A Failure and a Triumph of Leadership on September 11th

With record-breaking unemployment numbers and debt, we would be foolish to think this election will focus too much on anything BUT the economy. Foreign policy and national security will certainly take a back-seat, but after the events of the week we would be foolish to ignore the importance of national security and foreign policy. There's a storm brewing on the other side of the world and global leadership couldn't be more important.

This week, on September 11th, 2012, America was attacked. Not on the American continent but at our embassies in the Middle-east. Protesters breached the walls of our sovereign territory in Egypt, where they tore down our flag, and burned it to the ground. The same flag that we lowered to half staff to pay tribute to the fallen heroes of another September 11th. These protesters invaded our land chanting things like "we are all Osama." Meanwhile in Libya, protesters breached the walls of the Libyan embassy. They weren't focused on flags so much as finding Americans and murdering them. They dragged our ambassador through the streets, committing unspeakable acts to a man who was there to help them, to reach out to them diplomatically on behalf of the United States. Americans watched these events on the news around the world, fearing for the lives of our people trapped inside our own land. We saw our flags burn as news trickled out that an official had died. 

These events are of course very different than those of the same day eleven years ago. The numbers, the scale, I will not attempt to say they are the same or should be treated the same. But they were both major national security events and they both involved attacks on our people and our way of life. One of the greatest differences between the two, however, was the reaction of our Presidents and the style of leadership they exhibited.

For a full timeline of the events of September 11th, click here.

For a brief summary, the first plane hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 am. The second hit at 9:03 AM, and at the same moment, NORAD was informed it had been hijacked. President Bush was informed the details of events during a school visit and was on the air addressing the nation within 26 minutes. He explained that terrorists had attacked our nation and called for a moment of silence for the victims. He assured the nation that they were in good hands. 

Later that night, when the President finally made it back to Washington and had time to gather intelligence and prepare, he delivered powerful remarks to the nation. Here are a few excerpts from that and the full speech is embedded below.

"Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve," and "The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts...we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Now for the contrast. After the attacks on both the Libyan and Egyptian embassies, the only comments we had from the Obama administration came in the form of a few tweets from the Cairo embassy. You can find all of them compiled here. But to summarize, while protesters gathered they tweeted "the US embassy condemns religious incitement." They released a fuller statement condemning a video that was said to be responsible for the anger shown by the protesters. The statement went on to condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims  Hours later, protesters scaled the walls, tore down and burned the flag, replacing it with a black Islamic flag. The embassy doubled down on it's first statement, condemning the inciters of the protest. Within hours reports came of much more violent protests in Libya and news trickled in of a state department officials death. Finally, Hillary issued a statement "condemning the violence in the strongest terms." Obviously seeing the weak position the Cairo embassy had taken via twitter, she also clarified that the video in question "was not justification" for the events. The Cairo embassy deleted their second tweet that doubled down on the condemnation of the video. Still no word from President Obama. (Mitt Romney also issued a statement which you've most likely already heard all about, but as this is a contrast between President Obama and President Bush, I won't address those)

After midnight, the first comments from the White House came from Obama spokesman Ben Labolt. However, instead of commenting on the events in the middle east, the attacks, violations of our sovereignty and the MURDER, he attacked Mitt Romney for his comments. 7 hours later, the second word from the White House came but it was just a confirmation that one of those murdered in Libya was ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Finally, at 10:42, 21 hours after our Egyptian embassy was invaded and about 13 hours after the confirmed death of a state department official, President Obama addressed the nation.

I won't spend too much time dissecting Obama's speech but I will say that it did not have the passion, the hope or the strength of Bush's speech. I did not feel confidence in our ability to bring the perpetrators to justice like I did on the evening of September 11th. 

When our nation is attacked, whether it be the New York skyline or our territory overseas, we hope for leadership from our President. We hope for reassurance and above all, we hope to know that those we elect to oversee our protection are on top of things. From President Bush we received that reassurance within an hour of the first attack. He didn't have all the knowledge of the situation, in fact there were still hijacked planes in the air when he addressed the nation. President Obama waited and even had the gall to criticize Mitt Romney for speaking out when he chose not to. He even said "Governor Romney has the tendency to shoot first and aim later." Did it take about 22 hours for the President to "aim" before commenting on the murder of our citizens? He spoke out almost immediately at the death of Trayvon Martin. He reached out to Sandra Fluke with tremendous speed when she was insulted by a conservative commentator. But when our nation was attacked in perhaps the greatest national security attack in his term, he was silent. That silence is perhaps due to the fact that he was campaigning in Las Vegas and going on the radio to talk about Flo Rida and the Miami Dolphins. Whatever the reason though, the President did not show leadership at a time when it was sorely needed. But isn't that the story of Obama's first term? He hasn't shown leadership in dealing with congress, as we have found out in recent weeks in Bob Woodwards new book. He hasn't shown leadership as unemployment has stayed above 8% for over 40 straight months and he certainly hasn't shown leadership in adding over 5 trillion dollars to the deficit. Moral of the story: looking for leadership? Vote Romney.

"IF YOU'RE NOT IN THAT BUNKER.. YOU'RE ON THE OTHER SIDE."

I'm sure you've heard the Laura Ingraham quote by now. "If you can't beat Barack Obama with this record then shut down the party. Shut it down, start new. With new people. This is a gimme election."

Let me tell you why this is ridiculous.

First, the election is about more than the presidency. The party that she wants shut down is the party that still has a good chance to take the Senate and maintain control of the house, not to MENTION the Presidential election that is still 56 days away. Let Laura Ingraham and George Will throw in the towel, we don't need them and we don't need this reactionary defeatist garbage. Laura Ingraham wasn't on the front lines when the republicans took the house and made gains in the Senate in 2010. The conservative movement, tea party movement, whatever you want to call it has never been led by pundits. It's an organic movement fueled by normal average Americans that expect better and fight for it.

Restoring Honor Rally- August 2010- 500k Conservatives Gather in DC

Second, our candidate is only as strong as his supporters. Obama has one of the worst records of any President ever to run for reelection, but his supporters don't seem to mind. They've chugged the kool-aid and are all on board for whatever lies and distortions their guy plans to run on. If Romney didn't get a "bump" after the convention it's not because his speech wasn't good enough. It's not because he didn't hit hard enough. It's because WE didn't carry the enthusiasm to the streets like his drones and shills in the media and everywhere else did. And that's what we're up against. Everyone knows (and fundraising also shows) that Obama does not enjoy the enthusiasm gap he had in '08, but the media will relentlessly portray it that way. We've SEEN polls showing that  Romney is KILLING it with Independents, which is really where the election is decided. But too many members of our own elite right wing pundits are telling us that the polls are bad for Romney and we should be afraid. They're not telling us to work harder, to make more phone calls and to knock more doors. They're telling us "if you can't win, shut down the party." As someone who HAS made phone-calls, knocked doors, organized phone banks, driven to neighboring states to help with caucuses and canvassing, and given whatever little bit I could in donations, here's what I have to say to those people: shut up.

Romney w/ Volunteers in Spring 2011. See anyone familiar?

We know how important this election is. We picked a candidate who is best suited to fix the economy. He's not going to light his hair on fire or wear war-paint to an anti-abortion rally like we might expect from a Rick Santorum. He doesn't have the authoritative, encyclopaedic knowledge of the supply-side Reagan years that Gingrich had. But he is a better all-around candidate than the others, and he is a FIXER when we need a fixer the most. And now he has wunderkind Paul Ryan to add the economy expertise on the ticket. The players are set and the fight is largely on our shoulders now. They have the debates and less than two months of campaigning to refine a message and reach out to as many voters as possible, but it's up to us to reach further and spread it wider. To reiterate something I said before: If you haven't made phone calls, knocked doors, donated any money that you have the means to donate, registered friends and family to vote, and actually argued the issues of this election, I couldn't care less what you have to say about our candidate or his chances in this thing. Like Andrew Breitbart said ""If you're not in that bunker because you're not satisfied with this candidate, more than shame on you, you're on the other side.” Time to get in the bunker. As Joel Pollak wrote yesterday, "We have not yet begun to fight."

Breitbart says all of this better than I could. And look at the people in the crowd. They are normal, everyday people like you and me. But they are fired up. We need that back. And we need it now.