LIBYA

Mr. Mitt, his Republicans, and Fox Noise are fixated on Libya. They apparently think that therein lies the road to the White House. Maybe, but if so we really are catering to the lowest common denominator.

The death of four American State Department employees, one the Ambassador to Libya, is both tragic and a proper subject for thorough, critical investigation. How did this happen? What security measures were absent? What early warning signs were overlooked or misinterpreted? How can we improve the security decision-making process and the decisions themselves?

State Department employees are not soldiers, and certainly not front-line soldiers. But they are in harm's way for the United States of America. Just from where they are posted, their jobs can be dangerous. Embassy and consular security are matters being constantly scrutinized and revaluated.

But the never-ending security scrutiny and revaluation are not conducted in a vacuum. Security resources and budgets are limited. Not every imagined or perceived threat can be addressed. If some believe that security requests for Libya were ignored, they should put this in the perspective of how frequently security issues come up for all Embassy and consular posts. The guess here is that such issues are commonplace, and that very often budget considerations override security concerns.

Barack and his Administration have indeed botched explanations for the Libya tragedy. But the botching seems due to too many authoritative-sounding explanations before all the fact were known. In a rush to provide possible explanations, the various Administrative spokespersons ignored a crucial point: certainty about what happened and why just weren't there yet.

But this failure on the part of the Administration is no excuse for the criticisms and innuendos that are being cast by Mr. Mitt and his campaign staff at Fox Noise. They are insinuating lies, fabrications, and posturing for political purposes. They are besmirching the honor of fellow citizens having responsibilities for carrying out the foreign policy of the United States in difficult, ever-changing circumstances. They are, in short, disgraceful opportunists.