McCain "pressed Hagel on whether he stood by his opposition to the decision to surge U.S. troops into Iraq in 2007."

"Hagel, who once called the surge the 'most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam' resisted McCain’s repeated attempts to solicit a 'yes' or 'no' answer."

"I’m not going to give you a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I’ll defer that to the judgment of history... I did question the surge. I always ask the question: Is this going to be worth the sacrifice? We lost almost 1,200 Americans and thousands of wounded. Was it required? Was it necessary? I’m not sure. I’m not that certain that it was required."

"Unlike so many of the lemmings and partisans of Washington DC, Hagel actually called out the catastrophe of the Iraq War as it happened."

"The neocons cannot forgive him for exposing what they wrought on the nation and the world. For good measure, he has a Purple Heart and has served in combat. Not easy to say about most of the Iraq War armchair warriors and war criminals."

ADDED: That link goes to Andrew Sullivan (discussing Peter Beinart), but if you want your choice of links to uproar over Hagel, there are plenty at Memeorandum.

"President Barack Obama and Psy shared the stage in Washington on Sunday but didn’t dance 'Gangnam Style' together."

"Obama has said he thinks he can do 'Gangnam Style' — Psy’s signature dance — but hasn’t proven it yet."

The 2 mega pop stars just shook hands, and nothing (apparently) was said about that inconvenient lyric of his that goes:

Kill those fucking Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives
Kill those fucking Yankees who ordered them to torture
Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers
Kill them all slowly and painfully

"Althouse: If you could write your 'How Obama Lost Me' post in the next 24 hours, the race could come down to your influence!"

Writes Ruth Anne Adams in the comments to the "last 72 hours" post. She adds "But if you're going the way of Colin Powell not so much" and "But if you could at least reveal your voting preference in the next few hours, that could win a wager or seven."

I think she's misremembering what the "lost me" posts of the past were about. I started blogging in 2004, a presidential election year, and, after much coverage of the election, including a commitment to something I called "cruel neutrality," on September 26th, I wrote a post called "How Kerry lost me." This wasn't me explaining why I was going to vote against Kerry. It was me acknowledging how I felt and realizing that I could mine the blog archive to discover where that feeling came from.

Yet I find myself expressing an increasing amount of hostility to Kerry, so I thought I'd go back and trace the arc of my antagonism through my various posts.

It was a bloggy project, solving a mystery about myself by taking advantage of the archive. For example, I found the wellspring of my antagonism in a single remark: "You're not listening" (said to a man who asked him what his position on Iraq was, as if the man had simply failed to pay attention to some supposedly previously stated position, when I too had been waiting for Kerry to answer that question). And I found what was, to me, "his final, fatal mistake" (disrespecting Allawi!), which prompted me to write the "lost me" post.

In 2008, I wrote "How McCain lost me," which may have created the impression that "lost me" posts are an Althouse blog tradition. That post was written after the election, but — I said at the time — "it's the same in that I'm mining my blog archive to try to understand how my resistance to the candidate formed and hardened and caused me to vote for the other man."

I know that I voted against McCain. Up through August, I genuinely didn't know which candidate I'd vote for, but I knew I was taking more shots at Obama and therefore giving the impression that I favored McCain. I didn't trust Obama, and I feared (and still fear) what Obama would do with a Democratic Congress. McCain was a more familiar character, less fun to write about, and he was also the underdog. But by mid-October, I knew that unless something big happened, I would vote for Obama. It was nothing new that Obama did. I didn't start liking him more, and I never got caught up in the Obama lovefest.

It was a lot of work to mine that archive. Oddly, despite all that work, my commenters have accused me for the last 4 years of having fallen for Obama delusions. But the point of the work was not to drum anything into your head. It was, as it had been in 2004, an effort to see where my decision happened. That's what I'm interested in: How people think, where, in the emotional/reasoning mind of an individual, does a decision take place? The blog archive gave me the ability to examine that. What I wrote in the "lost me" posts of the last 2 elections was not anything like a newspaper's endorsement of a candidate or an argument designed to persuade anyone to agree with me. It has more to do with my professional interest in how judges make decisions: How does the human mind work?

Why haven't I done a "lost me" post this time around? I haven't had the experience of noticing that there is a mystery that I could solve by delving into old blog posts. As you can see in that last indented paragraph, above, I didn't trust Obama, and I feared what he would do with a Democratic Congress. We all saw what he did with a Democratic Congress. He let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have their way with him. It was horrible. It led to the Tea Party and the trouncing Democrats took in 2010. I've felt no connection to the Democratic Party since then. Of course, I don't like half of what the Republicans stand for, but I've still voted for some of them, notably Ron Johnson and (twice!) Scott Walker, because... what choice do I have? The Democrats have been leading us into financial ruin.

If I could have been assured that the GOP would control both houses of Congress, I might have thought Obama would be good. I like balance, moderation, and pragmatism. If one of the hardcore righties had won the Republican nomination, I would probably have gone for Obama. But Mitt Romney got the nomination, which is what I had been hoping for (after Mitch Daniels decided not to run). It was time to pay attention again to Obama The Candidate, and his campaign centered on vilifying Mitt Romney in the most inane Occupy-Wall-Street style that was completely alienating to me. Romney seamlessly transitioned from being my choice in the primaries to being my presumptive choice for President. I remained open to Obama. Obama could have won me.

Then came Benghazi, and a door closed.

Live-blogging the big last debate.

7:06 Central Time: Get ready!

7:32: In the comments, Sorun said, "I predict a big Obama win tonight, since the only people watching will be single women (and Althouse)." Ha ha. Very funny. Right now, we are watching the baseball game. I know there's football too.

8:02: Bob Scheiffer introduces the candidates.

8:04: First question: Libya. Romney talking as Obama keeps an icy stare trained upon him. I don't hear Romney nailing any strong point. He's decided to be conciliatory here for some reason. Obama talking now, stressing liberating the people of Libya after 40 years of despotism.

8:14: Romney: "Attacking me is not an agenda." He corrects Obama about Russia. He certainly wouldn't say to Putin he'll have flexibility after the election. Now, there's a lot of overtalking about Iraq. Obama gains control and talks about being "clear" about foreign policy. The moderator is not intervening, so the topics are allowed to be completely mixed up.

8:17: Obama has picked up Romney's tic of ticking off 5 points.

8:18: Syria. "Syrians are going to have to determine their own future," says Obama. What we see in Syria "is heartbreaking," but it would be "a serious step" to get "more entangled." Romney says "Syria is an opportunity for us." It's "Iran's only ally," but we don't want to get "dragged into a military conflict." Romney's trying to be level-headed and presidential, not to shake anything up here tonight.

 8:21: Romney says we should "be taking the leadership role" in Syria, and Obama picks up that phrase: "We are playing the leadership role."

8:24: Romney doesn't have different ideas about Syria, because we're doing the right thing there, says Obama.

8:25: Egypt: Romney wouldn't have supported Mubarak. Basically, again, Romney agrees with what Obama did. Romney adds some aspirations about the Middle East, but not any real distinction from Obama.

8:29: "What is America's role in the world?" is Bob Schieffer's big, generic question. Romney, "America must be strong. America must lead." Obama says we're "the one indispensable nation... Our alliances have never been stronger."

8:34: They've stopped interrupting each other. No belligerence tonight. There's an evenness and similarity to the 2 candidates (not that there aren't a few disagreements).

8:39: Obama just did some sharp interrupting while Romney was rhapsodizing about education in Massachusetts.

8:43: Romney defends military spending. He emphasizes keeping the numbers of ships and planes up. Obama says Romney doesn't understand how the military works. "We... have fewer horses and bayonets..." he says sarcastically. It's not "a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships."

8:47: Question: Does an attack on Israel count as an attack on the United States? Obama doesn't give a straightforward yes, but says "I will stand with Israel."

8:48: Romney adopts the same "stand with Israel" language. Both stressed military intervention as the last resort.

8:52: Obama says the reports of an agreement with Iran are not true. "We would welcome Iran" into "the community of nations." He chides Romney for acting as though it would work to say the same things but say them "louder."

8:54: Iran "saw weakness," Romney said, harkening back to Obama's campaign 2008 statements about willingness to sit down with the leaders of Iran (and other places). Obama was silent on Iran's Green Revolution. Obama said he'd put "daylight" between the U.S. and Israel, and that encouraged Iran's defiance. We need to "show strength." We need the tightest possible sanctions. We need to indict Ahmadinejad.

8:57: Everything Romney just said is untrue, according to Obama, who claims he was "very clear" about the Green Revolution.

8:58: Romney: "The reason I called it an apology tour... You said America had been dismissive and derisive... America has not 'dictated to other nations.' America has freed other nations."

9:01: Schieffer wants to know what we'd do if Israel called up and said our bombers are on the way to Israel, and Romney rejects the hypothetical. That's not the relationship we have. It wouldn't play out like that.

9:06: Romney assures us we'll bring our troops out of Afghanistan by 2014. But what if the Afghans aren't ready? That was the question. Obama ignores the question the same way.

9:11: "Is it time for us to divorce Pakistan?" asks Bob Schieffer. Romney: No, it's too important — nuclear weapons, terrorists.

9:13: Romney is asked about drone strikes, and he completely supports Obama's policy.

9:18: Obama defends fighting China when it dumped cheap tires here. Romney doesn't want "protectionism" against China, but finding mutual interests with China: We want a stable world, "but you've got to play by the rules." And Romney wants to declare China a "currency manipulator." Romney explains why that makes sense. "I want a great relationship with China" but "they can't roll all over us."

9:26: Lots of fighting over the auto industry. Obama says check the record and a bit later Romney says check the record. Romney's point is that government should not invest in business, while Obama is accusing him of willingness to let the auto companies go into liquidation.

9:30: Romney wants to get the private sector growing, which isn't done by hiring a lot of teachers, though he certainly does love teachers. Schieffer, rushing toward the finish line, says "I think we all love teachers," and announces it's time for closing statements.

9:36: Closing statements. Bob Schieffer ends with his mom's advice: Go vote.

9:40: Michelle Obama comes onto stage to greet Obama and about 10 Romney people — including a lot of kids — come up to hang out with Romney.

9:44: I watched on CNN (with that damn graph on the bottom showing how undecided males and females reacted to each moment), and afterwards James Carville yammered so much about how Obama won that I turned it off. I didn't think either candidate won. They seemed surprisingly similar. Obama certainly maintained eye contact. If it was an eye contact contest, Obama won.

9:52: Here's my bottom line: By adopting a strategy of only modestly challenging Obama and mostly seeming the same as Obama on foreign policy, Romney neutralized foreign policy as an issue and kept the election focus on the economy. He even refocused the discussion on the economy whenever he could over the course of the evening. The election is about the economy, and nothing either candidate said tonight will change that. The only way Obama really could have won is if Romney had tumbled into some kind of exploitable gaffe. That didn't happen.

After the Benghazi attack: "We're going through a mission accomplished moment."

Here's Bob Woodward, today on "Fox News Sunday," talking about the what the Obama administration has said about the Benghazi attacks:

WOODWARD: There are lots of unanswered questions. And I love documents, and they released some documents in this, and if you go and look at the original request for more security, they say our policy, our goal here is to shift from an emergency footing to normalize the security relationship.

Now, this is in March, six, seven months ago. Anyone looking at that what say, wait a minute, read the document in which they say, oh, the situation is incredibly unstable. Well, why are you trying to normalize your security in a situation that's visibly unstable? You even acknowledge that.

So you've got a bad policy. And anyone looking at that would say, wait a minute; we are screwed up; we can't normalize here.
So that's the first problem. The second problem is, as soon as an ambassador is killed, the president should be more proactive and be out there. He can go, you know, five minutes in the White House briefing room and say this is really serious; we're going to get to the bottom of it; we don't have the answers. And all of this could have been nipped in the bud and it was not.

[MODERATOR CHRIS] WALLACE: And what do you make of the fact that, five days later, Susan Rice goes out and tells this story about a spontaneous protest, when we now know the State Department never thought there was a spontaneous protest? In fact, we know -- and they were in touch, in real time, with people on the ground in Benghazi on the 11th.

WOODWARD: I haven't -- you know, I don't think we know exactly why she did that or what was going on. But the key... is, two weeks later, the president's at the U.N. and citing this YouTube video, I guess half a dozen times. That, as we now know, had virtually nothing to do with what happened in Benghazi.

Now, look at what Senator Lindsey Graham said on "Face the Nation":

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, the facts are there was never a riot. The-- the night in question, September 11th, Ambassador Stevens was being visited by the Turkish ambassador that wasn't the sole around the compound and the coordinated attack lasted for hours with al Qaeda-associated militia. My belief is that that was known by the administration within twenty-four hours and, quite frankly, Susan Rice, on your show on September 16th, the President on the 18th and the 25th, kept talking about an attack inspired by a video. They're trying to sell a narrative, quite frankly, that the Mid East, the wars are receding and al Qaeda has been dismantled, and to admit that our embassy was attacked by al Qaeda operatives and Libya leading from behind didn't work I think undercuts that narrative. They never believed that media would investigate. Congress was out of session, and this caught up with them. I think they've been misleading us, but it finally caught up with them.

... Al Qaeda is alive. Bin Laden may be dead. Al Qaeda is alive and they're counter-attacking throughout the entire region. And the truth is that the foreign policy choices of President Obama is allowing the region to come unraveled.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Where did you get this information that led you to this conclusion? Did you talk to officials there? Did you talk to people in the CIA? Did you talk to people in the administration? How are you so convinced of-- of what you have just stated?

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: The intelligence community on the ground in Libya has told Senator Corker and myself that within twenty-four hours, they communicated up to Washington that this was a terrorist attack. The president of Libya on the same date said it was a terrorist attack. The video of the compound shows that there was nobody at the Benghazi consulate. There was never a group to riot. And the evidence is overwhelming, and the idea that it was spawned by a- a video and a riot would be-- hold the administration blameless. They said it was a copycat of Cairo. It wasn't a copycat. It was a sustained attack that lasted for six or eight hours, using heavy weapons which undercuts the idea that al-- al Qaeda has been dismantled and on the run and it certainly undercuts the idea that our policy choices in Libya have not going after the militia, not helping the Libyans training the national army were good choices.

Shieffer plays video of Susan Rice, 5 days after the attack, saying "We did not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned."

