The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House

by Ben Rhodes

As the debate got under way, Obama was clearly stronger. About halfway through, the Benghazi question came, and Obama launched into a version of the answer he’d practiced. Romney pounced: “I think it’s interesting the president just said something which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.” “That’s what I said,” Obama responded. Romney looked surprised, even shocked, at his good fortune. “You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror? It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying?” Obama was now the one who looked pleased. “Please proceed, Governor,” Obama said. “I want to make sure we get that for the record,” Romney said, “because it took the president fourteen days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.” “Get the transcript,” Obama said. “What an idiot,” Favreau said, as we watched this unfold on a television backstage. Candy Crowley, the moderator, confirmed that Obama was right. Romney looked indignant, then deflated—he just knew that Obama had not called it an act of terror. Sitting there, half-drunk and delighted, it nonetheless unsettled me a bit that Romney—an intelligent man—really did seem to believe something that wasn’t true. You could almost see how his debate prep had gone, a group of aides who’d been feeding on a steady diet of Fox News preparing him to pounce on Obama for refusing to call it terrorism, for inventing a...