There is a delightful calypso song from the last century that I still sing in the shower. “Somebody Bad Stole the Wedding Bell” is the title, and I’m sorry I can’t give you the tune right here. The major line in the lyric goes, “Somebody bad stole the wedding bell, now nobody can get married.”
I thought of that ditty when it was revealed that rage still boils in the hearts and memories of American military personnel who were excellently positioned to know that, contrary to Obama administration insistence, we damned well could have mounted a rescue effort with a high chance of success to save Ambassador Chris Stevens and the three other Americans who seemed to fight for the chance to die with him. Ty Woods, Sean Smith and Glen Doherty also lost their lives in a terrorist attack on an American diplomatic facility in Benghazi on 9/11 of 2012. You remember – that’s the one in which the White House claimed there was no way to deliver help in time, and Susan Rice solemnly told five Sunday morning TV shows our heroes were lost in a riot brought on by an anti-Islamic video produced by a resident of the United States, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally promised the families of the fallen that America would not rest until the killers were captured and brought to justice. Don’t waste your flashlight batteries – there’s not a single glimmer of truth anywhere in that provocative package!
Did you ever stop, or even slow down, to realize that, while people like me insist it’s perpetually ground-kissing time in America, and people like Obama apologize for America’s “unclean hands,” an election is going on, and I’m beating Obama pretty badly? The greatest flattery that can be paid to a nation is not imitation, but immigration! Have you ever seen rock-star-like lines snaking around corners to apply for permission to immigrate to countries like North Korea or Cuba? Or Brazil or Lebanon or Bangladesh? Or, for that matter, to any other country on earth? America is the major mother-magnet for immigration worldwide. Sure, our popularity as a place to live is a huge problem. It’s also a huge compliment. How come nobody ever mentions that? So America’s detractors, beginning with our president, may insult America all they please – every day is election day in this contest, and America has been widening its lead for over a century.
There are many reasons to like America, but our freedom is what closes the deal. You can tell a lot about a country by the way its people react to obvious outright lies from leadership. “Our German soldiers are destroying the Soviet Union!”: “Jawohl! Heil Hitler!” “We have the luckiest workers in the world!”: “Yes, Comrade! Workers of the world, unite!” Obedient smiles abound all around.
You say America is nowhere near that level of dictatorial degradation? Not so fast!
Somebody bad lied about our ability to rescue Stevens, Woods, Smith and Doherty. Hundreds of Americans knew that was a lie when it first crossed government lips in September of 2012. Why has it taken so long for Washington’s mendacity to boil over? When an American military whistleblower agreed to come on TV this past week and smash that lie like Navajo pottery under a bulldozer, he appeared swaddled in enough high-tech disguise to make Hulk Hogan look like Woody Allen! You couldn’t get a look at his face, and his voice sounded like he’d had his lips over the exhaust pipe of a Greyhound bus. Why?
Those Americans, the ones in whom the government lie that’s been smoldering for four years finally exploded, feared retribution.
Retribution!
They feared retribution, not from the Gestapo, nor from the KGB. They feared retribution from Team Obama. And what was their crime? Letting the American people know a battle-ready group at Aviano Air Force Base in northeastern Italy could have scattered the attackers and left the terrorists in tatters within three hours!
Truth has not yet quaffed its fill. Throughout those same four years we’ve been unable to find out who wrote the “talking points” that enabled Susan Rice to lie the way her bosses wanted her to on those Sunday TV shows. I can understand how, in the Caribbean micro-democracies where they speak calypso, the police might not be able to nail who stole the wedding bell in a timely fashion. But do you expect me to believe that our American mega-techno-democracy has failed – for nearly four years! – to pinpoint who formulated the precise lies Susan Rice was entrusted to inculcate into American minds? Are they trying? Who, exactly, is trying? And how hard?
You don’t believe we’re drifting dangerously toward dictatorship? Hillary Clinton has repeatedly brushed aside the FBI’s interest in her as nothing but a “security review” or a “security inquiry.”
James Comey, FBI director, says he’s never heard of either one!
Are there crowds gathering on your street? Nor on mine!
The wiseguy at the New York dinner party spoke up in defense of Hillary Clinton. One of the guests said, “Hillary’s never told the truth about anything.”
“Oh, yes she has,” protested her defender. “Once, she did tell the truth,” he said, “But she thought she was lying!”
Media wishing to interview Barry Farber, please contact [email protected].
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