Lizzie Warren to Ax Hillary?Follow

Not sure why I bother, but I'm going to try, one more time:



You argued that, and you're even right that Clinton said this (or strongly suggested it), but the "problem" she was being asked about was the problem of the State Department falsely blaming the attack on a protest rather than what it really was. So it did address the problem she was being asked to respond to. She choose (as you are doing) to ignore that problem and talk about something else.



What? You are missing the difference between the attack that happened (past tense) and a possible future attack which might happen. My point was that by failing to be honest about why the past attack happened, we open ourselves up to the potential of increased odds of suffering attacks in the future. You keep insisting that it's either "about the attack" or "about the misinformation". Which I find bizarre. Why can't we talk about both? But every time anyone brings up the misinformation after the attack, you insist that since that occurred after the attack, it didn't cause the attack, and thus doesn't matter.

But in the context of trying to prevent the next one, it does matter. A lot.



There are two aspects to this:

1. What is most important is that we do our best to avoid a similar attack in the future. And accurately determining the motivations of those who attacked us is absolutely part of that. It's not an either-or situation.

2. If the administration lied about the reason for the attack in order to protect the president's foreign policy record so as to help him win re-election, this matters. It matters all by itself regardless of whether the lie itself harms our national security. The fact that it also does harm us just makes it worse. So asking questions about this is important.

You keep obsessing over the question of whether something would have prevented the attack itself. But that's moronic. Nothing we do after the attack will prevent the attack. We can only learn from it and attempt to implement changes that may prevent a future attack. And a big part of that is not lying to ourselves and/or the American people about why the attack happened in the first place. I just don't understand why you can't grasp this.



Added the bolded bit, because otherwise your sentence makes no sense. If that's not what you meant, then say something. Here's my response:

I provided a complete explanation for this. Multiple times. Do you just not bother to read? I'll explain it again:

It matters because if we aren't honest about why we were attacked, then we make it harder for us to prevent future attacks. If a small number of inner circle folks in the Obama administration succeed in convincing everyone that the attack occurred as a result of a protest over a video, complete with doctored intelligence reports saying this, then the action by anyone who isn't aware that this isn't true will be to take actions to prevent future offensive videos from being created, or to monitor Arab groups who may be offended by videos made in the US. Because joe random middle manager at State isn't going to be "in" on the lie. He's going to act as though the documents outlining what happened and why are true and direct his people accordingly.

The result is that we're spending time trying to figure out how not to offend folks with videos rather than figuring out the real reason we were attacked and dealing with that. Because in the real world: "They just hate us" isn't actually a good answer.



You haven't been paying attention then (or have been watching the wrong sources). Also, just because the media may not spend as much time debating this in front of the TV audience, it's a good bet that the State department does spend quite a bit of time on this. As I've mentioned before, this is precisely the kind of thing that the State Department does.



Ok. But there's a huge middle ground between "fixing the middle east" and "figuring out why some people hate us enough to launch a military style attack on us". Rome wasn't built in a day. Refusing to do anything because you can't do everything is pretty darn stupid. You do what you can, and hope it has a positive impact. And in this case, knowing the motivations of the people who attacked us can help us take actions that will reduce our odds of suffering a future attack. Ergo: It Matters.


And Clinton saying that it doesn't hurts her. Period. We can argue for the next month about this, but it's not going to change the fact that there are probably millions of voters for whom that outburst will affect their view of her capabilities, especially as a potential future Commander in Chief. Saying "what does it matter" is *never* a good answer in politics. Because fair or not, what the public hears is "my job doesn't matter to me". And that's a problem.

Edited, Oct 21st 2014 4:20pm by gbaji

Freaking ridiculous is you, again, forgetting we can just do a simple search and find out the answer. And the answer is you've only once ever referred to it as an annex and as a diplomatic building, and that was only after referring to it as an embassy multiple times. How are you not sure? We've all figured out you're an attention whore.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2014 9:42am by lolgaxe

Hahaha... hey, everyone, remember when Gbaji was bragging about how amazing it was that Romney was polling in the low 30's for preference in his party's primary process? But having 50%+ support means you're a big loser

Gbaji, what you know about presidential electoral politics could be written on a pebble with a broad tipped marker.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

Then it's a good thing that I didn't do that. Where the heck did I say anything about dereliction of duty, or putting the deaths on Clinton's shoulders? You're the one who keeps tossing this stuff into a completely unrelated conversation.

