I've written that the most amazing thing about the attack on our people in Benghazi is that this was a crisis that the administration wasted. Just from a political angle, I'd have expected the Obama administration to retaliate fairly quickly and reap a rally around the flag effect.
But they did not retaliate. And still have not. Well, they did not unless you count picking up a man involved in producing the video that the administration spent two weeks blaming and apologizing for.
But that might actually just be the second most amazing thing about the Benghazi affair. Could first place be that the president's defenders actually believe that local sheriffs picking up an obscure film maker on federal probation violation charges right after the administration blamed his film for Benghazi and other embassy attacks is a pure coincidence and an unrelated to President Obama's search for a convenient fall guy?
We can see how ridiculous it is to believe a powerful federal government couldn't possibly have had a role by looking at a peripheral character in the broader Benghazi affair, Jill Kelley.
Jill Kelley was an honorary ambassador to Coalition Forces at the headquarters of CENTCOM at MacDill Air Force Base. She had a certificate to that effect. It's not like anyone can just print one of those off on a home computer, or something!
She expected that certificate and designation to help her out by calling on government help for matters unrelated to social events on base:
A State Department spokesman went to pains to state the obvious, that she was never an official U.S. ambassador: "She does not work for the State Department and has no formal affiliation with the State Department."
But in 911 calls made to Tampa police this week about trespassing reporters, Jill Kelley seems to indicate that her property is considered diplomatic soil.
"I'm the honorary consul general so they should not be on my property," Kelley said. "I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well."
Diplomatic protection! That's absolutely priceless! I wonder, does she ignore her parking tickets in the belief that she is immune to mere traffic infractions?
Note to self: Keep all "Number 1 Dad" certificates from my children. That's got to open doors, right? I'm pretty special for that honor. Unless there's a world's greatest dad out there.
Why would she expect the police to act on that? Well, she's gotten help before on matters unrelated to her "diplomatic" activities:
Kelley's powerful military connections surfaced in another court matter when she sought help for her twin sister, Natalie Khawam, in a bitter child custody fight.
Gen. Allen and Gen. Petraeus signed letters to the court that bear four-star-general emblems and are dated five-and-a-half weeks ago.
Not that there is anything illegal about getting help from powerful friends. The point is that powerful people can influence less powerful people even in areas way outside their lane.
Picking up a man on probation violations that you'd never waste manpower on one day suddenly can become very important when the President of the United States expresses an opinion on that man. Indeed, just knowing that a superior has an opinion can have great influence. You don't even need to point to a specific order or call. That's why it is illegal in the United States military. It's called unlawful command influence.
Actually, all this may be relegated to the second and third order of amazement if we are to believe that President Obama did not know anything about the long-simmering controversy with his head of the CIA:
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday it was “hard to believe” White House claims that President Obama knew nothing about the investigation that uncovered former CIA Director David Petraeus’s extramarital affair before last Tuesday’s election.
I know stuff happens. But this much? It's amazing how far afield the failure to try to respond to the calls for help from the Benghazi annex over the night of September 11-12 has gone.
The CIA field operators are looking the best so far, in that they actually acted with whatever they had available to keep a bad situation from becoming a massacre or hostage situation for a couple dozen Americans.
The State Department even moved quickly with what they had even if their pre-attack decision making was awful.
Even the Libyans look OK in that despite being a permissive environment for jihadis, a number of Libyan militia forces helped us that night and the nominal government and many ordinary people were horrified at the attack.
But that's the way it goes with our government. A socialite in Florida expects diplomatic protection for her "consulate" and our actual diplomats in Benghazi are left defenseless and largely on their own when our enemy struck.
Priorities are so difficult to establish, no?
UPDATE: Exactly. This isn't a soap opera. This is deadly serious business about a nation at war.
UPDATE: So in early 2015 I read that Jill Kelley may have been targeted by the Obama administration to discredit her. I just assumed hope and change nullified the politics of personal destruction.
