Remembering the Perpetrators of That Other Terrorist Attack
This is the five-year anniversary of the conclusion of Operation Neptune Spear, the successful operation that killed Osama bin Laden. It's probably the greatest moment of the Obama presidency. There's another moment that is increasingly forgotten, despite the impassioned pledges that justice would prevail. President Obama, September 13, 2012: "Make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people [in Benghazi]." Obama, October 26, 2012: "My biggest priority now is bringing those folks to justice and I think the American people have seen that's a commitment I'll always keep." Obama, June 2014: "It's important for us to send a message to the world: that when Americans are attacked, no matter how long it takes, we will find those responsible and we will bring them to justice." That 2014 comment came after the capture of Ansar al-Sharia commander Ahmed Abu Khattala, accused of being one of the masterminds of the Benghazi attacks. Khattala is the only figure arrested or killed in response to the attacks; there were about 150 perpetrators. It's been three years and nearly eight months since the attacks. Pick Your Poll, Pick Your Winner The new NBC News poll has Trump ahead in Indiana with 49 percent, Cruz 34 percent, Kasich 13 percent. If that's the outcome tomorrow night, grab those Cruz-Fiorina signs, because they're about to become rare collector's items. For what it's worth, the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics released a poll Saturday showing Cruz at 45 percent and Trump at 29 percent. That sort of result would have a big impact, too, resetting the race, validating the Fiorina pick and really setting up these final contests as extremely consequential. Somebody's going to be far off the final results. The Persistence of Reassuring Myths It is hard to solve a problem if you don't accurately diagnose a problem. This morning a longtime reader writes in, contending the #NeverTrump position is foolish, and repeats past mistakes: Unless we want Obama 2.0, we need to vote for whomever the Republicans nominate. I get so tired of seeing Republicans say they won't vote for so and so or so and so because he's this or that or some other thing. In 2012, many conservatives stayed home and didn't vote for Romney because he was too moderate. Many Christians stayed home and didn't vote for Romney because he's Mormon. Because these conservatives and Christians stayed home and didn't vote for Romney, we got four more years of Obama. The world is a disaster -- that's Obama's fault. Obama is the fault of those who stayed home and/or didn't vote for Romney. The problem is this diagnosis of past mistakes isn't accurate; there's no evidence that "many conservatives stayed home and didn't vote for Romney because he was too moderate." According to exit polls, self-identified conservatives made up 35 percent of the 2012 turnout, and 82 percent of them voted for Mr. Romney. This translates into about 45.2 million conservatives who turned out—roughly 531,000 more than in 2008. In 2008 conservatives were 34 percent of the turnout, and 78 percent voted for John McCain. So. Romney got around 2.2 million more conservative voters than McCain -- and the conservative share of the 2012 electorate was the highest since exit polls began asking voters about their political leanings in 1976. Does this mean every conservative came out? No, and if you know your cousin Vinny stayed home because he didn't like Romney, no one's arguing your cousin Vinny didn't exist. But voters like this didn't exist in a statistically significant number; for any conservative who stayed home, Romney brought one out who stayed home in 2008. (Remember that each cycle, there's some churn in the electorate; some voters die, other voters turn 18. Some voters lose interest in voting; some voters who haven't voted in a few cycles re-engage. Voters move from state to state. Legal immigrants become U.S. citizens. Some get convicted of crimes and lose their right to vote.) The contention "Many Christians stayed home and didn't vote for Romney because he's Mormon" is similarly mythical. "Voter support for Romney among white evangelical Protestants was the same as for George W. Bush in 2004 (79 percent for both GOP candidates). And Romney won more of the white evangelical Protestant vote than John McCain did in 2008 (73 percent)." I remember Ralph Reed making this point on the 2012 National Review cruise, and a cruise-goer coming up to me afterwards, looking for Reed, insisting that he couldn't possibly be right, because he knew his neighbor hadn't voted for Romney over his Mormonism. Sure, that guy's neighbor exists, but he wasn't representative. The irony is that the GOP is on the verge of nominating Trump, a figure way more repellent to many more conservatives and Evangelicals than Romney ever was. Yes, Hillary Clinton is an arrogant, boring, cynical, dishonest, entitled, favor-trading, greedy, hypocritical, inconsistent, joyless, Leftist, Machiavellian, nasty, overbearing, power-hungry, queen-like, ruthless, shameless, tired, untrustworthy, vain, Washington-insider embodiment of the status quo who doesn't stand for anything that isn't focus-group approved or that wouldn't line her and her husband's pockets. (I went in alphabetical order for simplicity.) The problem is that an incoherent authoritarian populist demagogue, operating under the banner of the once-conservative party of smaller government is as dangerous as Hillary. 'Substituting Policy Plans and Core Ideals for the Demands of the Masses' Salena Zito writes more deftly and sympathetically about Trump's supporters than almost any other campaign correspondent out there, and today she takes a long look at what populism amounts to in America: Populism is not a Left or Right ideology. In fact, it has no ideology at all -- which is why longtime conservatives have struggled to support Trump's candidacy or wrap their minds around what exactly he stands for. As a populist, he doesn't have to stand for anything. He just has to keep the decibel turned up all the time. Modern politics -- with its insatiable appetite for sound bites, tweets and raw public exposure -- has cheerfully fed the beast that is populism and eroded principles from the equation in America's contemplation of presidential timber. In short, we have substituted concrete policy plans and core ideals -- along with the principles that conservatism has stood for since 1856 -- for the demands of the masses. Democrats have felt that pinch to a lesser degree but still face some of the issues dogging Republicans. Many of their supporters are tired of all things big: big government, big banks, big corporations, Big Brother, big deals, big wars, big money. Many voters have put their trust in the guy with the biggest megaphone to take them to a better place than the one in which they live. But how selflessly he takes that responsibility remains unclear. Does Trump -- like Jackson -- understand that the way to harness populist energy is to quell the public anger with arguments for a return to a civic future; to advocate the restoration of over-regulated freedoms; to encourage the pursuit of noble public service instead of demagoguery? Has he sought balance and moderated his populist appeal, or promised to root out intrigue and corruption? So far, not really. Based on everything we've seen in Trump's 69 years on this earth, why would we expect Trump to do this? ADDENDA: Ross Douthat, foreseeing a clean slate in the next cycle: "It feels unlikely that the 2020 Republican nomination will be won by anyone who had a clear shot at Trump and lost."  | 
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