The context of the conversation was how conservatives politicized the attack. They (not you) put the death of four Americans due to dereliction of duty, etc. However, during the hearing she was being asked about the talking points.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

Sure. So let's talk about the talking points. That's what I have been talking about. You're the one who keeps inserting the other aspect into the discussion. How about you stop doing that?

Gbaji wrote:

That's great. I'm not having THAT conversation though. You're the one who keeps wanting to talk about laying blame for the original attack. How many times do I have to say this before it sinks in? In this thread, I'm just talking about the attempt to lie about why the attack happened after the attack happened. So, quite obviously, I'm not linking that in any way to blame about the actual attack itself.

Is this really so hard for you to get? I'm only talking about stuff that happened after the attack. That's it. The stuff about the attack itself, and blame for that attack is a legitimate topic to discuss, but it's not the one I'm discussing right now in this topic.

See post #134

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

What? I honestly have no clue what the heck you're talking about here. The video in question was made by some guy in LA and was an anti-muslim video. Why are you talking about terrorists making videos? Do you even know anything at all about this topic? Also, there are people who believe that Elvis is alive and well, but that doesn't make other things fictional. WTF? You're making even less sense than usual.

You created this scenario where the people would be oblivious to terrorists wanting us dead because of the focus on the video. The problem with that is that EVERYONE already knows that because terrorists make propaganda videos on how they hate us and want us dead.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

They only admitted to it after there was a massive outcry questioning the statements made by Rice. If the public had bought the video story, do you think the Obama administration would have corrected it themselves? They tried to lie. They got caught. There kinda ought to be some negative for doing that, right?

Yes, but that has nothing to do with her statement, which is the topic you responded to. She commented that the talking points were irrelevant to defending the post. Conservatives (to include yourself) attacked that statement as something negative. If you are truly differentiating the talking points from the attack and believe that the security of all embassies, posts, etc., are more important than a conspiracy, then there is no problem with her statement.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

Wow. Um... The Average American does care about the middle east. Not caring, or paying attention, or taking the anger/hate/whatever of the radical folks in that region seriously is what lead us to 9/11. Funny how you cared about this as well, right up to the point that the issue we should care about happens to be critical of the Obama administration. Hmmmm....

You classify "kill them" as "caring"?

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

You do realize that having only 50% of your own party's support isn't going to win you a presidential election, right?

Now you're catching on. I would normally "walk the dog" on this one, but I'm sure that I would be wasting time. The point is that the "other party" isn't going to vote for her anyway, so it will not hurt her. if the election were to be held today, it be would her and a Republican and the "breaking point" on any undecided voter would not be that phrase.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

Sorry. Paraphrasing. Her saying "What difference at this point does it make?" sounds a lot to the American people like "My job doesn't matter to me". Better? She's saying it makes no difference why they attacked us. Which is a ridiculous statement to make.

No problem with paraphrasing, but "what does it matter" is cacophonous. So, you're saying that her job is only the "why" and the fact that people died and the post got attacked is the DoD's problem? I just want to clarify.

Sigh...



Yes. And she evaded the question in a manner which was offensive and dismissive of the position she held. Hence, this being a problem for her.



No. I created a scenario where government resources would be expended chasing after people making offensive videos and keeping an eye on people who are offended by said videos in case they also spontaneously erupt into violence rather than being spent investigating groups that might be pissed at us for reasons not directly related to a video production in the US. I was really freaking clear about this. Twice.




They were also irrelevant to a potential manned mission to Mars. There is, in fact, an infinite number of things that the talking points were not relevant to. But choosing to talk about one of those irrelevant things instead of the relevant one(s) is about evading the question. Which is the whole point. It's the same thing you are doing, by insisting on talking only about what would have helped defend the post. You're evading the question.

The question was why her subordinate had such completely false information when there was ample opportunity to have determined it was false and to correct it well ahead of Rice appearing on the Sunday shows. The question was specifically addressing the perception that this was done for some kind of political reasons that had nothing at all to do with securing or defending the post/embassy/consulate/whatever.

The question had nothing to do with defending the post. Which is kinda the point.



It's not either/or though. We can have one line of conversation about security at our embassy buildings and we can also have a line of conversation about the perceived attempt by the administration to lie to the public about the cause of the attack. Demanding that we only talk about the former isn't a good response to the latter. And getting angry about it on video isn't great for a future potential career either.