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, it's not just Susan Rice. The President of the United States said that it was the result of a video on David Letterman two days later. And the facts are very clear. There was never a riot. There was never a group of people around the embassy. It was a coordinated terrorist attack that took hours. Patrick Kennedy from the State Department briefed congressional staffers the day after the attack saying it was a terrorist attack. The next day after she was on your show, the-- the counterterrorism deputy said it was a terrorist attack and the President after that went on national TV The View and David Letterman talking about we're not sure if this was inspired by a video, a hateful video.

Amazing that Obama was doing this on "Letterman" and "The View" — the day after the attack!

The reason they're trying to sell this, if it is true it was an al Qaeda-inspired attack that was coordinated involving heavy weapons that lasted six-to-eight hours and our embassy consulate was so exposed and they had denied numerous requests to reinforce it, is Exhibit A of a failed foreign policy. I have seen this movie before. I went to Iraq in 2004 and everybody told me things are going fine. This is just a few dead-enders. Iraq was falling apart and you couldn't get the truth from the Bush administration. The Mid East is falling apart, and they're trying to spin what happened in Libya because the truth of the matter is al Qaeda is alive and well and counter-attacking.

Iraq, they have been doubling of al Qaeda operatives in Iraq since we left, twenty-five hundred. Iran is flying over Iraqi air space to deliver weapons to Syria. Syria's becoming thirty thousand people dead and foreign fighters moving into Syria. The Iranians have quadrupled the amount of enriched uranium they have to build bombs, as the Obama administration talks to them. This whole region is about to explode, al Qaeda is on the march. Northern Mali is now under the control of radical Islamists that make the Taliban look like choir boys. So they're trying to sell something, (INDISTINCT) the facts on the ground will not justify. When John Kerry said at the Democratic National Convention ask bin Laden is he better off. They're trying to spike the ball after killing bin Laden create a false narrative about the true state of al Qaeda and it all caught up with them in Libya.

Connect what Woodward and Graham said. Woodward said the administration withheld security from Libya because they wanted to make things look normal, to convey a message that the conflict had wound down. And Graham is saying the video story was a message — a narrative — a story that they wanted to tell. It was the story that al Qaeda is vanquished, that the mission is accomplished.

Now, here's Congressman Darrell Issa, also on "Face the Nation." He was refuting the Democratic talking point that attributes lack of security to a GOP budget cut.

REPRESENTATIVE DARRELL ISSA (Government Reform & Oversight Committee Chairman): There's 2.2 billion in discretionary reprogrammable money that wasn't used. The fact is they are making a decision not to put security in because they don't want the presence of security. 

That's what Woodward said above.

In our hearing, and in testimony, we were told they removed their diplomatic plates because they wanted to be invisible. They didn't put any markings on this building that was attacked because they didn't want to have people know they were. That is not how you do security. After there was a twelve-foot hole blown in the wall of this compound, all they did was rebuild the wall, no new reinforcement, no kind of capability to protect somebody inside....

This is not very Republican, if you will, but when President George W. Bush went aboard an aircraft carrier and said, "mission accomplished" I listened rightfully so to people saying, look, but there's still problems, and they're still dying, and quite frankly, things got worse in many ways after that famous statement.

.... We're going through a mission accomplished moment.

ADDED: After Graham and Issa's powerful interviews, Schieffer informed us that the administration "declined" to send any onto the show to defend its position. So for the Democratic perspective, they had Congressman Elijah Cummings, who is the ranking Democrat on Issa's committee.

REPRESENTATIVE ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Bob, first of all, what happened to Ambassador Stevens and the other three public servants was...

I paused the recording and said: "He's about to say "tragedy.'"

... indeed a horrible tragedy. 

Before unpausing, Meade and I enumerated the talking points we thought he was about to deliver. The first was it was a tragedy, which you can see he said. We had 5 total, and Meade held the 5 fingers of his left hand aloft so he could tick them off. And Cummings said each one, even using the very words we thought he'd say (words other Democrats, notably Biden at the debate, had already used):

We will search their killers down and bring them to justice. The one thing we must not do, though, Bob, is make this out to be a-- and treated like a political football, and I think that's basically what's happening. We have a situation where we rushed to a hearing. We don't have substantial evidence, yet. We're still gathering evidence, coming to conclusions, and looking in search of facts and this is what has happened. But, again, we-- there's a lot to be answered. And I think you asked the right questions. Yeah, there are a lot of things that we need to address. But this is not the way to do. We have an FBI hearing going on, investigation going on, and Hillary Clinton, Secretary Clinton, has appointed an accountability review board to look at this. And we will get the answers. But the way we're doing it, I think, is basically based on a campaign schedule, trying to give Romney some talking points. 

Schieffer pummeled him with a great question:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this, Congressman, and I say this with all respect--if there were a car wreck here on M. Street outside my office and I looked out the window and saw a car wreck out there, I wouldn't have to wait till the cops came to know it was a car wreck. I mean it was a car wreck. There were two dozen people in that compound there. They had windows. They could look out the window. They could see that there was no demonstration going on. And, yet, it was not until last week that the administration admitted that this was a preplanned terrorist attack and not a spontaneous demonstration.

