Or, as the American media calls it, "another Romney gaffe."

You have to read foreign papers to get American news, now.

The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the "safe house" in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed "safe".

Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and "lockdown", under which movement is severely restricted.

And if you read the American press, Mitt Romney has had a very tough week.

Posted by: Ace at 04:16 PM | Comments (718)
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Have you seen this monkey? It's Uncanny Valley weird -- it looks like a bad attempt at a human-looking Funny Monkey Character in a video game. Like Monkey Island or something.

Dude, you're freaking me out.
Stop being weird.

Well, it gets worse.

Not only is this monkey (with its weird blue butt-n-testicles) weird in the first place, but it was apparently prefigured by an addled religious prophecy.

A religious prophecy that compelled a woman to deface a work of art in order to express it.

Her vision was true.

This is like one of those movies where something weird happens and no one really notices and then the same weird thing keeps happening and then it gets kind of alarming and then by the end of the movie it's nothing but this same weird thing everywhere all over the earth.*

Via @rdbrewer4

* I don't know that they've actually made a movie like this, but they should. I'd see it.**

** I guess Knowing is sort of like this.

Posted by: Ace at 02:23 PM | Comments (324)
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Exit question: What did the Foreign-Policy President have to do yesterday that was so important that he decided to skip his daily intel briefing — the day after an American ambassador was murdered?

Ah, right.

Allah thinks maybe we could get some press play if we start referring to "assassinations" as "gaffes."

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (253)
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Apart from your husband, I trust.

If the greatest threat to our national security was bears chasing us in the woods, I might agree.

But it's not.

Posted by: Ace at 01:30 PM | Comments (250)
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Egregious.

I don't know what to say.

Except that Paulites need to simply be ejected from any official position in the party, and refused positions like this.

Their only goal is to rules-lawyer and hijack things and, ultimately, elect Obama, because then that keeps their hardons hard for Rand or Ron in just four years.

You simply cannot tolerate traitors. It's time for them to go.

And I don't want to hear about "losing their votes." It's a con. We don't have their votes. They are Cultists dedicated to a single man, and, like cultists tend to do, are now attached to the Seed of The Prophet's Loins. Yeah, that's not primitive or anything.

Time to go. Time go go.

Posted by: Ace at 01:04 PM | Comments (331)
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A Mighty Beclowning.

Yesterday, we learned that there were no Marines protecting our Ambassador to Libya despite State Department warnings about violence and kidnappings in the Benghazi. We already knew Al Qaeda was coming on strong there. But we relied on locals for support and now we know the locals betrayed us as they have in the past in Afghanistan and Iraq too.

But the media wanted to focus on Mitt Romney.

Night before last, the President condemned Mitt Romney in harsher tones than he condemned the rioters. It took him until sun up yesterday to condemn them.

But the media wanted to focus on Mitt Romney.

Yesterday, the media spent much time condemning the Coptic Christians for their movie, but we now know the movie had been out for months and we also know the riots were orchestrated in advance. We also know the attack on the American consulate in Libya used the riots as cover for the attack.

But the media wanted to focus on Mitt Romney.

Yesterday, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a man who swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America, called an American civilian to ask him to stop exercising his first amendment rights.

But the media wanted to focus on Mitt Romney.

We also now know that the President, close to 60% of the time, has opted for printed intelligence briefings, which this White House thinks are as useful as an intelligence officer in the room who the President can probe, prod, challenge, and question.

But the media wanted to focus on Mitt Romney.

You would scarcely know a man called Barack Obama was actually in charge of his embassy's security.

When Romney gave a press conference Wednesday, the questions focused on whether it was appropriate for him to criticize Obama at the time he did. Romney's responses didn't really matter, because reporters had already decided their narrative. Obama did not take any questions in his own press conference moments later.

In 2004, John Kerry routinely attacked President Bush's handling of Iraq when things weren't going well in the country. And the media dutifully reported on Bush's foreign policy blunders in Iraq. But now, instead of scrutinizing Obama's handling of a foreign policy crisis, the media has decided that the real story in Egypt and Libya is a Mitt Romney gaffe.

Below, Kirsten Powers slams Obama and his Media Palace Guard. And I mean slams.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (197)
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Shhhh. Don't ask questions. Just Believe In Obama (TM).

U.S. officials told reporters on Wednesday that the Benghazi consulate had “a robust American security presence, including a strong component of regional security officers.” Yet Baja described a very different picture from his visit on Tuesday morning, even remarking at how relaxed the scene was when he returned to the consulate building a short while after leaving Stevens, in order to collect the mobile phone he had accidentally left behind. “The consulate was very calm, with video [surveillance] cameras outside,” Baja said. “But inside there were only four security guards, all Libyans—four!—and with only Kalshnikovs on their backs. I said, ‘Chris, this is the most powerful country in the world. Other countries all have more guards than the U.S.,’” he said, naming as two examples Jordan and Morocco.

Posted by: Ace at 11:03 AM | Comments (587)
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At Hot Air.

I've asked Saletan a series of questions about this piece on Twitter. Alas, I got his name wrong, so he has all the excuse he needs to pretend not to notice.

