Just after the 2012 election, after the mainstream media had allowed President Obama to repeatedly lie about Benghazi and the status of the War on Terror (I believe the word used was “decimated”), Democrats and Republicans were tied on the issue of which party was better able to handle terrorism.
What a difference 18 months and facts even the mainstream media can’t conceal make. Today, according to Gallup, Republicans hold a 23 point edge over Democrats, 55-32%.
Here’s how the rise and fall happened…
Working with the media during his reelection campaign, the president did a brilliant job of convincing the American people he had all but licked the terrorists, successfully led from behind in Libya, would personally oversee the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and that the Arab Spring was real and beautiful and the result of his policies.
The tide of war was receding, the abandoning of Iraq was a good thing, and that dumbass Mitt Romney was worrying about the Russians like it was 1983.
Smart power! Huzzah!
According to Gallup, in just one year, this propaganda campaign turned a 38-49% deficit for Democrats on the issue of terrorism into a what would become a post-election tie.
The tipping point occurred on this very day two years ago. Not right away. Because Obama was in a close reelection bid, his administration and the media coordinated to cover up the facts surrounding the Benghazi attack.
To keep the heat and spotlight off the Obama administration’s lies and the unforgivable and inexplicable decision to leave our Libyan consulate and staffers vulnerable to attack (despite repeated threats), the president’s Republican challenger Mitt Romney was relentlessly attacked in the media for the first nine days after the Benghazi attack over a “gaffe” that had nothing do with Benghazi. In the meantime, throughout the rest of the campaign, the media allowed and even assisted the president’s lies.
This all changed after the election. Egypt and Libya fell apart. Obama’s fecklessness on Syria made one wonder if Obama hadn’t been possessed by Jimmy Carter. Our strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel, was forced to freeze the bumbling John Kerry out of the peace process. Vladmir Putin made sages of Romney and Sarah Palin. The president even lost control of our own southern border. The real disaster, though, occurred in Iraq.
The rise of ISIS proved that Obama’s decision to prematurely cut-and-run from Iraq (and not arm moderate rebels in rural Syria) was one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in our country’s history; an unforced error that ensured we lost a won war (Iraq) and will now have to fight another one.
ISIS isn’t Obama’s bungled war of choice (that was Libya). ISIS is a war Obama could have prevented by listening to anyone but himself.
John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC