Where was Obama during Bengazi?

He wasn't in the situation room:

Former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor appeared last night on Bret Baier’s Fox News Channel program Special Report, in an attempt at damage control, but only made things worse for the Obama Benghazi cover-up. Two pieces of actual news were generated, but perhaps the greatest damage was done by Vietor’s immature self-presentation, revealing the low level of qualifications necessary for high responsibility in the Obama White House.

First, the two pieces of actual news:

President Obama wasn’t in the Situation Room the night of September 11, 2012, as our ambassador to Libya and three other men were being attacked, captured, and eventually killed after being dragged through the streets of Benghazi and tortured in hideous fashion.

And:

 Vietor may have been the person who changed “attacks” to “demonstrations” in the talking points, in other words, going from a planned attack to a spontaneous demonstration-orientation in the story fed by the White House, ultimately to Susan Rice’s now legendary 5 show Sunday deception. He doesn’t remember, and expressed himself in way that makes some kind of history, a former senior official employing the word “Dude.”

But, wait! It gets better:

 

Now, on to the real news: the grave affairs of state in the Obama administration are in the hands of incompetent, inexperienced people who are not up to the responsibilities they wield. If you are wondering how someone so callow came to such a position, read this and weep. He started as a van driver. Jonathan Karl, Richard Coolidge, and Jordyn Phelps wrote over a year ago:

Tommy Vietor started working for Barack Obama when he was still Senator Obama--well before he became a presidential candidate--and until Friday, the 32-year-old Vietor hadn't stopped. His first job for Obama was as the driver of a press van, and he rose up the ranks through the 2008 campaign, and then the White House press office, to become the National Security Council spokesman.

Now leaving the White House to open a political communications firm with the president's departing speechwriter Jon Favreau, Vietor says it's been the privilege of a lifetime to work for the president.

"It's been kind of a front seat at some historic events--killing bin Laden, ending the Iraq war, a whole bunch of things--so it's been extraordinary," Vietor says.

And:

 

In 2010, Ed Lasky examined the appalling lack of qualifications of Ben Rhodes, now at the center of the storm:

Who is Ben Rhodes and what qualifies him to be the Deputy National SecurityAdviser?

He was Barack Obama's speechwriter (albeit, on foreign policy topics) during the campaign. He also played a role in the Cairo speech that presented a highly fictionalized history of both Islam (praised it for accomplishments that were not Islam's) and Israel (a legacy of the Holocaust guilt).

Maybe he has a certain talent for fiction. After all, it was only  a few years ago that "he was an aspiring fiction writer working on a novel called "The Oasis of Love" about a megachurch in Houston, a dog track and a failed romance.

Rhodes has enjoyed a rapid rise -- because why?

Granted he is quite the wordsmith. That must qualify him for one of the top jobs involving our national security. It must have been a symbiotic relationship -- a talented speechwriter with a talented speech reader.

Does Rhodes have any educational experience or military experience or, for that matter, international experience? No... on all three counts.

His brother is president of CBS, however.

Do we care?

Shouldn't we care since no one tried to rescue Americans, maybe we should?

Senator Ted Cruz doesn't think that we should have a Defense Secretary that Iran endorses.

After nearly four years in office, Obama still doesn't know that there is a Department of Commerce...

...or, it seems, what the Department of Commerce is for.

Obama's big new - desparate - suggestion is to establish a "Department of Business" to do what the Department of Commerce does.

Apparently, his confusion may be caused by the fact that he hasn't appointed a Secretary of Commerce since the last one resigned in June.

*Sheesh*

But still competent to run both the auto and health industries.

Obama administration still hasn't filled half of administration posts.

It's nice to hear this kind of thing from the foreign press.

According to this Telegraph article, Sir Gus O'Donnel, England's most senior civil servant, is having trouble finding out who to talk to in the Obama administration because "there is nobody there":

But yesterday, Sir Gus O'Donnell, Britain's most senior civil servant, exposed transatlantic tension when he protested that Downing Street was finding it "unbelievably difficult" to plan for next month's G20 summit in London because of problems tracking down senior figures in the US administration. "There is nobody there. You cannot believe how difficult it is," the Cabinet Secretary told a civil service conference in Gateshead.

And:

"You get to a certain point, and you can't go any further," Sir Gus said. "A whole new bunch of people come in who probably haven't been in government before." Fifty days after President Obama was sworn in, every senior post in the US Treasury Department remains vacant, with the exception of Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary, who should have 17 deputies. The vacuum has prompted complaints that it is struggling to deal with the most severe downturn since the 1930s.

There was some "what he meant to say" from PM Gordon Brown's office, to the effect that this was a description of the fact that America doesn't have a permanent civil service like England.

Except that we do, and the problem is that the leadership hasn't been installed yet.