During the last debate Obama slammed Romney of the phrase - act of terror- Problem is Obama was making a statement- that could provide cover. And it did.
Romneys error was not singling out the Benghazi attack as a terrorist attack that took the WH a number of days- 2 weeks - to define as such. -
Why Benghazi matters | Full Comment | National Post
Romney’s mistake, of course, was to assert that the president waited 14 days to use the phrase “act of terror” to describe the Sept. 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, an attack that killed four Americans including the ambassador to Libya.
You can see why Romney made his mistake, but a mistake it was. On Sept. 12, the president had said this: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. “
People familiar with the language of presidents will understand what Obama was doing here. Notice he did not say: “This act of terror.” Instead, he offered a statement of principle about acts of terror in general, avoiding mention of whether the particular incident in Benghazi happened to belong to that category.
The president’s words gave him deniability in two directions: He protected himself against Republican charges just like the charge Romney leveled at him, while simultaneously refraining from any definitive characterization of the attack as terrorism.
The language was ambiguous — and intentionally ambiguous. (A statement like this would have been reviewed by at least a dozen senior White House staff, including both political and counter-terrorism advisers, and then circulated to relevant officials at State, CIA, Defense and maybe the Department of Justice, too.
Still, Romney led with his chin, and the president walloped him. By delivering the wallop, Obama also prevented the follow-on challenge before it could even be framed, and that challenge was this: