Let’s Play What If?

Events that have unfolded over the last week have been awful. On the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, radical Muslims in Egypt stormed our embassy there, tore down the American flag and replaced it with an Al Qaeda flag. In Libya, four people were murdered, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens when radical Muslims attacked the US consulate in Benghazi. In days that followed, additional embassies in the Middle East were attacked as well.

Two attacks on the anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attack in our nation’s history. Highly coordinated. Swiftly pulled off. Additional attacks on embassies throughout the middle east over the next several days.

And this administration wants us to believe it was all due to some awful video on YouTube that until last week had been seen by about 100 people?

What load of crap. Those who agree it was because of this video and dismiss the obvious should be ashamed of themselves.

But let’s forget about that for a moment. Let’s play a game. You see there is a picture of former President George W. Bush at the top of this post. There have been actions taken by the Obama administration. For this exercise, we will pretend such actions took place while he was President.

US Embassies are attacked in countries with strong Catholic populations in response to the outrage from Bill Maher’s movie, ‘Religulous’ being released for free viewing on YouTube. In a statement, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said “despicable and inflammable” attacks are made on the Catholic faith and that “We absolutely reject its content and message.”

President Bush ordered the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff to call upon Bill Maher in an effort to stop him from promoting his movie.

The State Department contacted YouTube asking parent company Google to to determine if the film contained any kind of TOS violations so the movie could be taken down.

Maher, due to the numerous death threats he has received because of being blamed for the violent outbreaks by the Bush administration, has gone into hiding.

So what if this happened during the Bush administration? It’s funny to watch Obama-bots contort themselves into proverbial pretzels defending the Obama administration, carrying out many of the same policies they called “constitution shredding” during the Bush administration. GITMO, warrantless wiretaps, increased drone attacks and rendition are just some. Obama even took it a step further authorizing the assassination of American citizens without charges or even review. Yet they have been strangely quiet except for people like Glenn Greenwald who have been consistent with their criticism.

But what about the scenario I described?

The shrieks of “Junta!” would be heard across the country if the Bush administration dared to strong arm somebody with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

The howls of “Imperialism!”, “Free speech suppression!” “Chilling free speech!” and “Fascism!” would reverberate across left wing blogs and sites such as Daily Kos and Media Matters. The media themselves would be in a frenzy.

Does anybody remember when Ari Fleischer said, “People need to watch what they say, watch what they do?” Ironically, he said it in light of Bill Maher’s comments about the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.

The media behaved as though Fleischer whipped a copy of the constitution out of his pocket, threw it on the floor and promptly urinated on it.

Here is what Paul Krugman wrote about it:

After 9/11, the administration’s secretiveness knew no limits — Americans, Ari Fleischer ominously warned, ”need to watch what they say, watch what they do.” Patriotic citizens were supposed to accept the administration’s version of events, not ask awkward questions.

By the way, the State Department has said they will no longer answer any questions related to the Benghazi attacks.

What we have seen unfold over the last several days will be the true test of whether or not the press does its job. If they choose to roll over because the Obama administration says, “We knew nothing. The video caused it all. That’s it” then they deserve to continue being that much more irrelevant. What is more hilarious are those in the media blaming Mitt Romney for their lack of coverage if this administration disaster. I watched ‘Morning Joe’ on Friday and they spent nearly the first 2 hours talking about Mitt Romney with Joe Scarborough idiotically claiming Romney “did not allow” them to cover administration screw ups and lies. As if Romney has some behind the curtain control over Scarborough’s mouth.

There is one exception. In my view, there is no better journalist working today than Jake Tapper of ABC News. Tapper is very tough but fair. You know he is fair because he gets crap from both sides of the political aisle. He didn’t pull any punches in peppering WH Press Secretary Jay Carney with questions about what happened. I guess Mitt Romney “allowed” him to ask those questions, right Joe?

Let’s hope the rest of his colleagues follow suit.