by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n In the last week, it is almost as if the entire American moral landscape has been turned upside down in eerie fashion \u2014 in matters that vastly transcend fornication and adultery. The Petraeus-gate matter is the stuff of tabloids now; but soon the real issues relating to when and what Eric Holder knew, and by extension the president, and how exactly Benghazi (the crime of indifference to the besieged, the cover-up of the truth, the actual mission of our consulate and annex) fits into this labyrinth of deceit, both petty and fundamental, may overshadow the present sensationalism.<\/p>\n <\/em>Nothing seems real anymore, not pre-election federal data on jobs or food stamps or the release of such \u201cfacts\u201d; not foreign-policy information like an Iranian attack on a drone; not the supposedly competent federal relief in response to Hurricane Sandy. Even Saddam Hussein\u2019s plebiscites could not achieve margins like the 19,605 to 0 we saw in 59 Philadelphia precincts. Does anyone care?<\/p>\n <\/em>Susan Rice, who flat out deceived five times in a single day on national TV, is supposedly seriously being considered as Secretary of State when Ms. Clinton leaves \u2014 the latter now plans to be \u201cbusy\u201d when hearings on Libya resume. (If a John Bolton cannot be confirmed as a UN ambassador, how could Rice avoid a filibuster?) How can anyone now read Broadwell\u2019s book and assume the research and analysis are disinterested? How did a single Jill Kelley warrant hundreds of hours of chat time from our highest generals, engaged in a life and death struggle in the war against terror and Afghanistan? Who was not consulted, not advised, not ordered \u2014 in order to free up time for Kelley and Broadwell? How could Broadwell, without a journalistic or history pedigree of achievement, warrant such intimate briefings, so much so that she can pontificate on a CIA annex in Benghazi and purportedly have access to classified documents? If she can, who cannot? Why in God\u2019s name does Angelina Jolie get photographed on the seventh-floor office of the CIA? Why even have security clearances when you can learn classified details about our military and intelligence on Facebook or YouTube? How can all this suddenly explode on the scene, just 72 hours after a national election, in a supposedly transparent country with a free, watch-dog media? Have we become a Russia, Venezuela, Cuba? Is there one honest person in Washington left?<\/p>\n <\/em>When this is all over we are going to see several resignations, even more discredit to what is left of what is now largely a state-run media, and a vivid human face to all the declinist statistical talk of America in material and moral crisis. The state is set for reform like we have never seen it, from those who are not invested in Big Washington, Big Military, Big Intelligence, Big Banks, Big Wall Street, big anything that seems to have developed a toxic careerism in the revolving-door, New York-Washington corridor.<\/p>\n <\/em>Tragedy or Tragicomedy?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em>One symptom of this entire tragedy (or is it dark comedy now?) is the shocking degree of casual sorta\/kinda rules and protocols \u2014 strange (or rather predictable) in this era of vast bureaucratic rules. How exactly did national-security and military affairs come to resemble Keeping Up with the Kardashians?<\/p>\n <\/em>How can some individual just call up an FBI friend (?) and thereby instigate an FBI investigation? And how did that lead to an FBI agent photographing himself bare-chested and apparently infatuated with a married mother of three? How can a PhD candidate, without any journalistic or historical credentials, become the public face of a four-star general and be privy to information to the point of hitting the lecture circuit to pontificate about a CIA annex in Benghazi? How did an early-middle-aged married mother of two suddenly morph into a court biographer who lectured on everything from military practice to leadership to national-security challenges? How can a Florida socialite by any stretch of the imagination merit a vast email correspondence with the nation\u2019s highest ranking warriors entrusted to conduct our most critical struggles? What in the world is an \u201chonorary consul general<\/a>\u201d and who extends such Alice Through the Looking Glass titles? Why do generals seek to go back stage to meet a Denzel Washington or have Angelina Jolie pop up for a photo-op?<\/p>\n <\/em>I think it is impossible that an attorney general who knew of the investigation and many of the details for months did not tell his president and close friend \u2014 but then on the other hand, given all of above, who knows?<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner In the last week, it is almost as if the entire American moral landscape has been turned upside down in eerie fashion \u2014 in matters that vastly transcend fornication and adultery. The Petraeus-gate matter is the stuff of tabloids now; but soon the real issues relating to when and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[150],"tags":[1045,1029,1026],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-5J","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/oh-we-forgot-to-tell-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":355,"position":0},"title":"Oh, We Forgot to Tell You . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The second-term curse goes like this: A president (e.g., Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, etc.) wins re-election, but then his presidency implodes over the next four years \u2014 mired in scandals or disasters such as Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":332,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/down-from-olympus\/","url_meta":{"origin":355,"position":1},"title":"Down from Olympus","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner David Petraeus\u2019s resignation marks the end of one of the great postwar military and government careers \u2014 his successful surge in Iraq being analogous to and as impressive as Matthew Ridgway\u2019s salvation of Korea or Sherman\u2019s sudden taking of Atlanta that saved Lincoln\u2019s and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5944,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-tainted-campaign\/","url_meta":{"origin":355,"position":2},"title":"A Tainted Campaign?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner If it is proven that the IRS\u00a0thwarted some groups from obtaining tax-exempt status in fear that their traditional or\u00a0conservative messages might hurt the 2012 Obama campaign (especially if it did so under pressure from White House-affiliated operatives),\u00a0and if it is\u00a0proven that the Obama administration\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":330,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/too-many-narratives-to-get-straight\/","url_meta":{"origin":355,"position":3},"title":"Too Many Narratives to Get Straight?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner At some point the prurient angle of the Petraeus story that alone enticed a reluctant media into becoming tangentially interested in Benghazi-gate \u2014 in the way the deaths of four Americans never did \u2014 will die down. Then we are left with largely three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":326,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/oh-what-a-tangled-web\/","url_meta":{"origin":355,"position":4},"title":"Oh What a Tangled Web","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 21, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Supporters of President Obama have dubbed those who question administration statements about Libya as either partisans or conspiracy theorists, on the premise that the administration had no reason to dissimulate. But in fact, it had plenty of political reasons not to be candid,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6331,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-mother-of-all-scandals\/","url_meta":{"origin":355,"position":5},"title":"The Mother of All Scandals","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media IRS? A system of voluntary tax compliance cannot survive a dishonest IRS. Lois Lerner and company have virtually ruined the agency. For the foreseeable future, each time an American receives a tax query, he will wonder to what degree his politics ensures enhanced or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}