Does the buck still stop here? It depends on the President.

He took office in the middle of an unprecedented economic crisis the likes of which had not been seen since the Great Depression. Still, he kept the same economic advisers and Fed Chairman from the previous administration in the belief the plan going forward would lead to improvement with as little pain as possible. His first term saw unemployment get out of control, and a lot of derision for his economic plan, but he stayed the course. When the numbers began to improve just before the election cycle, a 2nd term looked more likely, but the one thing he got high marks on, foreign policy, took a huge hit that put everything into question. The President was Ronald Reagan.

On September 11, 2012, a US consulate outpost in Benghazi was attacked by militants killing the first US ambassador overseas since 1979, as well as 2 former Navy SEALS and an information analyst. Four preventable deaths lost in the line of trying to secure peace in the region. It took 2 weeks for the President Obama and State Department to get on the same page.

Nearly 6 weeks went by before a preliminary timeline was released by the Pentagon and CIA.

Though 1979 was the last year that saw a US ambassador lost in the course of performing his duties, there have been many others lost in comparable moments. In the year preceding the 1984 elections, when the economy had not yet turned the corner, President Reagan endured a round of challenges much more severe the events leading to the death of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.

☛ Car bomb at the US embassy annex in Beirut killed 22 people on September 20, 1984. Not only is this a similar date in proximity to the election, but involves over 5 times as many deaths. No retaliation or arrests.

☛ Lebanon CIA station Chief Buckley’s kidnapping in February, ’84 dying in captivity the next year. No retaliation or arrests.

☛ A-6 pilot shot down and captured by Hezbollah in December of ’83. Jesse Jackson to acted as intermediary to secure his release from Syria a month later.

☛ Bombing of our Kuwaiti embassy also in December of ’83 that killed 6 because it failed to explode properly & ignite a petro-chemical plant. Kuwait handled the response much as Libya is doing now.

☛ USMC Beirut barracks in October of ’83 killed 327, including 241 US servicemen. Four months after vowing to never give into terror and stay in Beirut, Reagan pulled the troops out. The US never retaliated or captured those responsible.

☛ Our Beirut embassy in April 1983 killing 63. We responded by giving more aid to Lebanon, and moving the embassy to a “more secure” location. The new location is the one attacked on September 20, 1984.

6 weeks later, Ronald Reagan won an historic 49-state victory over Walter Mondale for a 2nd term in the White House.