But the conservatives outraged over Crowley’s interjection
mostly overlook the fact that she also defended Romney. (“It
did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea of there
being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are
correct about that.”) And she was right to do so. Wednesday
morning the GOP Super Pac American Crossroads emailed
reporters examples of the White House contradicting the “act
of terror” designation in the days after Obama’s Rose
Garden statement. One of them is press secretary Jay Carney’
s admission on September 20–a day when he called it “self-
evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack
”–to “the fact that we hadn’t” used the terrorism label
previously. This indicates that, despite Obama’s Rose Garden
words, the administration was still resisting the idea that
Benghazi was a significant event in what we used to call the
War on Terror.
In the final analysis, then, Romney overreached by
challenging Obama on his Rose Garden statement. But Obama was
being a little cute by citing that statement as evidence that
his administration had immediately identified what happened
in Benghazi as something more sinister than a spontaneous
protest which turned deadly. The problem here is that
obsessing over the word “terror” isn’t very useful. The
definition is flexible enough to give everyone some cover.
The bigger question is what the U.S. should be doing about
persistent anti-American radicalism in the Muslim world.
President Obama offers a muddle-through approach, one that
plays Syria with extreme caution; applies carrots and sticks
to unstable regimes in Egypt and Pakistan and Yemen;
remorselessly deploys drones against jihadists; and errs on
the side of rhetorical humility. Romney offers the vague
promise of stronger “leadership,” tougher words, and more
fulsome support for the Syrian rebels (though he doesn’t
address the prospect that Bashar al Assad’s fall in Syria
might well empower the same sort of people who murdered Chris
Stevens and his compatriots). Both ought to explain these
visions in more detail. The good news is that the third and
last presidential debate, on Monday night, will focus on
foreign policy. Obama should be pressed to explain more
clearly what he thinks happened in Benghazi and why. But then
the candidates should drop the semantics and move on to
substance.
