| Ckmlb1 said: He was hesitant because the CIA was telling him there was no solid intelligence on it being Al Qaeda or not. What does the misleading gain Obama by the way? An attack on a consulate in a war zone was going to change the election results? |
Probably not, but remember that Biden was running around with that "Bin Laden is dead, and GM is alive!" line at the time. If they acknowledged an al-Qaeda affiliate had hit us on 9/11 despite advance warnings, it might disrupt the narrative they were pushing that he was Obama the Osama-slayer.
It's strange to insist that he wouldn't do this unless the election hinged on it. Political campaigns are long haul tit-for-tat mudslinging affairs. You get into the habit of trying to manage and advance your narrative at every turn while undermining your opponent's, and you don't necessarily measure it out in terms of doing only what you absolutely have to do to win. You want to blow the other guy out of the water, not eke out a victory.
And again, it might have been the State Department more than Obama himself who didn't want to acknowledge that this was an al-Qaeda linked group.