What can he say? Something about "an evolving situation," which is just absurd, because how does the story of the anti-YouTube-video demonstration ever get started? You start with nothing — don't you? — and then add details. Schieffer says "well" and Cummings goes into spluttering mode:

But, Bob, Bob, you know, I just listened to that interview, both of those interviews, and-- and this conspiracy stuff is kind of ridiculous, to be honest with you. 

This sounds desperate. Graham and Issa were articulate, and all Cummings has is the accusation that their legitimate questions are "conspiracy stuff" and "a witch-hunt." It's insulting and lame.

VP debate substance: "Biden contradicts State Department on Benghazi security."

Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy:

"We weren't told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there," Biden said.

In fact, two security officials who worked for the State Department in Libya at the time testified Thursday that they repeatedly requested more security and two State Department officials admitted they had denied those requests.

"All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources," the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, testified. "In those conversations, I was specifically told [by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb] ‘You cannot request an SST extension.' I determined I was told that because there would be too much political cost. We went ahead and requested it anyway."

Nordstrom was so critical of the State Department's reluctance to respond to his calls for more security that he said, "For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building."

"We felt great frustration that those requests were ignored or just never met," testified Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, a Utah National Guardsman who was leading a security team in Libya until August.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) released the unclassified cables containing those requests.

Was Biden ignorant of all this, was he lying at the debate, or did he mean to assert that the State Department officials were lying?

The Libya question opened the debate. Let's look at the transcript:

RADDATZ: I would like to begin with Libya. On a rather somber note, one month ago tonight, on the anniversary of 9/11, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans were killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi. The State Department has now made clear, there were no protesters there. It was a pre-planned assault by heavily armed men. Wasn't this a massive intelligence failure, Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: What is was, it was a tragedy, Martha. It -- Chris Stevens was one of our best. We lost three other brave Americans. I can make absolutely two commitments to you and all the American people tonight. One, we will find and bring to justice the men who did this. And secondly, we will get to the bottom of it, and whatever — wherever the facts lead us, wherever they lead us, we will make clear to the American public, because whatever mistakes were made will not be made again....

Biden avoids the question. On a question that he could have predicted and should have prepared for, he makes the lame move of labeling what happened "a tragedy," which really translates to: We don't want any responsibility. Something just happened. Who could have predicted? But we'll investigate and "get to the bottom" of it. If there were any mistakes — whatever mistakes — we won't make them again. I guess there's an implicit denial that there was an "intelligence failure," which is what Raddatz asked about. If his point was it was all a big surprise — who could have known?/next time we'll do better — then what explains all the talk about the video and the (nonexistent) protests, about which Obama, et al. talked as if they had information. It's not enough to say we will get to the bottom of it when you were acting — as long as you could get away with it — as if you had gotten to the bottom of it.

Biden proceeds to run out his 2 minute clock by talking generically about national security — did you know it's the President's "most important responsibility"? — and specifically — though it's beyond the scope of the question — about Iraq and Afghanistan, about the killing of bin Laden, and the President's "steady hand and clear vision."

It's Ryan's turn, and after "We mourn the loss of these four Americans who were murdered," he focuses on the video-protests story that — based on the State Department reports — we now know is completely wrong:

RYAN: When you take a look at what has happened just in the last few weeks, they sent the U.N. ambassador out to say that this was because of a protest and a YouTube video. It took the president two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack.

He went to the U.N. and in his speech at the U.N. he said six times — he talked about the YouTube video.

Look, if we’re hit by terrorists we’re going to call it for what it is, a terrorist attack. Our ambassador in Paris has a Marine detachment guarding him. Shouldn’t we have a Marine detachment guarding our ambassador in Benghazi, a place where we knew that there was an Al Qaida cell with arms?

This is becoming more troubling by the day. They first blamed the YouTube video. Now they’re trying to blame the Romney-Ryan ticket for making this an issue.

He then uses some of his time to respond to the nonresponsive material Biden threw in (about Iraq and Afghanistan), but he ties it back to Libya by ending with:

RYAN: This Benghazi issue would be a tragedy in and of itself, but unfortunately it’s indicative of a broader problem. And that is what we are watching on our TV screens is the unraveling of the Obama foreign policy, which is making the (inaudible) more chaotic us less safe.

Raddatz follows up with Ryan, prodding him with what was the Obama administration's main talking point immediately after the attack:

RADDATZ: I just want to you about right in the middle of the crisis [sic]. Governor Romney, and you’re talking about this again tonight, talked about the weakness; talked about apologies from the Obama administration. Was that really appropriate right in the middle of the crisis?

RYAN: On that same day, the Obama administration had the exact same position. Let’s recall that they disavowed their own statement that they had put out earlier in the day in Cairo. So we had the same position, but we will — it’s never too early to speak out for our values.

