Four Pinocchios for Obama on Benghazi: Subjunctive Outrage

Washington Post has awarded Obama (finally) with four Pinocchios for his equivocations on Benghazi:

For instance, on Sept. 12, immediately after the Rose Garden statement the day after the attack, Obama sat down with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes and acknowledged he purposely avoided the using the word “terrorism:”
KROFT: “Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word ‘terrorism’ in connection with the Libya attack.”
OBAMA: “Right.”
KROFT: “Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?”
OBAMA: “Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.”

With the mounting evidence that the IRS injunction against conservative groups came from Mount Olympus, President O-ghaza has come up with various weasel words (as A Conservative Teacher has enumerated nicely under "UPDATE") about the alleged abuses.  These words come out to saying "Acts of political intimidation will not be tolerated."

Yes, my fellow citizens, Candy Crowley will vouch that the Evader-in-Chief recognized this political witch hunt as an unseemly act, "if in fact it did occur," so qualified after the IRS admitted to it and apologized for it.    Only just now has the Washington Post finally caught up and recognized that in the Rose Garden speech, Obama could have added "if in fact this was an act of terror" without contradiction.  His Rose Garden speech was essentially another example of his "subjective outrage."

Suppose after the Tsarnaev bombing, before we had any of the revelations we've had about what the Tsarnaev brothers' motivations were, that Obama would have got on the air and said that we had every reason to think that this was an unpremeditated reaction by some Chechen Christian boys in response to some sacrilegious depiction of Jesus, and followed with a little blurb about the unbroken America spirit warning that "No acts of terror" would weaken it if in fact there were attempts to weaken... If it turned out to not be a what we generally think of as a terrorist attack (rather than a terror-inducing attack like the Columbine rampage, which is not thought of as a terrorist attack per se even though it was truly an act of terror), wouldn't he have been able to backpedal and say that he never actually claimed it had to be the work of terrorists?  It doesn't change the truth that no acts of terror would weaken our resolve.

It's all weasel words.  It's have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too words.

Obama's administration is now saying that the video was blamed because it was too early to tell the cause (CIA official testimony to the contrary), even though Obama "clearly" identified it as a terrorist attack from the beginning.  Oh well, fog of war, blah blah blah.  The fog of war makes it so that you know it's terrorist attack even though you don't know whether the terrorist attack that you were warned would happen on the 9/11 anniversary was actually a video-inspired riot that got out of hand.   Why were we told it had to do with a video, when, as Madame Secretary implied, it really didn't make any difference?

What perhaps does make a difference was that the people responsible actually be caught.  And as the administration promised the father of the slain Navy SEAL, they got the man that blasphemed the Prophet of Islam, the man responsible.

Well, at least the Washington Post has caught on.  But what were most of these major media outlets doing when it appeared some sort of subterfuge was apparent.  Perhaps they were too busy playing Galaga to notice.

That man is playing Galaga!
Thought we wouldn't notice.  But we did.

Maybe this is why CBS didn't get around to releasing the footage in which Obama is asked about whether he is purposely skating around the term "terrorism" and Obama continues to skate.  They were busy playing Galaga.  Which is why they missed noticing and reporting Obama's penchant for "subjunctive outrage," if in fact it was outrage.