June 12, 2013 by David L. Goetsch
Conservatives are hoping that Benghazi will eventually
develop into a contemporary version of Watergate, a far-reaching,
multi-layered cover-up that will ultimately bring down the Obama
presidency and Hillary Clinton with it. While I share the sentiments of
my fellow conservatives, my response to this wishful thinking is
simple: good luck with that. The Watergate burglaries occurred in May
and June of 1972. Benghazi occurred in September 2012. In the years
between 1972 and 2012, America experienced enormous societal change;
some good and some not so good. The lack of public outrage over the
Benghazi tragedy is symptomatic of the not-so-good societal changes in
America since the early 1970s as well as the added fact—from the
mainstream media’s perspective—that Nixon was a Republican and Obama is a
Democrat.
On any measure of tragedy or presidential culpability, Benghazi
easily surpasses Watergate. In the final analysis, Watergate was
nothing more than a couple of third-rate burglaries that went off the
tracks. Nixon’s guilt in Watergate had more to do with the subsequent
cover-up and his coercive use of government agencies in that cover-up
than with the actual burglaries themselves. But Benghazi is different.
With Benghazi, American diplomatic personnel were brutally attacked and
murdered, American property was burned and looted, and sensitive
government documents were seized. In this tragedy, President Obama and
Hillary Clinton were and are culpable on several levels, both before and
since the tragedy.
On one level they are culpable because they knew enough about the
situation before hand to have prevented it and didn’t. On another
level, they seem to think that claiming they knew nothing somehow
exonerates them. We now know that their denials of prior knowledge are
fabrications, part of a Nixon-like cover-up However for the sake of
argument, assume for a moment that their denials are true. In my view,
the culpability of Obama and Clinton actually increases in this case.
Why? Because it was their job to know. When you are President of the
United States or Secretary of State, you are responsible for protecting
the lives of the diplomats and other personnel you send in harm’s way.
It is your sworn duty to know where you are sending them and what they
might face when they get there. Presidents and Secretaries of State do
not have the option of claiming “I did not know.” Claiming “I did not
know” is the same as admitting “I did not care enough to stay informed.”
With what we now know about the Benghazi debacle, one would expect
that public outrage would exceed the level of vitriol aimed at President
Nixon in the aftermath of Watergate. However, public outrage about
Benghazi—to the extent there is any—is tame by comparison. In reality,
we could house the few Congressman, Senators, FOX News broadcasters, and
thinking American citizens who seem to care about Benghazi in a high
school football stadium; a small one. The hard truth is that Benghazi
is not generating the public interest, much less outrage, we saw in the
aftermath of Watergate. Public apathy toward Benghazi is an even bigger
tragedy than the event itself. This being the case, one might
reasonably ask: Why don’t more Americans care about Benghazi?
The lack of media coverage about Benghazi can be attributed to the fact
that Obama is a Democrat, and not just any Democrat but the favored son
of the leftwing mainstream media. There is nothing new about this. The
mainstream media began its turn to the left in the 1960s and has not
stopped turning left yet. But the lack of public outrage is a different
issue. Beginning in the 1960s liberals, progressives, Marxists,
secular humanists, and other fellow travelers began making noticeable
progress toward achieving their goal of a compliant, easily led,
self-interested, sheep-like American populace. Now in 2013 we are
seeing the fruit of the left’s incremental but persistent effort to
transform Americans into ovine puppets who believe what they are told to
believe, cannot think for themselves, lack the intellectual curiosity
to pursue complex issues that do not affect them in an immediate and
noticeable way, and care more about Dancing with the Stars than they do
about what happens in foreign countries they—thanks to public
education—could not locate on a map.
To the typical American, Benghazi is just some far-off place they
occasionally hear discussed on the nightly news while waiting for their
favorite brain-dead sitcom to air. If it was not their father or
brother who was slaughtered by a mob of Islamist thugs, they don’t care.
If their favorite news anchor does not tell them they should care,
they don’t care. If getting interested in the Benghazi tragedy is going
to require them to think about something bigger than their own
day-to-day desires, they don’t care. If Hillary Clinton says “What
difference does it make?” they agree, because they don’t care. After
all, if the Secretary of State and President don’t care, why should
they? This is what America has become in the 237 years since our
Founders risked their lives, property, and sacred honor to build what
Ronald Reagan called that “shining city on a hill.” If our Founders
could see us now, they would weep.
