The Real Cause of The Benghazi Tragedy

From the Pickering Report on Benghazi:

“Communication, cooperation, and coordination among Washington, Tripoli, and Benghazi functioned collegially at the working-level but were constrained by a lack of transparency, responsiveness, and leadership at the senior levels. Among various Department bureaus and personnel in the field, there appeared to be very real confusion over who, ultimately, was responsible and empowered to make decisions based on both policy and security considerations.”

The quote from the Benghazi Report is a chillingly accurate description of the Obama administration. The secretiveness, lack of leadership and shirking of responsibility by the White House is the real cause of the Benghazi tragedy.

Organizations, whether large or small, have unique cultures determined by their leaders.  If the top level is careless, it will be reflected through the ranks in the way business is conducted. If the top level is reluctant to take responsibility when things go wrong, but regularly seeks someone to blame, the lower echelons will be reluctant to exercise initiative and make decisions. If those at the top are obsessed by organization politics, decisions at lower levels will be made on the basis of political advantage rather than by determining what is best for the organization or those it serves.

The Pickering Report confirms what almost everyone, save the slavish Obama-blinded media, had already figured out; there was no “spontaneous” protest. The Report, however, is silent when it comes to explaining why the administration stuck to its fictional, the video made them do it story, or what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was doing when her department went so badly off track. Given the silence on these central issues, it looks very much like the president did not want to be embarrassed by the obvious falsity of his “Al Qaeda is dead” campaign braggadocio. Fortifying the consulate would have amounted to such an admission, as would disclosing that the Benghazi attack was the work of an Al Qaeda-linked organization. Thus it appears that the video narrative was crafted and obediently parroted by Susan Rice. When Rice’s lame explanation for her misleading statements became an embarrassment, even to hard to embarrass Obama, she walked the plank.

Similarly four high ranking State Department officials lost their jobs when the Report revealed “grossly inadequate” security at the Benghazi consulate, despite repeated pleas for help. But Hillary Clinton, whose job is to run the Department, gets a pass. She was absent while the administration’s Benghazi stories morphed from ludicrous to ridiculous and remains absent now. Reportedly, she is too ill to answer questions about Benghazi at a Senate hearing convened for that purpose.

Two months ago Clinton declared she would take “full responsibility” for the Benghazi tragedy. As the days run out on her tenure at State, the operative word is “when?”