Yes, that's the narrative. Of course no one checked to see if the voting public used such trivia to base their votes on.
Jeb! crashed and burned after repeating the myth that GW "kept us safe". Do you honestly think that was a campaign slogan of Obama's? He ended terrorism?
Maybe because it didn't happen.
Did Obama campaign on the idea he ended terrorism? Kept America safe? Was this a major platform of his?
The Republicans were projecting (they still are). ...
I hadn't thought about that last part. I think that seems correct.
To 16.5 et al:
In the Republican accounts that accompanied the release of the report, the narrative was that the administration covered up the involvement of the terrorists because it would have been an embarrassment and a demonstration that their Libya policy was flawed. Libya was supposed to be the "crowning jewel" of Hillary Clinton's foreign policy approach, (that's a quote from some of the Republican analysis of the report) but the terrorist attack destroyed that narrative, so the administration covered it up. That's how the anti-Clinton line goes.
The problem is that it doesn't make any sense. Let's compare the implications of the two narratives.
Option 1: Terrorist attack by organized terror group.
If that is what happened, it would mean that isolated militant groups opposed to democracy, the United States, and western values were trying to take advantage of the departure of Khaddafi in order to impose their backward, tyrannical, theocracy on the people of Libya. We must redouble our efforts to support the fledgling democratic movements trying to become established in Libya.
Option 2: Violent protest by angry mob
The nation of Libya is full of crazy people who hate us. We have no business being there. Get out and let them deal with their own craziness.
In other words, the Republican narrative would mean that Obama/Clinton invented a much worse story in order to cover up a story that fit very well with their own foreign policy vision.
It never made a lick of sense to me, during the campaign of 2012, or in the four years since. SkepticGinger's explanation gives me some insight into why the GOP might push the narrative, though. The conservative approach to Islamic terrorism puts everything in terms of war, and the existence of the group seems a little like a lost battle. If terror attacks still happen, it means we aren't winning the war.
It's an interesting narrative, but I think SG is right about it being projection. I don't think it reflects the way the left thinks. It certainly doesn't reflect the way I think.
By the way, I still think there was much incompetence in the handling of the situation, but I don't buy into the cover-up version of events. To do so would require a belief that the administration covered up a bad story with a worse one. I also don't believe that the Secretary of State had significant responsibility for the military activity on the night of the attack, although I would be willing to listen to evidence that she did.
