The headline on Karl Rove’s column in The Wall Street Journal this week was “Obama's Biggest Opponent Is the Truth.”
“Every day, it seems, he attempts to disqualify his opponent through deliberate and undeniable falsehoods,” Mr. Rove wrote. “This is only one side of a two-sided coin. The president can't tell the truth about his own record either.”
In predicting what he’ll be dealing with in his upcoming debates with Obama, Mr. Romney himself told “Good Morning America” earlier this month, "I think he's going to say a lot of things that aren't accurate."
The essence of the charge about Libya by Republicans is that the administration purposely tried to play down the incident by asserting that the attack was spontaneous, prompted by riots tied to the anti-Islam YouTube video that set off protests in Egypt, Libya, and many other Muslim countries across North Africa and the Middle East.
In the days following the attack, Ambassador Rice (and others in the administration) left the impression that the attackers took advantage of the riot to quickly gather weapons and target the relatively defenseless consulate.
Only later did administration officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, acknowledge that “terrorists” – some with possible ties (or at least supported by) Al Qaeda – likely were involved.
