The Obama Cover-Up Machine

 by John Podhoretz

I’ve never quite shared the outrage of certain quarters of the right about Benghazi. In part that’s because at some point it began to seem as though some people were conflating the administration’s questionable response to the events of September 11, 2012, with the act of killing our ambassador and three other Americans, which strikes me as unjust. And in part it’s because the administration’s response baffled me then and baffles me now.
Why on earth would the Obama White House have gone to such lengths to deny that Benghazi was a terrorist assault, especially in the heat of a presidential race whose outcome was far from certain? When such a thing happens, the natural response of the electorate is to rally around the president.
Had Barack Obama come out that night and said, “Our ambassador and three other Americans were killed by terrorists in Benghazi, and we will not rest until we bring their killers to justice,” what on earth would Mitt Romney and the Republicans have said and done in response? They would have been compelled to side with him and speak words of praise. That would have benefited the president’s reelection bid.



Indeed, only six weeks after Benghazi, we saw how a national crisis worked to Obama’s benefit when Hurricane Sandy froze the presidential race for nearly a week—a crucial week, the week before Election Day.
Indeed, by the time the second Obama–Romney debate had rolled around, the president knew he and his administration had erred. So when Romney called him out on it, he insisted that he had called it a terrorist act—and then, in a moment that remains as suspicious and weird now as it was that night, demanded acquiescence and support in his contention from debate moderator Candy Crowley, who said he had when he had not.
But why hadn’t he? Why? The commonly accepted explanation on the right is that the Obama campaign had set its storyline for the election—that al-Qaeda had been decimated—and did not want to deviate from it. But why not? A bunch of terrorists in Libya does not equal al-Qaeda. The president still had the killing of Osama bin Laden to his credit.
Baffling. So baffling it’s no wonder it’s generated so many conspiracy theories.
Well, now, I think, we know why it happened. The key clue appeared in an October 9 Washington Post story about the heretofore unknown White House role in the wake of a ludicrous and embarrassing event earlier in 2012: the discovery that someone in the advance team setting up Obama’s trip to Colombia had hired a prostitute. That scandal led to the firing or reassigning of more than 20 members of the Secret Service and military personnel.
The story reveals that the prostitute was procured by a 25-year-old volunteer working with the White House advance team—the son of a generous Obama donor. This was made known to the White House. And yet, three witnesses told the Washington Post that an in-house investigator assigned to the case at the Department of Homeland Security informed Senate staffers that “we were directed at the time…to delay the report of the investigation until after the 2012 election.”
That’s insane. If the White House had expressed outrage at the conduct of this kid volunteer and exposed him to the shame and humiliation he deserved, the story would have died right there. Who would have blamed Obama? Who would have cared? And yet there is powerful evidence that a cover-up of some kind was engineered and an investigation was interfered with.
How does this explain Benghazi? Simple. It suggests there was a deliberate policy inside the White House during the election year when it came to stories involving problematic decision-making or behavior. The policy: Keep it quiet. Delay. Block. Impede. Don’t give Republicans in the House any kindling to set any fires. Let it all come out after the election if necessary; and the added bonus is that it will seem like old news.
In no way is the president responsible for the fact that terrorists killed four Americans. Nor is he responsible for the lout who hired a hooker in Cartagena. He is responsible for the galling cynicism with which his administration has sought, repeatedly, to put one over on the American people.