All the World Wonders

All the World Wonders

What happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video. People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent. And those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are quite common in post-revolutionary Libya, and that then spun out of control.

There was no spontaneous “fray” in Benghazi that “spun out of control.” The only thing spinning out of control last week was the Obama administration, frantically portraying the terrible events in the Middle East as anything but what they were.

By late in the week the Obama narrative had been exposed as just that, a narrative, and the White House grudgingly had to abandon it.They were sorry to do so. They were fond of their spin.

The mainstream media reported the Obama administration’s shift as if it had gotten a few things wrong in the heat of a crisis, and then new information came to light. But that isn’t the case.

The administration wanted to misrepresent what had happened. The administration wanted to sell the story that a wacky anti-Islam video made in America caused the violence in Cairo and Benghazi and dozens of other cities.

That story line absolved the Obama administration of any responsibility for what had happened. It also went a long way toward absolving bad actors in the Muslim world of blame.

There have been indications over the last four years that, in its heart of hearts, the Obama administration blames America first for many of the ills of the world. On this occasion, the administration stopped hinting and came clean. It explicitly, even eagerly, blamed America.