“Stand Down” in the Place Where You Work

My riff on the Benghazi hearings, with an assist from Emma Roller, focuses on the most disturbing part of the story. If you’re not overly concerned with the talking points (which even in their original version suggested that a “demonstration” was used as a cover for attacks) and you’re glum about the the facts leading up to the attacks (embassy security), you might still be outraged that soldiers weren’t sent in ASAP to defend the consulate. Yet as we found, DOD was admitting its reasons for not doing so a full eight months ago, before the election. The focus on whether a “stand down order” was given appeals to a sense of injustice and anger at cowardice, but it’s hard to satisfy.