Ham Sandwich

When the Watergate scandal was in full swing, I wore an American flag pin upside down on my jacket until Tricky Dick Nixon resigned. If I were still wearing suits, I would repeat this cry of distress today. As the Benghazi scandal continues to fester, it is becoming clearer exactly what occurred there … and it wasn’t pretty. A reader of the Powerline blog has assembled a detailed timeline of events there that helps to answer a lot of questions. Please take the time to read this fascinating hyperlink so that you too may start to connect the sordid dots: Powerline Blog Reference. One revelation in this post was that there was, despite direct orders to “stand down,” a small rescue mission sent to Libya which did reach Benghazi in time to affect things somewhat. Fascinating reading!

Now we learn that our Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta has relieved General Carter Ham, the leader of the U.S. Africa command, of his duties … see: Washington Times Story. One does not have to be a genius to understand that this was likely due to Ham’s sending of this and/or another proposed rescue mission. Now comes the interesting part. It seems clear that this rather drastic action on Panetta’s part indicates that this “stand down” order was from him … or, more likely, from President Obama. An order from below this level should not have engendered such drastic punishment to the general. Yes, General Ham was clearly wrong to disobey such an order … just as it was more egregiously wrong to issue it.

Back to the cover-up. The gang that killed Osama (and apparently helped cause four Americans in Benghazi to suffer the same fate), in the cold light of dawn, realized how this screw-up might affect the upcoming Presidential elections. So they clearly started covering their tracks … and grabbed the convenient excuse of the You-Tube anti Islamic video being the cause of the Benghazi “riots.” They peddled this concoction for almost three weeks and offered lame excuses about an on-going investigation as to why they couldn’t answer direct questions. Now that things are quickly unraveling, they are still hoping to make it to November 6th without the whole fetid mess being exposed. Nixon did avoid the more serious Watergate revelations until after his election. But given the speed of current news cycles on the Internet (the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. are doing their level best to ignore this story), I doubt if Obama will be quite so lucky. I sincerely hope not.



Afterward: A naval strike-force Admiral is also being replaced (see: ABCNewsStory).  Is this related?