"Our values" seems to be one of his planned big themes, and he shifts away from that one thing Romney said to broader issues:

We should have spoken out right away when the green revolution was up and starting; when the mullahs in Iran were attacking their people. We should not have called Bashar Assad a reformer when he was turning his Russian-provided guns on his own people. We should always stand up for peace, for democracy, for individual rights.

And we should not be imposing these devastating defense cuts, because what that does when we equivocate on our values, when we show that we’re cutting down on defense, it makes us more weak. It projects weakness. And when we look weak, our adversaries are much more willing to test us. They’re more brazen in their attacks, and are allies are less willing to…

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey.

That was Biden's first interruption (and first euphemism for "bullshit"). Raddatz rewards the interruption, presumably started to do what she said at the outset she'd do: "encourage a discussion between the candidates with follow-up questions." Better to encourage the crosstalk then to let the candidates get by plugging in prepared speeches.

RADDATZ: And why is that so?

BIDEN: Because not a single thing he said is accurate. First of all…

Not a single thing? Even the part where he accused you guys of lying about the video?

RADDATZ: Be specific.

BIDEN: I will be very specific. Number one, the — this lecture on embassy security — the congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for, number one. So much for the embassy security piece.

No, not "so much." All you've done is accuse Ryan of hypocrisy, for budget cutting. That does not address the failure to provide more security in Libya where it was most needed.

Number two, Governor Romney, before he knew the facts, before he even knew that our ambassador was killed, he was out making a political statement which was panned by the media around the world. And this talk about this — this weakness. I — I don’t understand what my friend’s talking about here.

Ryan defended Romney's making the statement, and Biden responds that it wasn't a good idea. That doesn't establish that something's "inaccurate." The factual deficiency is Biden's, and Biden is trying to distract us from that by disagreeing with opinions of Ryan's and portraying those differences of opinion as lies.

BIDEN: We — this is a president who’s gone out and done everything he has said he was going to do. This is a guy who’s repaired our alliances so the rest of the world follows us again. This is the guy who brought the entire world, including Russia and China, to bring about the most devastating — most devastating — the most devastating efforts on Iran to make sure that they in fact stop (inaudible). Look, I — I just — I mean, these guys bet against America all the time.

Raddatz directs the conversation "back to Libya" and the issue she raised at the outset that Biden has been avoiding:

RADDATZ: What were you first told about the attack? Why — why were people talking about protests? When people in the consulate first saw armed men attacking with guns, there were no protesters. Why did that go on (inaudible)?

Great intervention by Raddatz!

BIDEN: Because that was exactly what we were told by the intelligence community. The intelligence community told us that. 

That is, he denies that the administration made up the video story. He blames the intelligence community. How did the intelligence community make up something so bizarre? Public protests that didn't take place?

BIDEN: As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment. 

But why would they make an assessment that included the report of vivid public events that didn't happen? That's unbelievable on its face. Malarkey!

BIDEN:  That’s why there’s also an investigation headed by Tom Pickering, a leading diplomat from the Reagan years, who is doing an investigation as to whether or not there are any lapses, what the lapses were, so that they will never happen again.

RADDATZ: And they wanted more security there.

Another great Raddatz intervention, this one calling attention to the very point highlighted by Foreign Policy.

BIDEN: Well, we weren’t told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security again. And by the way, at the time we were told exactly — we said exactly what the intelligence community told us that they knew. That was the assessment. And as the intelligence community changed their view, we made it clear they changed their view.

And that is the lie of the evening! How can that not be a lie?

BIDEN: That’s why I said we will get to the bottom of this. You know, usually when there’s a crisis, we pull together. We pull together as a nation. 

He's begging us not to look any further into the lie he just told. Don't fault us for the egregious fault we just committed.

BIDEN: But as I said, even before we knew what happened to the ambassador, the governor was holding a press conference — was holding a press conference. That’s not presidential leadership.

Please, he's begging us, look at that one thing Romney said. He criticized us, at a time when there should be no criticizing. Raddatz — really nicely! — picks up the theme of Romney's remark, which was about how the United States should not apologize:

RADDATZ: Mr. Ryan, I want to ask you about — the Romney campaign talks a lot about no apologies. He has a book called called “No Apologies.” Should the U.S. have apologized for Americans burning Korans in Afghanistan? Should the U.S. apologize for U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses?

RYAN: Oh, gosh, yes. Urinating on Taliban corpses? What we should not apologize for…

RADDATZ: Burning Korans, immediately?

RYAN: What — what we should not be apologizing for are standing up for our values. 

See? "Our values" — that's a planned theme.

RYAN: What we should not be doing is saying to the Egyptian people, while Mubarak is cracking down on them, that he’s a good guy and, in the next week, say he ought to go.

What we should not be doing is rejecting claims for — for calls for more security in our barracks, in our Marine — we need Marines in Benghazi when the commander on the ground says we need more forces for security. There were requests for extra security; those requests were not honored.

Ryan should have hit Biden hard on his denial that there were requests for more security. Biden just lied, and he's already accused you of lying. 

RYAN: Look, this was the anniversary of 9/11. It was Libya, a country we knew we had Al Qaida cells there, as we know Al Qaida and its affiliates are on the rise in Northern Africa. And we did not give our ambassador in Benghazi a Marine detachment?

Of course there’s an investigation, so we can make sure that this never happens again, but when it comes to speaking up for our values, we should not apologize for those.

"Our values...." I think he's made a strategic decision to be positive, to resonate with the people's desire for optimism. He's not going to stoop to you're a liar/no, you're a liar ugliness. He'll keep calling us to a higher ground.

Here’s the problem. Look at all the various issues out there, and it’s unraveling before our eyes. The vice president talks about sanctions on Iran. They got — we’ve had four…

At that, Raddatz declares an end to the Libya segment. Ryan didn't take advantage of many openings he had. Biden provided the material Ryan could have used to crush him. He chose not to. And Biden, who was thrown horribly off balance by a very damaging opening question by the moderator, stayed on his feet to fight the next round. And boy, was he itching to fight.

UPDATE: A White House spokesman attempts to clear things up.

Eric Holder announces the end of "the Obama administration’s limited effort to scrutinize the counterterrorism programs carried out under President George W. Bush."

The NYT reports:

The Justice Department did not say publicly which cases had been under investigation. But officials had previously confirmed the identities of the prisoners: Gul Rahman, suspected of being a militant, who died in 2002 after being shackled to a concrete wall in near-freezing temperatures at a secret C.I.A. prison in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit; and Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in C.I.A. custody in 2003 at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where his corpse was photographed packed in ice and wrapped in plastic.

Mr. Holder’s announcement might remove a possible target for Republicans during the presidential campaign. But the decision will disappoint liberals who supported President Obama when he ran in 2008 and denounced what he called torture and abuse of prisoners under his predecessor.

It's one thing to run for office, quite another to occupy it. You can criticize and express all manner of outrage from the sidelines, but when you are on the inside, it's different, and by cycling the Democratic Party into power, the American people got to learn something about what the Bush Administration did. Those who don't like Obama should see the value of what we learned.

The 9 most-read posts on this blog in 2011.

1. "Union thuggery against Althouse and Meade: 'We will hang up wanted posters of you everywhere you like to go.'"

2. "Attack on Althouse at the Wisconsin Capitol singalong."

3. "I receive a threat: 'whoever video taped this has no life and needs to be shot in the head.'"

4. "'I really hope that in the future, people will be able to do more of the 'contrast' and less of the 'compare' with regards to Iraq and Libya.'"

5. "Obama lied about a central fact about his own life which he used — powerfully — to push health care reform."

6. "A 14-year-old girl speaks at the Tea Party rally in Madison and is drowned out by chants, boos, and cowbells."

7. "How much respect did the demonstrators show for the State Capitol grounds?"

8. "18 seconds of raw class warfare."

9. "Protesters at the Wisconsin Capitol disrespectfully have taped signs on and piled junk against the Veterans Memorial."

"A wave of coordinated explosions ripped across Baghdad early on Thursday, killing at least 63 people..."

"... wounding more than 180 and jolting a country already unsettled by a deepening political crisis and the absence of American troops."

I think it's 3 a.m. in Hawaii and a phone is ringing.

ADDED: Am I being unfair? I don't think Obama has left for Hawaii yet. Here's The Hill yesterday:

The president left the White House on Wednesday afternoon to do some Christmas shopping for his family, buying a Wii video game and other items. But he would not say if he would be there to hand-deliver the gifts or not.

Even if there’s no ideal time for a presidential vacation, this one comes at a particularly inopportune moment. For weeks, Obama has insisted that lawmakers stay in town to pass the tax extension. Otherwise, as he said earlier this month, “we can all spend Christmas here together.”

Now, with the payroll tax extension compromise unsettled, and members of Congress already back at home, does Obama up and leave, too? Or will the president be forced to spend the holidays at an empty White House with the Yule Log on TV, listening to Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas”?

Poor Obama! He's so lonely. And the press is even revealing what presents he bought.

"We gave Saddam a fair trial, and we will give Hashemi a fair trial too."

Assurances to the Kurds, who are urged to hand over Tariq al-Hashemi, Iraq's VP, a Sunni Muslim, accused of terrorism. The President of Iraq is Shiite, and the U.S. pulled its military out of the country a few days ago.

"Christopher Hitchens — the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant..."

"... died today at the age of 62."



"Exchange views with a believer even for a short time, and let us make the assumption that this is a mild and decent believer who does not open the bidding by telling you that your unbelief will endanger your soul and condemn you to hell. It will not be long until you are politely asked how you can possibly know right from wrong. Without holy awe, what is to prevent you from resorting to theft, murder, rape, and perjury? It will sometimes be conceded that non-believers have led ethical lives, and it will also be conceded (as it had better be) that many believers have been responsible for terrible crimes. Nonetheless, the working assumption is that we should have no moral compass if we were not somehow in thrall to an unalterable and unchallengeable celestial dictatorship. What a repulsive idea!"