By this logic, no one should bother campaigning. Let's just count up the number of registered Republicans and Democrats and declare a winner. Elections are decided in the middle. Especially presidential elections. And those folks in the middle, who are not staunch Democrats or Republicans do tend to look at things like her statement. They don't care if a politician toes this party line or that party line. They care about the personality of the politician. They care about whether the candidate "feels" like someone they can trust. And declaring "what difference does it make" when asked whether or not they participated in a lie to the American people, isn't a great way to win those voters.




Again with the either/or. Her job it also the "why". It's not "only" anything. Among the "how", "what", "when", and "where", it also includes the "why". She basically said that it made no difference why we were attacked, which is a phenomenally poor answer.

That doesn't sound like America.

It's a fantasy. The population would not focus their attention on the person who made the video as opposed to labeling the terrorists as terrorists when that same population also thinks law abiding Muslim-Americans are terrorist threats.

If you, gbaji, want to know why middle eastern muslims hate America...well, just look in the mirror.

You are the penultimate archetype example of what they hate.



FOR CLARITY: Douchy, self-important jingoists.

Edited, Oct 29th 2014 2:13am by Bijou

The next to the last example of what they hate?

large so you can read it, blindy!

Also, small tags seem to be still borked for me

link

FIGHT FOR THE FREEDOM AND RIGHTS! BUT ONLY THE PARTS THAT BENEFIT ME THE MOST!

I was listening to the SC debate.. one of the guys actually sited Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure for a talking point.
I was amused.
That is all.

Fixed that for you.



He didn't. But even if he had, it doesn't change the facts about what was said 5 days after the attack.



Because no one would believe the lie. But if they had, then the concern would be realistic, right? So... If we start out assuming that people usually attempt to lie out of the hope that people will believe those lies, then the concern is realistic. Had they succeeded in convincing people that the attack really was just an outgrowth of a protest over a video that got out of hand, then it could have resulted in resources being wasted looking in the wrong direction.

If someone shoots at you, but misses, you don't discount the danger of being shot at because he missed. You try to stop him from shooting at you because he might hit you the next time. Similarly, we should take attempts to lie to us seriously because they might succeed next time. Get it?




The correct word is "and". Not "but". See the struck out portions earlier in this post to see where you keep doing this. You are the one insisting that we talk about one thing instead of the other. You are the one responding to the issue I'm talking about by insisting we talk about something else, and then claiming that they can't be talked about at the same time (apparently because one is so much more important than the other), therefore we should just ignore the initial issue entirely. That's kinda ridiculous. Actually, it's completely ridiculous.




Now you're bringing in a totally new issue. I'll point out that I never mentioned how long it took for Obama to label the attack a terrorist attack. While I'm sure we do disagree on that, it's also not the point I'm making. I am talking only and entirely about Clinton's response to a line of questioning during a hearing about why 5 days after the attack, with plenty of time to determine at the very least that the attack did *not* occur as a result of a protest over a video, her surrogate went to multiple talk shows and told the media that this was precisely what had happened. Not just said this, but refuted the correct reports that this was an unrelated planned attack and insisted that it was related to the protests in Cairo.

She "corrected" the correct story with a false one. That's well beyond just being wrong. It was a fair line of questioning, and Clinton's answer was terrible. It showed a lack of care about the information the government provides to the people about events like this at the very least, and suggests the possibility of a coverup of a deliberate attempt to lie. So yeah, that's harmful to her as a potential presidential candidate. Even if it doesn't harm her in your eyes, it does in many other people's.



Um... But it suggests that she doesn't care about lying. Get it? People care about the government lying. She say's "what difference does it make", when asked to explain something that looks a lot like the government lying. You really don't get this?



Keep believing that. Heck. Support Clinton for president. Please. Trust me, this will bite her if she ends out running. You really don't get how even small things can kill political careers? Huge deals were made out of Romney's freaking dog carrier. You don't think her on video saying "what difference does it make?" will be used to effect in a political campaign? You're insane. Of course it'll be used. Over and over. It's opposition gold. Campaign managers dream about the opposition saying something like this.




You have such muddled thinking, it's hard to follow. WTF? This doesn't make any sense at all.



No. The reason saying "what difference does it make?" is a bad answer is because if we actually adopted policy based on that assumption, we would spend resources looking at the wrong things. Thus, she is either incompetent and actually thinks that it doesn't matter why we were attacked *or* she said that to help cover up a lie. Thought I was clear about this.

Edited, Oct 29th 2014 3:27pm by gbaji