The Obama administration doesn’t seem to know what to say, from one day to the next, about why mobs killed an ambassador and three other men in Libya. For five days they blamed an amateurish “trailer” for an over-the-top movie. Then they had to admit that terrorists attacked the US consulate in Benghazi, and no unruly mob took part. Today a new rumor emerged: Barack Obama set up the kidnap of Ambassador Chris Stevens, to stage an October Surprise. But the plan went horribly wrong. The tragic results embarrassed Barack Obama and did him no favors.

October Surprise history

The phrase October Surprise dates back to the Nixon administration. Then-National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, in late October of 1972, told the press that America was close to a cease-fire in Vietnam. Nixon was winning anyway. Polls showed him winning 60 percent of the vote. But after that press conference, Nixon would come close to a unanimous sweep of the Electoral College. Had he made it, he would have been the first President to do that since George Washington.

In October of 1980, the campaigns of President Jimmy Carter and Governor Ronald Reagan each accused the other of an “October Surprise.” Did Carter plan again to send special forces to get hostages out of Iran by force? Did Reagan send someone to wreck the talks with Iran’s revolutionary government so that the hostages would stay in hostile hands through the election? No one may ever know.

Likewise, did Lawrence Walsh indict one of Bush Senior’s officials days before the election? We know that media people sympathetic to John F. Kerry did suggest that Bush Junior failed to report for Texas Air National Guard duty at a critical time. The “Killian Memoranda” would turn out to be forgeries. An icon of the liberal media, Dan Rather, would lose his job over that disgraceful episode.

Thus October Surprises became semi-routine staples of Presidential election campaigns since 1972.

October Surprise 2012

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Photo: US Department of State.

One week ago, WND suggested that Obama might have an October Surprise about the Iran nuclear crisis. Specifically, an anonymous source suggested that the Iranians would stop enriching uranium well short of the 90 percent they would need to build a warhead that any missile could ever lift off the ground. If anyone made any such deal, it probably fell through. The Jerusalem Post reported last week that Obama imposed more sanctions against Iran. Iranian leaders grew more defiant than ever. Reports on the ground in Iran and Israel say that people in both countries know that war is coming, and are getting ready for it.

But today, C. O. Jones at the Western Journalism Center reported another October Surprise that Obama may—may—have planned:

I received a phone call from an old friend that has been in Washington D.C. for years and is fairly well-connected politically. What she told me was ugly and sinister, yet very compelling. She said she had received information from someone high up in White House circles, and wanted my thoughts….According to her, Barack Obama, wanting an “October Surprise,” had secretly arranged with the Muslim Brotherhood for a kidnapping of our ambassador.

This would have been the greatest false-flag job. Arab terrorists kidnap Ambassador Stevens on the eleventh anniversary of September 11. Then in October (hence October Surprise), a special-ops team lays on a daring rescue, something right out of any of several movies (Navy S.E.A.L.S., The Delta Force, etc.) Hooray for Obama! And why would the Muslim Brotherhood cooperate with such a scheme? Because they would want Obama re-elected even worse than Obama wants another term.

Only, according to the source, everyone slipped up. The Muslim Brotherhood, according to this narrative, gave the job to Al Qaeda in Libya. And those guys didn’t want to hold the Ambassador for any ransom. They wanted him dead. They wanted revenge for Osama bin Laden. And they got it.

Panic in the White House. Quick, find something to blame it on! Hence the video story, and UN Ambassador Susan Rice lying through her pearly white teeth all over the talk-show circuit five days later. And maybe Vice-President Biden’s incredible answer in the Vice-Presidential debate was part of it.

Evidence Needing Explaining

Western Journalism’s Jones admits he has “no leaked e-mail, no concrete proof.” Actor Brooks West in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) might say this article is

incompetent, hearsay, irrelevant, immaterial, inconclusive…

In short, by itself it proves nothing. But: it would explain many things that the White House has not explained and maybe cannot explain.

Did Ambassador Stevens have homosexual tendencies, or even a homosexual history? If so, what possessed the State Department to send such a man as ambassador to a Muslim country?

Did Ambassador Stevens, furthermore, have contract guards, all of whom had same-sex roommates sharing bed, to guard him? And in a Muslim country? CNAV‘s friend “The Eagle” told CNAV that he had this report from well-placed military sources. According to them, those guards were utterly useless when the attack came. The two Navy SEALs who died disarmed the guards and used their weapons to try to resist the attack.

Why did the consulate not have Marine guards? That was unheard-of, especially in a “hot zone.” Which Libya was and is.

Why did Vice-President Biden tell the mod at the debate that neither he nor his boss knew that the Libyan consulate asked for more security and didn’t get it? Did he even listen to the sworn testimony of the witnesses before the House Oversight Committee the day before? Of all the lame excuses Biden could have offered, that was the worst. After all, it was their job to know that the United States ran the risk of having another dead ambassador!

The CIA knows exactly who killed Ambassador Stevens. WND got a 270-page report, in Arabic, and had their own expert translate it. That document names names. It also makes clear that Al Qaeda wanted revenge for Osama bin Laden. WND went to the CIA, who told them, “Yes, we know.”And they didn’t tell the President or Vice-President? Or, for that matter, the American people?

This afternoon, after the WND report was out for several hours, came this report from Newsmax. Obama has moved special-ops forces and drones to key places in northern Africa. He’s preparing retaliation for the death of the ambassador.

And today, Rush Limbaugh looked hard at the conflicting messages from the Obama administration and campaign. He sees a tired campaign, out of ideas, and recycling old memes that excite no one.

I think the Obama campaign is done. I think they’ve [performed a faintly obscene sexual function]. I don’t think they’ve got an October surprise.

Or maybe Mitt Romney has his October surprise in September, after events handed it to him on a silver platter. John Fund at National Review quotes several intelligence sources. They all say that Obama can’t get his story straight about this affair. He says flatly that this election now has its October Surprise: the Benghazi Attack.

If Obama thought he’d have a different and more flattering story to tell, that might explain why he has nothing today. Nothing but somehow forcing his Secretary of State to fall on her sword, as she has now done.

A plausible theory

In science, and in law, a theory is a way to explain known and suspected facts and events. This theory explains everything we know, and everything anyone has heard: Barack Obama had a secret meeting with Muslim Brotherhood members in Libya. They agreed to have someone kidnap Ambassador Stevens. American special forces would then “rescue” the ambassador later—this month, for an October Surprise. To make it easy, the left the embassy and consulate with no security to speak of. The ambassador hired his own security, and of the worst kind for working in that country.

But the Brotherhood slipped up. They gave the job to Al Qaeda in Libya. They in turn preferred to kill the ambassador, not to kidnap him (and likely take an ignominious fall in the “rescue”). Furthermore, two Navy SEALs took matters into their own hands when the attack came. Result: the Al Qaeda men met more resistance than their bosses told them to expect. They met that resistance head-on. Result: “Maximum damage.” Or to use another common “spook” phrase, “Termination with extreme prejudice.”

That wasn’t in the script. And the Obama administration have rewritten that script many times ever since. Now Secretary of State Clinton has taken the fall. And the Clintons aren’t happy about that.