(From "The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever.")

ADDED: From the NYT obituary:

In a political shift that shocked many of his friends and readers, he cut his ties to The Nation and became an outspoken advocate of the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and a ferocious critic of what he called “Islamofascism.” Although he denied coining the word, he popularized it.

He remained unapologetic about the war. In 2006 he told the British newspaper The Guardian: “There are a lot of people who will not be happy, it seems to me, until I am compelled to write a letter to these comrades in Iraq and say: ‘Look, guys, it’s been real, but I’m going to have to drop you now. The political cost to me is just too high.’ Do I see myself doing this? No, I do not!”

Romney: "President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq..."

"... has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women."

Obama campaign answers: "Mitt Romney didn't lay out a plan to end the war in Iraq in his foreign policy agenda - he barely even mentioned Iraq - but he is apparently willing to leave American troops there without identifying a new mission."

ADDED: Spencer Ackerman: "But the fact is America’s military efforts in Iraq aren’t coming to an end. They are instead entering a new phase. On January 1, 2012, the State Department will command a hired army of about 5,500 security contractors, all to protect the largest U.S. diplomatic presence anywhere overseas."

"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday appeared to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq as part of the war against al-Qaeda..."

"... an argument controversially made by the Bush administration but refuted by President Obama and many Democrats."

IN THE COMMENTS: Geoffrey Firmin said:

Isn't that use of "refuted" pretty hilarious? I thought that word used to mean "proved false" rather than "denied."

They were trying to think of "repudiated," and they got as far as "refudiated," realized therein lies mockery, and retreated to "refuted."

"We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place."

"We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government."

Obama's Afghanistan speech.

Andrew Malcolm comments:

The president is in a mess of his own making. He built his initial national political persona on opposition to Bush's Iraq war because, the former U.S. senator argued, it distracted America from the far more important conflict against Al Qaeda, the Taliban and terrorism in Afghanistan, which was the haven for Al Qaeda's 9/11 training.

Bush's Iraq surge worked, however, enabling Obama to proclaim victory and transfer those troops. This, in turn, enabled Vice President Joe Biden, the candidate who wanted to slice Iraq into three parts, to go on cable TV and with no sense of irony call Iraq one of Obama's "great achievements."

That left the Afghanistan war, 10 years old this fall, where Al Qaeda forces were making gains against the invisible central government. When Obama became commander-in-chief, the United States had 32,000 troops there. Today it has 100,000.

"Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money to make up for billions of their money that we can't account for, and can't seem to find."

The money seems to be somewhere in Iraq.

I talk to Matt Welch about freedom...

... and sex scandals, politicized media, and the meaning of various buildings:



IN THE COMMENTS: Shouting Thomas said: "One hour and two minutes. No can do. Is there a highlight reel?"

And Deborah made this clip:

Interviewing Condi....

... will be done Condi's way.

"I really hope that in the future, people will be able to do more of the 'contrast' and less of the 'compare' with regards to Iraq and Libya."

Says Prof. Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns, and Money. In the comments, Meade responds to the plea:

Contrasts:

Iraq – blood for oil, war for neocon corporate interests and U.S. hegemony only
Libya – no blood, no oil. Obama’s motives pure because, well, good women are running the show for him – Hillary, Susan, Samantha – and everyone knows that when women (and the French of course) run a war good things happen!

Iraq – weapons of mass destruction what weapons of mass destruction?
Libya – no weapons of mass destruction because, well, okay, because Bush invaded Iraq and Gaddafi shit his pants and gave up his nukes. Pshew!

Iraq – benign dictator who never hurt anyone, wasn’t a threat to his neighbors, did not support terrorists, and, through the Oil for Food program, only wanted to share his oil with Europe in exchange for food and medicine for his long suffering people
Libya – Gaddafi is acting like a big jerk.

Wisconsin protesters branched out to an anti-war rally just as President Obama takes us to war with Libya.

Today's rally was planned before the news came of Obama's shift on Libya:

Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War will be coming from around the Midwest for the Saturday protest.......

The Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice helped publicize Saturday's rally and its members will be hitting the pavement as they have every weekend in recent weeks, says program director Steve Burns.

"People were asking what is the march this weekend," says Burns. "It was nice to have something to slot people into."

Burns says it's an honor for Wisconsin workers to have their struggle recognized by a national veterans organization in this way. He says the goal of his group "has always been to encourage people ‘to connect the dots' between the challenges we face at home and our endless wars abroad.

Did any of the speakers attempt to deal with the news about Obama and Libya? I don't know, but Meade confronted a few of the protesters, like this woman with the classic "War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things" sign:



Listen for the "oh, well." (Meade wants me to link to Fleetwood Mac.)

And then there's this man with a Hitler-and-Scott Walker sign: