Two months ago, I established the Johnny Pez Obama impeachment poll, asking blog readers which alleged high crime and misdemeanor the House Republicans would cite when they impeached President Obama at some point during his second term. A month ago, the poll was up to ten votes; since then, it has risen to eighteen.
As was the case a month ago, the Benghazi attack is leading the results, now up to seven votes. As was also the case a month ago, an equal number of voters believe Obama will make it through his second term without being impeached, while the remainder all voted for "something else".
And of course the Benghazi conspiracy theory remains in the news, with the latest wrinkle being conservative accusations that Secretary of State Clinton is faking her recent concussion and blood clot in order to avoid testifying about Benghazi.
My blog readers may be wondering what it is about the Benghazi attack that has driven conservatives into their current frenzy of conspiracy-mongering. I know it had me deeply puzzled. So I started looking into the conspiracy theories, to see what insight they could give me into the conservative mind.
The conspiracy theories are many and varied, but they all boil down to accusations that Obama could have prevented the attacks and/or wiped out the attackers, but chose not to. This actually makes sense, when you remember that one of the oldest right-wing Obama conspiracies is the "secret Muslim" conspiracy: the belief that Obama is, and always has been, a fanatical Muslim who was only pretending to be a Christian to further his fiendish scheme to Muslimify the United States of America. Add that in, and you can see what's going on. The wingnuts believe that Obama let the attack on the Benghazi compound take place because, being a Muslim himself, he wants the terrorists to win.
That is the unspoken assumption underlying the whole Benghazi madness: one of the weirder Obama conspiracy theories. Remember that the next time some wingnut brings up Benghazi, because it lets you know what he really believes about Barack Obama.
2 comments:
I find it difficult to believe that the Obama Administration actually conspired to bring about the Benghazi attack, as there is nothing but downside from this from Obama's POV. I don't think that any sizable portion of the American electorate, or for that matter foreign leadership, was likely to treat Obama with respect for allowing the torture-murder of a US Ambassador.
What I am struck by regarding the Benghazi attack is Obama's extraordinary indecisiveness and incompetence in dealing with this crisis, and after he'd been President for well over three years. Neither he nor Secretary of State Clinton apparently feared any such event, despite ample intelligence warnings: Clinton and her deputies actually denied requests by the staff on site to either increase protection or abandon the post. When the attack happened, Obama and Clinton apparently sat around impotently watching by drone camera for hours as the attack continued and Americans were murdered -- this despite the fact that there were not only air and naval but even ground forces in range to intervene. After the fact, he complained about a freaking movie trailer, and apparently exerted influence to have the maker of the movie imprisoned for dubious causes, apparently in a pathetic attempt to appease the terrorists.
If I was going to suspect a conspiracy involving any American factions here, it would have to be factions opposed to Obama. The Behghazi attack made him look like an impotent fool, hardly an effect likely to enhance his influence.
A new contender in the sweepstakes:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/impeach-obama-guns-steve-stockman.php?ref=fpb
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