Conservatives are hoping that Benghazi will eventually
develop into a contemporary version of Watergate, a far-reaching,
multi-layered cover-up that will ultimately bring down the Obama
presidency and Hillary Clinton with it. While I share the sentiments of
my fellow conservatives, my response to this wishful thinking is
simple: good luck with that. The Watergate burglaries occurred in May
and June of 1972. Benghazi occurred in September 2012. In the years
between 1972 and 2012, America experienced enormous societal change;
some good and some not so good. The lack of public outrage over the
Benghazi tragedy is symptomatic of the not-so-good societal changes in
America since the early 1970s as well as the added fact—from the
mainstream media’s perspective—that Nixon was a Republican and Obama is a
Democrat.
On any measure of tragedy or presidential culpability, Benghazi
easily surpasses Watergate. In the final analysis, Watergate was
nothing more than a couple of third-rate burglaries that went off the
tracks. Nixon’s guilt in Watergate had more to do with the subsequent
cover-up and his coercive use of government agencies in that cover-up
than with the actual burglaries themselves. But Benghazi is different.
With Benghazi, American diplomatic personnel were brutally attacked and
murdered, American property was burned and looted, and sensitive
government documents were seized. In this tragedy, President Obama and
Hillary Clinton were and are culpable on several levels, both before and
since the tragedy.
On one level they are culpable because they knew enough about the
situation before hand to have prevented it and didn’t. On another
level, they seem to think that claiming they knew nothing somehow
exonerates them. We now know that their denials of prior knowledge are
fabrications, part of a Nixon-like cover-up However for the sake of
argument, assume for a moment that their denials are true. In my view,
the culpability of Obama and Clinton actually increases in this case.
Why? Because it was their job to know. When you are President of the
United States or Secretary of State, you are responsible for protecting
the lives of the diplomats and other personnel you send in harm’s way.
It is your sworn duty to know where you are sending them and what they
might face when they get there. Presidents and Secretaries of State do
not have the option of claiming “I did not know.” Claiming “I did not
know” is the same as admitting “I did not care enough to stay informed.”
With what we now know about the Benghazi debacle, one would expect
that public outrage would exceed the level of vitriol aimed at President
Nixon in the aftermath of Watergate. However, public outrage about
Benghazi—to the extent there is any—is tame by comparison. In reality,
we could house the few Congressman, Senators, FOX News broadcasters, and
thinking American citizens who seem to care about Benghazi in a high
school football stadium; a small one. The hard truth is that Benghazi
is not generating the public interest, much less outrage, we saw in the
aftermath of Watergate. Public apathy toward Benghazi is an even bigger
tragedy than the event itself. This being the case, one might
reasonably ask: Why don’t more Americans care about Benghazi?
The lack of media coverage about Benghazi can be attributed to the fact
that Obama is a Democrat, and not just any Democrat but the favored son
of the leftwing mainstream media. There is nothing new about this. The
mainstream media began its turn to the left in the 1960s and has not
stopped turning left yet. But the lack of public outrage is a different
issue. Beginning in the 1960s liberals, progressives, Marxists,
secular humanists, and other fellow travelers began making noticeable
progress toward achieving their goal of a compliant, easily led,
self-interested, sheep-like American populace. Now in 2013 we are
seeing the fruit of the left’s incremental but persistent effort to
transform Americans into ovine puppets who believe what they are told to
believe, cannot think for themselves, lack the intellectual curiosity
to pursue complex issues that do not affect them in an immediate and
noticeable way, and care more about Dancing with the Stars than they do
about what happens in foreign countries they—thanks to public
education—could not locate on a map.
To the typical American, Benghazi is just some far-off place they
occasionally hear discussed on the nightly news while waiting for their
favorite brain-dead sitcom to air. If it was not their father or
brother who was slaughtered by a mob of Islamist thugs, they don’t care.
If their favorite news anchor does not tell them they should care,
they don’t care. If getting interested in the Benghazi tragedy is going
to require them to think about something bigger than their own
day-to-day desires, they don’t care. If Hillary Clinton says “What
difference does it make?” they agree, because they don’t care. After
all, if the Secretary of State and President don’t care, why should
they? This is what America has become in the 237 years since our
Founders risked their lives, property, and sacred honor to build what
Ronald Reagan called that “shining city on a hill.” If our Founders
could see us now, they would weep.