The question I ask -- it's long and multi-pronged -- is this:

What does William Saletan imagine the purpose of anti-Christian art is? I do not dabble in it myself, but it seems to me that such art is animated by several things:

1. Simple hate. There is no doubt that many anti-Christian artists simply hate Christianity, and, perhaps more than the religion itself, Christians themselves.

2. A belief that art which injects doubt into the mind of a believer is a good thing, because artists tend to think of themselves as free-thinkers, and wish to encourage free thought. They believe that Christianity (and other religions, but especially Christianity) is a silly superstition, and they think their art helps to liberate people from this superstition.

3. An anger at the political stances engendered by Christianity. They don't like where fundamentalist Christianity leads, politics-wise, so they seem the sowing of doubt as a useful method of undermining the Christianity where the rubber meets the road, that is, at the point Christian thought affects policy choices.

Has William Saletan ever objected to any anti-Christian art? Has anyone at Slate magazine? Has any liberal in the media, the entire media, objected?

Even when the motivation seems to be simple hate -- and yes, there are those who simply hate Christians and Christianity, and that bitter venom comes through -- I never see anyone calling such art "juvenile provocations" or "hateful stupidity."

Now, many of us -- and this includes me; does it include William Saletan, I wonder? -- think that fundamentalist Islam is dangerous and rather bad for those living under it. And we -- again, is William Saletan among them? -- would like to see, if possible, a movement away from fundamentalist Islam.

We don't like that it justifies murder in the name of "god." We do not like that it turns women into de facto slaves -- every wife is the slave of her husband, to be beaten, or raped, or disposed of as the husband may wish. Every non-married woman is in an even worse position, except to the extent her male relations may protect her. But even in that case, a woman's status comes through the men around her.

We do not like its rejection of the Enlightenment, or of its reactionary opposition to unobjectionable (or so we thought) universal values of human dignity. We do not like its insistence on championing believers in a faith with a superior legal status over nonbelievers (also known as "polytheists," "blasphemers," "apostates," "dhimmis," or, worst of all, "Jews").

We do not like its apparent political agenda of building a bridge to the 14th century.

For nonbelievers like myself -- agnostics -- and believers in other creeds as well, it is alarming in its championing of anti-blasphemy laws (punishments ranging from long terms in prison to execution) and its insistence that everyone living in an area controlled by Islam give praise to a "god" and an ideology that we do not actually believe in.

It is unobjectionable in the modern age to express hostility towards the Catholic Inquisition. It is, however, very strangely considered something approaching a hate crime to express hostility to the currently existing Islamic Inquisition.

Now, if someone like myself would like to encourage people to abandon this hidebound, hateful, backward mode of thought -- and, again, I ask: Does William Saletan disagree? Is he a big fan of fundamentalist Islam? -- we might take a page from all that anti-Christian art the country has been awash in for 70, 80 years, and think to ourselves, "Perhaps spoofing this religion, pointing out its absurdities, pointing out its true evils, will help inject a modicum of useful doubt into the minds of the believers, and perhaps cause a moderation, a skepticism of things like woman's servitude and especially Murder In The Name of 'God.'"

Would I be wrong in thinking this? To read William Saletan, I would, because his piece says, with very little caveating at all, that to offend the dignity of Islam (especially fundamentalist Islam) is not a use of free speech -- not a permissible use of it, like all that anti-Christian art he's never got 'round to condemning -- but an an abuse of it.

One might have certain beliefs -- such as the idea that a religion predicated upon the de facto slavery of women, the rejection of the reason and humanism, and ultimately, even the rejection of the Commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill -- and one might think he would be on firm ground to use the exact same methods and techniques of subversion and spoof and plain ol' vitriol directed against the Faith of the West for coming on a century now.

But no, William Saletan sharply disagrees, and calls such things an "abuse" of free speech.

Not a legitimate use of free speech. Not a true expression of truly held beliefs (and, again, does William Saletan disagree that fundamentalist Islam could use some reform and rethinking? Let's get him on the record).

But an abuse of free speech, and if not a crime, per se, at least such a transgression as requires the mobilization of social pressures (ostracization, demonization, even threats to physical safety -- ask Salman Rushdie about that) to punish those who would give themselves to such "abuses."

Am I wrong to think that fundamentalist Islam is in dire need of some doubt?

William Saletan, I am fairly confident, would be quite effusive in describing all the manifold ways in which the Christian mind is "closed" and "hidebound" and "haunted by superstition." He would, I'm reasonably certain, be quite in favor of any artistic project which undermined the foundations of Christian thought.

And yet, when we turn to fundamentalist Islam, he becomes... a censor. He becomes not an agent of the Inquisition per se, but a bit of a fanboy of it.

And why? Why the anger directed towards someone who is doing what Saletan would almost certainly praise were it directed at any other religion?

I think I know. There is a line of magnificent wisdom in the film The Spanish Prisoner (by David Mamet). It is spot-on about human nature.

The circumstances of the quote are that a young financial wizard has created a "Process" which is worth, literally, trillions. However, it was created as work-for-hire. He created it, but the company owns it. And he's wondering if the company will actually compensate him for it, as they have promised.

