, we still have not gotten a detailed answer and most in the media seem to have lost all interest in the question. White House correspondents have let themselves be played like chumps, treated like court stenographers whose job is to transcribe the administration’s talking points. No one seems to have tried to pin down Obama himself on this question — what, exactly, was he doing while Islamic terrorists brutally slaughtered four Americans? — and only rarely have any of the presidential henchmen been asked about it. One of the few exceptions to the media’s see-no-evil policy of voluntary ignorance occurred last month, when Chris Wallace of Fox News asked the president’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer about Benghazi.Continue reading.
Wallace began by reiterating what is known about Obama’s actions that day, saying the president “had a meeting with [Defense Secretary Leon] Panetta in the afternoon … [and] wanted them to deploy forces as soon as possible. The next time he shows up is that [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton says she spoke to him at around 10 o’clock that night, after the attack at the consulate — not as it turned out, at the annex, but the attack at the consulate — had ended. Question: What did the president do the rest of that night to pursue Benghazi?”
Pfeiffer responded that “the president was kept up to date as it happened throughout the entire night, from the moment it started till the end.” Pfeiffer then proceeded to portray Obama as the helpless target of “a series of conspiracy theories the Republicans are spinning.” The adviser elaborated on the number of documents released and the congressional hearings held. What “we are going to do,” Pfeiffer said, is “to move forward and ensure it doesn’t happen again.” Wallace listened patiently to this lengthy evasion and then said: “With all due respect, you didn’t answer my question. What did the president do that night?”
Anyone who saw that memorable interview — and if you missed it, please click here to watch it on YouTube — knows what a reaction Wallace’s persistence provoked from the White House aide. Pfeiffer blustered with indignation at what he called an “offensive” suggestion “that the president didn’t take action” and huffed that “there’s no evidence to support” such a suggestion. Wallace remained calm and reiterated: “I’m simply asking a question. Where was he? What did he do?” Whatever the facts of the matter may be, Pfeiffer refused to answer specifically, and so the question lingers: Where was the president?
Via the Other McCain, "Benghazi: The Unanswered Question."
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