Mitt Romney’s October Surprise?

Credit goes to Craig Unger at Salon who posted a column yesterday that disclosed plans by Mitt Romney’s campaign to ambush President Obama with a late-breaking attack commonly known as an “October Surprise.” Unger cited a Republican source with firsthand knowledge who said that…

“[T]op Republican operatives are primed to unleash a new two-pronged offensive that will attack Obama as weak on national security. […] they planned to release what they hoped would be “a bombshell” that would make Libya and Obama’s foreign policy a major issue in the campaign.”

So the next day that “bombshell” went off on the Fox News community web site, Fox Nation:

Fox Nation October Surprise

Unger called that one with pinpoint accuracy, right down to the language used by the campaign. And it was nice of Fox to cooperate with the Romney campaign’s strategists in getting their propaganda out. The article on Fox News reported this highly speculative story by saying that…

“U.S. diplomats in Libya repeatedly asked the Obama administration for more security in Benghazi in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate but were “denied these resources,” two congressional lawmakers said.”

Fox apparently made no effort to confirm the allegations made by hyper-partisan GOP congressmen Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz. There is no presentation of evidence that any diplomats ever asked for, or were denied, additional security. The diplomats in question were not identified, nor were the sources who alleged that any security requests were made.

This story couldn’t be any thinner if it were run over by a steamroller. However, its purpose, to steamroll the Obama campaign, is pretty obvious. And the conspiracy between Romney operatives, congressional representatives, and Fox News to launch this surprise attack reveals just how deeply the political/media machine is integrated into the right’s political infrastructure.

Expect this issue to show up in tomorrow’s debate. It is not a coincidence that the bombshell was let loose just prior to that event. And the right has been attempting to manufacture a story around this that they think is on a par with Watergate. They could not be more mistaken. This is just another wild swing and a miss that demonstrates how out-of-touch the GOP is with what is on the minds of the electorate.