Steve Martin gives him the bad news (paraphrased): "I think if they have a moral obligation to you but not a legal one you will begin to find them behaving cruelly towards you. You will find them treating you poorly, isolating you, speaking badly about you when you are not present. Even as they decide to stiff you out of what they owe you, they will compound that with bad manners and worse intent. They will not be apologetic about it; they will become increasingly hateful towards you."

The reason is this: When people know they have a moral obligation towards someone which they do not feel like honoring, for reasons of personal interest, or personal safety, or personal political agenda, they feel awfully bad about themselves for not honoring the moral obligation. They feel awfully bad that they are ignoring a moral obligation in favor of their own personal interests.

And people do not like feeling bad about themselves.

So what people do, is this: They begin demonizing the person to whom they have an inconvenient moral obligation, convincing themselves that he is in fact the Bad Guy because, hey, he makes them feel bad. So he must be the bad guy.

In fact, he must be a Monster.

And no one owes a moral obligation to a Monster.

So, as William Saletan, and the news media generally, gives up completely on its own duty to protect free speech, they have to explain this to themselves in terms of No Duty To Protect a Monster.

Indeed, they will even, at the end of the day, help jihadists find the inconvenient Monster in order to murder him, and thereby make the Bad Feeling About Oneself go away.

If left to his own devices, without any contrary narrative to cast doubt on his claims, a coward can write an account of his heroic deeds in battle that would make Achilles himself quail.

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (217)
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You know, some foreign policy naifs -- some amateurs -- some people with no competency to handle the foreign affairs of a nation -- have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.

President Barack Obama didn't intend to signal any change in the U.S.-Egypt relationship last night when he said Egypt is not an "ally," the White House told The Cable today.

...

"I don't think that we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy," Obama said...

That comment had Egypt watchers scratching their heads, especially since technically, Egypt was designated as a Major Non-NATO Ally in 1989 when Congress first passed the law creating that status, which gives them special privileges in cooperating with the United States, especially in the security and technology areanas.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told The Cable Thursday that the administration is not signaling a change in that status.

"I think folks are reading way too much into this," Vietor said. "‘Ally' is a legal term of art. We don't have a mutual defense treaty with Egypt like we do with our NATO allies. But as the president has said, Egypt is longstanding and close partner of the United States, and we have built on that foundation by supporting Egypt's transition to democracy and working with the new government."

I don't think this is the hugest of deals, but Obama seemed unsteady when asked a somewhat obvious question about Egypt -- a question he should have expected, given that Egypt just permitted its mobs to raid our sovereign territory.

And yet he tanked it. He said Egypt wasn't an ally and then had to be corrected by his staffers.

This is The Foreign Policy President (TM), remember. This is the Steady Hand At The Till.

Sort of like Joe Biden, with less kissing.

Posted by: Ace at 09:43 AM | Comments (388)
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An IED was deployed against the Benghazi Consulate on June 6th. This is from a media briefing at that time-- when the media was actually still asking questions like this. Probably because it was safe to ask questions like this, as the IED did not kill anyone.

QUESTION: Did – have you asked for security to be tightened? And if you have done that, when did you do it? Did you do it before this bombing, after the confirmation of al-Libi’s death?

MR. TONER: Okay. Let me start, and if you have any follow-up questions, IÂ’ll try to endeavor to answer them.

As Matt mentioned, we deplore the attack on our diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Fortunately, no one was injured in the attack. And weÂ’ve also requested the Libyan Ministry of Interior to increase its security around U.S. facilities. In answer to your specific question, Matt, IÂ’m not sure of the timing. I believe it was following the attack. If thatÂ’s different, IÂ’ll let you guys know.

So in addition to deploring the attack, they also asked the locals to tighten their shit up.

QUESTION: But do you have any concern that this may be – may bode very ill for the future security of Libya? I mean, there seems to be a breakdown in security on all levels.

MR. TONER: On the contrary. As I said, our local guard force acted in exemplary fashion. We believe they were very vigilant in seeing this attack as it was taking place and sounding a warning for our mission staff to seek cover. And as I said, we’ve requested additional security. As to whether this bodes ill or well for – on a larger scale, clearly Libya is in transition. It’s grappling with many different issues, important issues right now. Security is a concern, but one we’re addressing, working productively with the Libyan Government.

When asked if the IED attack indicates a "breakdown" in security, Mr. Toner answers "On the contrary," and points out the local force had seen the IED attack.

I'm in a rush to get this up -- I think it's a scoop -- so I can't double-check stuff I'd like to. But I'm pretty sure some of the local troops told the attackers where the embassy staff was hiding.

The media simply will not report this.

Fine, we will.

Let's see if your embargo can stop this from getting out. I say it's national news before the end of the day, Make Believe Media.

Thanks to super-researcher @morgenr.

Note: News is coming fast; this is the third flaming skull in a row. Check the two posts below. We'd usually leave more time for each of them, being big stories, but we can't today.

Posted by: Ace at 09:01 AM | Comments (290)
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